Blessed are the merciful :: Matthew 5:7

The Apologetic Dog

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Good morning, everyone. It is so wonderful to see all your beautiful faces And if you would please turn in your

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Bibles to Matthew chapter 5 I see some guests this morning.

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We are actually right in the middle of a new sermon series that we've called upside down We're examining the very beginning of Jesus's sermon on the mount and we're looking at his eight

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Beatitudes and what we're learning about these eight beatitudes. These are eight declarations

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That express true blessedness what it means to be to have true happiness in a restored relationship

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With the Creator and as it turns out as we have true happiness and blessedness with God It is totally upside down and counter to how the world thinks and how the world pursues happiness

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So I love each and every one of these beatitudes I think the best way to approach these eight beatitudes is by looking at them

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Holistically and then perhaps going back and analyzing each one at a time So let's begin and look at Matthew chapter 5 verses 3 through 12

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Where our Lord Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

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Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied

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Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see

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God Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

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Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account

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Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who are before you

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Let's pray this morning. Holy Father We praise you for all of who you are and your grace and your mercy that you pour out on us each and every day

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God your mercies are new every morning God. There may be pain at night.

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There may be pains in this life But God we can always Rejoice in who you are and what you have done what

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I pray this morning I pray that I would decrease in Christ that you would be Magnified and God that we would hear your your word a heralded and God We pray that your spirit would give us ears to hear and hearts ready to receive your truth

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We pray these things in your name Jesus. Amen So if you would look back with me at verse 7, this is the fifth of the eight beatitudes

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And this also marks a transition from the first half the first four beatitudes to the second half and this is a really interesting

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Transition because the first half of the beatitudes primarily deal with the inner person it deals primarily with the mind and the heart of an

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Individual and we see all the beatitudes building on one another like an unbreakable chain

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The first beatitude is being poor in spirit true blessedness flows from a person who is poor in spirit

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Someone who is aware of the facts of their sinfulness before God and that awareness of yourself and your sinfulness

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Penetrates the heart it results in mourning over that sin and only then can a person possess true meekness a

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Biblical meekness an inward desire to control your conduct in such a way that glorifies

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God That desire will also result in hungering and thirsting to always grow in a deeper relationship with our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ And so those are the first beatitudes the first half they are primarily aimed at inward

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Desires now these inward desires then manifest themselves outwardly in our life

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That's what the second half of the beatitudes look like One scholar has referred to the first four beatitudes as vertical

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Beatitudes how believers are it is our posture before God the second half we could call the horizontal beatitudes because they deal with how as Christians continue to live and interact with one another and the rest of the world

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So we are transitioning from the vertical to the horizontal From God to man and so we're at this fifth beatitude and in my study

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I noticed many commentators says this is the most controversial beatitude of all and So in my study of this

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I wanted to kind of give you a brief outline three major points in the direction that we're going this morning

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Number one, I want to properly define what mercy is and I want us to see how it applies in our life

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And so my second major point I want to begin to tear down arguments and barriers that have been falsely taught by pharisaical

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Jews in the Roman Catholic Church and So the third major point I want us to see

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Jesus's true intention Here in the Sermon on the Mount with this beatitude in particular.

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So that's the direction that we're heading this morning So if you want to look back at our our major Text this morning

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Matthew 5 7 we read blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy

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So I really want to focus on these two words that are very similar merciful and mercy They share the same

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Greek root word here. And really this idea is having compassion upon another

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Mercy is meeting people's needs. It's not just a feeling but it's actually showing compassion

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Not just sympathizing but giving a helping hand Mercy is giving food to the hungry

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Comfort to the bereaved love to the rejected forgiveness to the offender compassion to the lonely and companionship

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And there is one of the loveliest of all virtues mercy I love how one

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Christian scholar has put that this is the noblest and loveliest of all virtues And so when we understand what mercy is in the

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New Testament We also see that it's rooted in the Old Testament as well in fact There's a

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Hebrew word called has said and this is very important because this is anchored in the very character of God And this

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Hebrew word has said is actually translated throughout the Old Testament as mercy Love loving kindness or steadfast love.

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It's really all these together And like I said It reflects God's character and its basic meaning is to help the afflicted and to rescue the helpless

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And so I'd like for you to make a note of this at least in your mind. Mercy is compassion in action and That mercy can be from God to man or man to man

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And so at this point, I want to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 10

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Our Lord gives the parable of the Good Samaritan here and as we work through this passage

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I want us to see how mercy love and compassion all work together and I want us to see how these

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Attributes ought to be manifested in our lives. So once again, that is Luke chapter 10 beginning in verse 25

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Where we read and a lawyer and behold a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test saying teacher

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What shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him what is written in the law.

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How do you read it? And he answered you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul with all your strength

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And with all of your mind and your neighbor as yourself And he said to him you have answered correctly do this and you will live

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So I just want to note a few things here before we continue reading on the rest of the passage We see that Jesus is talking to a lawyer now this lawyer no doubtedly would have been a scribe

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Right, and we've we've learned a lot about scribes Just kind of studying through the Sermon on the Mount a little bit and scribes often worked alongside

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Pharisees and so last week brother Keith He mentioned Matthew 5 verse 20 that says

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Jesus says I tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven

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And so the reason I want to note this is because lawyers these scribes were supposed to be masters of the law of Moses that's why

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Jesus asked him what the law says and what ultimately what does it mean and So this lawyer asked a very important question.

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He said teacher. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now before I cast the lawyer in a really positive light here

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I think that is an important question. But what was the lawyers motive of asking this question?

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Well, the text tells us it was to put Jesus to the test For one that's a foolish task, but ultimately what that means is he's not asking from a sincere heart

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He's trying to trip up Jesus. He wants to discredit him publicly where people won't follow him anymore

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He wants to see Jesus fail And I almost take a step back and think you're gonna try to ask a question to the

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Son of God Who knows all things and I start thinking back in my own life? I have tons of questions when

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I approach the scriptures or I talk with pastor Nathan. The difference is what is the heart motive?

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I want to learn truth from God and change my life in light of that That is not what the lawyer is doing

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What he is doing is engaging in sin because he thinks he knows more than God Jesus Christ So I also want to make a quick note about how he framed the question

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He said what shall I do to inherit eternal life and what he's getting at is

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He's saying what works from the law must I perform rightly in order to gain everlasting life

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Now you may say Jeremiah, how do you know that that's really what he means? Well for one he's a scribe and so he works alongside the

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Pharisees He has this distorted view of what the law of God actually teaches and so he would have been familiar with passages like Deuteronomy 30 that talk about blessing and Cursing when you're being obedient to God But he transitions that over to eternity

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He is saying I understand how temporal blessings were given to Israel when they were obedient But now he's asking what works of the law will be granted to enter into eternity

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And so Jesus in effect here is saying you're an expert of the law of Moses What does it say and you've got to love how

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Jesus answers a question with a question here He's really wanting the lawyer to quote scripture with his own mouth

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And so the lawyer rightly quotes the first and the greatest of all the commandments He quotes the

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Shema of Deuteronomy 6 and then he quotes Leviticus 19 18 He says you shall love the

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Lord your God with all of your heart with all of your soul with all of your strength And with all of your mind and your neighbor as yourself

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The lawyer is not going to trip up the Son of God Jesus wanted him to give this answer quoting

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God's Word and So he wanted the lawyer to start understanding that everything of the law of God boils down to this one thing and it is love

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Love for God and love for neighbor Now this is a wonderful concept

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This is almost intuitive to us that we are to be loving towards everybody else but this is a

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Commandment of God and the commandment is to love God love neighbor with all of your heart all of your mind with your entire

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Being Jesus is getting at that. This is a perfect love you start to see the problem.

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That's arising Nobody can love perfectly only God We are mankind.

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We are in a fallen state and we are unable to love perfectly because of our desire for sin

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So Jesus is saying yes, you must love with a perfect love towards man

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Neighbor and God and then you shall live and so what Jesus is doing

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He's exposing the lawyers mindset of his self -righteousness showing that no one is able to keep the two greatest commandments a commandment of perfect love and So I believe the lawyer understands exactly what

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Jesus is getting at the lawyer starting to see his inability to do this so rather Than recognizing that and casting your your hands and feet at the mercy of God.

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He begins to justify himself Right. Look what he does next in verse 29

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But he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus and who is my neighbor?

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I think that is Really important to note. He ought to have responded with. Yes. I can't do this

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I can't fulfill the law of God, but he doesn't he actually tries to say, okay

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We had this perfect standard of holiness perfect love But let's see if we can redefine terminology and see where this conversation goes

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And I think it's interesting also that he brings up a hotly debated topic of his day of saying who is my neighbor

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How are we going to define this? The Jewish teaching of that day was that their neighbors were their fellow

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Jews people that could love them in return People that looked like them and they said, you know what?

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We're gonna love our neighbor We're gonna love those that look well like us, but we are going to hate Gentiles we're going to consider them enemies of God love neighbor hate your enemy

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That was their understanding of the Old Testament commands And so this Jewish interpretation was so limited that their view of neighbor would have excluded all

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Gentiles like Samaritans Romans and foreigners that would travel through their land

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And so with the rest of this parable Jesus is going to tear down and instruct his

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Misunderstanding of what the law actually requires. Jesus is going to show him truly who your neighbor is and Your duty to your neighbors.

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So let's continue in verse 30 Jesus replied a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among the robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed leaving him half -dead

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Now by chance a priest was going down that road and when he saw him he passed by on the other side

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So likewise a Levite when he came to that place and saw him passed on the other side as well

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But a Samaritan as he journeyed came to where he was and when he saw him he had

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Compassion he went to him and bound up his wombs pouring on oil and wine Then he said on him his own animal and brought him to an inn to take care of him

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And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper saying take care of him

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And whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back So here

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Jesus says which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?

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Now for all of us listening this it is very obvious that it was the Samaritan Who is the only person to help a person in need someone that was beaten?

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Someone that really needed someone to come alongside of his affliction But I think what

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Jesus is getting at naturally we would think we would expect these Religious elite like this

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Levite and priest to be the ones to intervene and help But what do these two individuals represent?

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They demonstrate a cold false religion. That is works based Devoid of love for God and love for our fellow man

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And so remember the lawyer asked the question who is my neighbor? But Jesus reverses the question he reverses it and he it's to tear down The misassumption that the lawyer had the lawyer assumed it was up to other people to prove themselves to be a neighbor

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Jesus the way that he asked the question makes it clear that everyone has a responsibility to be a neighbor

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Especially those to who are in need. So who is our neighbor? What is Jesus ultimately getting it?

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Well, it's any human being within the proximity of whom we can show the love of God with we are called to love everyone

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Doesn't matter your skin color doesn't matter your background or your ethnicity and it's because all of mankind are made in God's image and so Jesus asked the question which one of these three do you think proved to be a good neighbor and The lawyers response he said the one who showed mercy

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Notice, he couldn't even get the word Samaritan to come out of his mouth I think that expresses his deep hatred for Samaritans He tried to answer the question in the most generic way possible by saying the one who showed mercy

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But he is right. The Samaritan did show mercy. He showed compassion in action

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He helped the afflicted those who were in need So that's very important note here because this relates back to our beatitude.

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What is mercy? It is love It is action helping other people. It is compassion in action

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And so the last point here in this parable look with me at verse 37 Jesus said to him you go and do likewise now.

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This is the point where everybody says Yes, just go out and be a good Samaritan In fact, that is how the world they even have adopted this slogan.

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Just go out be a good person be a good Samaritan And let me just tell you a general rule if the world has a definition understanding of something in Scripture It's probably wrong right their understanding of good

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Samaritans go out and be a good person Right Jesus even said go and do likewise But that's not the point that Jesus is getting it

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Jesus is telling the lawyer to go live out the law in its entirety displaying a perfect selfless love to your neighbor

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This is an impossible task for mankind. We need a Savior We need

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God himself to fulfill this on our behalf There is no way that we can fulfill these two greatest commandments perfectly to love

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God to love neighbor with that untainted Sinful desire to do those things so we have to have a

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Biblical understanding of who man is an anthropology and understanding that we are not good people

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But we study the beginning of our Bible in Genesis God did make everything good

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But then that whole fall thing happened in Genesis 3 right now that has permeated our entire lives we died in Adam and So we are not good people we in fact sin we break

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God's law We desire those things and that is a pretty gloomy message when we come to grips with that reality

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But what does the scripture say? but God Being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us

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Even when we were dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace

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Are you saved? That is amazing because when we read that we are dead and our sins and our trespasses

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This is pointing out the fact that we do not seek after God. We are actually rebels running the opposite direction and that is why we are unable to meet the laws demands because we have no desire within us and Someone's testimony that we find in scripture that I love reading such a great model for Christians is the

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Apostle Paul He gives us an incredible testimony in 1st Timothy, he says though formerly

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I was a blasphemer persecutor an insolent opponent But I received mercy because I acted ignorantly and unbelief and the grace of our

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Lord Overflowed for me in the faith and love for Jesus Christ Paul's testimony is incredible because if we have in mind the whole story of him going on the road of Damascus He wasn't seeking after God.

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In fact, he was going to persecute and kill Christians Even though he wasn't seeking

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God God was seeking after him and that's how it works. We are not God seekers

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We are unable to fulfill the law of God's holiness Paul understood that he was a chosen vessel by God He understood the profound truth of God's amazing

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Sovereignty and in God's Word we read God says I will have mercy on whom

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I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion This is very important because mercy cannot be demanded

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Mercy is something especially in the context of God. He freely gives it according to whomever he will

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God is free to demonstrate Mercy however, he pleases he is not limited by anything or anyone

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His mercy is solely determined by his own divine choice And it is the

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Lord's favor that cannot be earned by status social class or works of righteousness

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Otherwise this would no longer be mercy and I think the beautiful takeaway to God's Sovereignty and how he delights and saves sinners is that he gets 100 % of the glory

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That is very important in our understanding of mercy this morning It is demonstrating acts of kindness and love to people, right?

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But we have to understand in terms of our salvation It is God freely working to just display this wonderful love to a people that is hostile and rebellious towards him

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So at that mind, please turn with me back to Matthew chapter 5 or 7 our main text this morning so Once again,

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Jesus says blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy So the definition that we're rolling with this morning is compassion or love in action

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But I want to make a quick note about the word thee now in English We understand the importance of context everything here but the

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Greek this is called the definite article and so it's referring to a very particular people a

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People that possess a merciful nature and I just want to kind of illustrate for a moment the importance of the definite article remember when

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Jesus said I'm the way the truth and the life and no one comes the father except through me when he says he is the way he

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Is saying he is the one and only way So when we read about the merciful we're talking about a very specific group of people them and them alone and they possess a type of Merciful nature and these obviously are the children of God they desire to actively show

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Loving kindness towards others because of the great love that we have first received from our

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Lord So here's a key principle I want you to make note of the children of God are merciful because they have already

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Received the mercy of God poured out in their lives Their desire to be merciful is a result of their salvation

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Now Jeremiah, why are you telling us this basic concept because so many false religions and cult will abuse this

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They will go to Matthew 5 7 to try to prove that in fact you got to do works of righteousness in order to be right with God They will say you must be merciful in order to obtain

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God's mercy of salvation and friend That is the exact opposite message of the gospel itself

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And so this moves into my second major point this morning Where I want to address the false teaching of the pharisaical

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Jews and the Roman Catholic Church So number one the pharisaical

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Jews Why do why do we say it like that if you've been with us very long you've maybe heard pastor

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Nathan and myself make a distinction between True Judaism of the

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Hebrew Scriptures that believed in God's promises of sending a Messiah by faith and upon that basis

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They were saved but over time you had Judaism transfer into pharisaical

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Jews the Pharisees They twisted the Old Testament scriptures into this system of legalism and a works righteousness

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Schema, they taught that acts of mercy can actually save a person and So this is the rabbinic

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Jews those of the Pharisees. They said acts of mercy like giving to the poor Actually contribute to forgiving our sins and that is absolutely absurd if we read the entirety of God's Word now their traditions started to become manifest in these

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Apocryphal books and that word just means that they started writing down things that they believed were not scripture

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But it did represent their types of tradition I'm gonna quote from two of their books and there's a reason that I'm doing that from a book called

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Tobit the book of Tobit This was a Jewish and extreme Jewish understanding It is better to give charity than to lay up gold for charity will save a man from death and it will expiate or forgive any

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Sin now that's pretty radical right and this comes out and their tradition

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That was put together and compiled and called the book of Tobit So there's another book called the wisdom of Sirach Which reads as water will quench the flaming fire so charity will atone for sin

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Okay. Now they did not believe that these books were scripture, but this did represent their tradition and So it actually it comes about that these pharisaical

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Jews they thought that salvation was easier for a rich person because they could ultimately buy their way to heaven by giving alms or Charity to the poor and needy now, we've been talking in the

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Beatitudes But we've also been expanding to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus It's like it was a fire lit under him in chapter 6 because he rebukes the mindset of the

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Pharisees If you would turn with me one page in your Bible to Matthew chapter 6. We'll look at verse 1 through 4 here for just a minute because They believe that their good works could forgive sin and what happens when you have this type of legalistic mindset

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You start doing works not to please God but to please yourself So I just want to look at this real quick Jesus says beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them

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For then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven Thus when you give to the needy or give alms

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Sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others

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Truly I say to you they have received their reward But when you give to the needy do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may

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Be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly So I want us to have this understanding that the the pharisaical

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Jews had it wrong They took the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures and twisted it now

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I alluded to the book of Tobit and the wisdom of Sirach They did not count that as scripture, but guess who does the

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Roman Catholic Church over the time of church history? They have ultimately said oh We'll include that in the canon and the problem with that is the

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New Testament the Apostle Paul tells us that the oracles of God the Hebrew scriptures belong to the

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Jews and They denied those books as actually being authoritative. They were simply tradition and So the

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Roman Catholic Church has adopted this ungodly teaching of works righteousness in order to be saved

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So the Roman Catholic Church, like I said, they've embraced this distorted view because when you add to scripture

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It's going to distort how you interpret everything this came out in church history with Pope Leo the

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Great He said for by prayer we seek to appease God by fasting We extinguish the lust of the flesh and by alms we redeem our sins

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Awful, that is not what the gospel of grace teaches. We cannot do anything to atone for our own sins

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That's the whole problem, right? God is a just God. He will give us our just desserts on the day of judgment

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He will say look at all the times that you've broken the law It doesn't matter how many good things that you do over here.

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You still have Unforgiven sin that has to be accounted for that's all we need a perfect Savior to cover our account fully

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And so this just bothers me and as I was looking more into how Roman Catholic teachers teach on this

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I found One Roman Catholic apologist saying this about this fifth beatitude.

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He says we need forgiveness for our sins I'm 63 now when

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I think about all the times that I've messed up how I've harmed people I cry out to God for mercy.

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It's good. But then he says but in order to get it I must be merciful to others in quote

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That is fundamentally wrong. We cannot earn salvation by being merciful This is a false works -based system

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And I do I really do think all false religions will say this in some way or another just try your best to be a good person and God will understand that it will allow you to get in the heaven and I think the entire scripture is replete from Genesis to Revelation showing us that we need the mercy of God We need a

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Savior and I think one of the most clearest places in the Bible that destroys Legalism comes out of Romans chapter 4 the

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Apostle Paul says now to the one who works His wages are not counted as a gift

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But as his do think about that if you are doing merciful acts of kindness if you're doing works

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Then it's not by God's grace anymore or his mercy You're actually earning something at that point

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If it's if you're looking to yourself to gain favor with God can't be of grace can't be of mercy

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You're saying no, I actually earned that Paul says to the one who works his wages are not counted as a gift

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But as his do and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly

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His faith his faith is counted as righteousness I don't think anything else in the scripture can be more clear than that all works important Absolutely after we've been made right with God and justified in this site.

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We do works Acts of mercy loving on other people helping them out to glorify

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God But we rest and trust in the finished work of Christ for our salvation

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Jesus said blessed are the merciful He is referring to those of us who have been redeemed by God and have a new nature that manifests the fruit of mercy and kindness to others

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You may say Jeremiah as I look back at my life. I don't see any fruit of mercy

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I don't even have that kind of desire Well, that's very intuitive of you if you're able to analyze your life like that But that may be evidence that there is no heart change that you have not been transformed by the gospel message itself

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It's important for us to examine our own heart. Do you desire the things of God?

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Oh, absolutely I desire to be kind to people to love on others to help them out. I do it all the time

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But what's the heart motive is it to glorify God or to glorify self? And let me just say we're gonna fall short even as Christians We are going to do some things trying to get that praise

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But you know what we possess the Holy Spirit living with within us. He will convict us of that sin

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That's when you have brothers and sisters in the church to help Call this out to rebuke us when we do step into sin because our ultimate desire is to follow

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God So far we have covered two major points

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We have defined what mercy looks like which is compassion in action And we have seen that God pours out his mercy on his own

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And then my second big point was Correcting the false teaching that has come out of pharisaical

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Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church So my third and final major point this morning

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I want you to see Jesus's true intention here in this beatitude And I want us to see how it harmonizes with the rest of the beatitudes and the rest of the

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Sermon on the Mount So if you would look at Matthew 5 7 and I want us to focus on the second half of this first Jesus says blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy

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We've just spent some time talking about the merciful Since the merciful have already received salvation.

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What kind of mercy are they receiving here? I've thought about this in multiple different ways, and I really tried to help you all boil it down to this

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I think the best way to understand this is the blessings that come from the merciful hand of God in our lives

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And I believe this mercy is twofold I think it is presently here and now on this earth, and I also think it is one day yet in the future

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When we understand the merciful shall receive mercy present presently. This is the principle

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Please write this down of sowing and reaping Few different times in the

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New Testament the Apostle Paul teaches us for whatever a person sows that he will also reap

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So let's let's think about this as children of God We have an inward desire to love others and to show them acts of mercy and guess what happens as a result of that God will bless our lives

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Earlier we referenced Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you

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I Think here this this reward includes temporal blessings here and now

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So does this mean that whenever you help somebody in need that God is going to give you the blessing that you want

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Maybe I have no idea. God is sovereign and he will bless you how he sees fit

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You may say well, I really am hurting financially. Is he going to bless me in that way?

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Maybe but rest in the promises of God that he will take care of his children

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Maybe the reward is having a better understanding of when our Lord said it is more blessed to give than receive

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It is a blessing in of itself to show somebody the love of Christ If you're someone that says well, it feels kind of empty

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Well, you don't understand the mercy that Christ has done when we were dead in our sins and trespasses

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And he brought us to new life That was by the mercy the act of mercy of God in our lives

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And so when we can show someone else who doesn't deserve kindness, we are emulating Christ and that blesses our heart

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You may say Jeremiah, but I really need I really desire to marry someone to have kids

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And I really want a better job is God going to bless me in those ways. I Have no idea.

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I want us to understand that we cannot demand certain blessings from God Let God be God and he will bless you how he sees fit

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But I do want to remind us we have been guaranteed promises, but he's gonna take care of the rest

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Let's say you are someone that desires to be married You know what Christ says he's married to his church and he will never leave or forsake his bride

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Rest in the fact that Jesus is always with you even to the end of the age May want children what a godly desire to have but you know what

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Jesus has promised us a spiritual family Other men and women and families that you can love on and pour your your life into Rest in that for the time being and maybe one day in God's timing

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He will continue to bless you because I know that he will bless you, but we don't know what those look like So we must go to the promises of God.

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So as I close here I want to talk about just briefly the future reality of God's mercy and it is the blessing of eternal life

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I think in the book of Jude Jude said it really well he calls believers to persevere in the faith saying

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Waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life

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Yes, believers will receive God's mercy here and now through his blessings, but we also wait with eager

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Anticipation for Christ's second coming and I believe this is the most supreme expression of God's mercy towards his children