July 17, 2016 Afternoon Service Beatitudes Part 2 by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Going through the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with the Beatitudes, I made a point that the

Beatitudes are not so much something for us to work for as they are, as John MacArthur puts so well, royal proclamations.

God has decreed this to be the nature, the character of the kingdom, the citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

And so Jesus, when he said, blessed are, he's making a statement of fact. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

These are royal proclamations, statements of fact from God himself through his

Son. And what he's saying, of course, is God's approval is on those whose character is described here, whose character is poor in spirit.

They're able to see their abject need for God. As the hymn says, nothing in my hand

I bring, only to thy cross I cling. Only to you, God, do

I rely. Only upon you. And seeing that chasm between themselves and God, these are people who mourn over that difference in a word.

They are repentant people, driven to the cross every time that difference between them and God is exposed.

That's cause for repentance. That's cause for mourning. That's cause to return to the cross of Jesus Christ and there seek forgiveness.

That's those who are poor in spirit. All this must make that people meek.

Must make them a meek people, mild -mannered, as God was with them, patient.

And how are they to be patient? Meek, if you will, as God was with them. It's God as the standard.

They are people, described here, these are the people who hunger and thirst for God's righteousness more than for life itself.

For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And every word proceeding from the mouth of God is more important than all else.

Because in there is life. These first four Beatitudes, which we covered a week ago, these describe the inner working of God in the individual.

They are what we must, note the word, must. These are what we must be before we seek to do.

We must be this before we seek to accomplish anything. Absent these characteristics, absent being this citizen described as in the kingdom of heaven, absent this, your works are just filthy rags before God.

Without this, it's as if we're saying, by myself and my works have

I been saved. And grace is an addendum to it, which is quite the opposite. These four

Beatitudes, these give us our character, these are the ones who can work for the kingdom of God. And without this, must not, because those who without it will hear those dread words that we will come to in the coming weeks, towards the end of this

Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus hears people saying, did I not do, and fill in the blanks. All these things for you,

Lord. And what does Jesus say? There's another royal proclamation, is there not?

Another divine word from the Son, where he says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

So these are important. These are crucial. Eternal matters hang on the

Sermon on the Mount. And the Sermon on the Mount begins here, with these Beatitudes, with these descriptions of who

God makes us, what we must exhibit. The next few

Beatitudes have to do with what this inner working of God within us looks like. They're not so much what we actually do, which we'll come to later, they're more how we think before we do, the character that we have that leads to the doing.

You are this way. It's what the person doing the deeds of God actually is.

And we want to jump right into this. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Some translators have it, blessed are those who show mercy. And what they're indicating here is there's a transition in these

Beatitudes, this introduction to the whole Sermon on the Mount. There's a transition from these absolute declarations of God, these conditions that must exist, to a working out, to the outer transformation, to the ethical behavior of those who are there described in the first four.

So blessed are those who show mercy is a good translation of it. Now what's the source of the mercy?

The source of the mercy, of course, is God. And so this idea of they shall receive mercy, the mercy is a prize to be sought after, is something to be desired because it comes from God who is pure and just and holy in all his ways.

It's of more value than anything we can imagine. The pearl the man hid was not more valuable than this mercy to be received from God.

In fact, as that pearl was likened by our Lord to the kingdom of heaven, so mercy, describing those who will have that kingdom, is an inestimable quality that must be found in these citizens, in you, if you claim

Jesus Christ. The standard of that mercy is no less than God's mercy to sinners.

God's mercy to you is the mercy that's being spoken of here. And that's consistent, is it not?

Did not Jesus say in John 15, 12, this is my commandment that you love one another? And then he says, how are we to love?

As I have loved you, so you love one another. Unequality there.

As Jesus Christ, think of the cross, think of the suffering on our behalf.

Think of the love that put the Savior on the cross. And then think when he says in John 15, 12, as I have loved you, so you are to love one another.

That's a high standard indeed. But God is not through with us because this mercy, this mercy in this beatitude, this fifth of the beatitudes is the same standard.

It's God's mercy to you, to me, to any undeserving sinner that then is emanated to others.

To others, not to God. God has no need of mercy. It's to each other that we dispense this divine quality.

Now there's a whole family of words that are in the original language that are translated as mercy.

And the definitions range from simply to have mercy, as you might expect, to something a little bit longer of a definition, a little more in -depth, kindness or concern expressed to someone in need, to have compassion, to have pity.

Let's talk first about the standard. We need to get into our heads what the standard of this mercy.

What mercy is God talking about? Well certainly it's not my mercy. I know

I'm a pastor, so I'm extra holy, right? Well of course I'm not. I'm broken.

I'm a sinner like the rest of you. And so my mercy, if it's a standard, that's a low one indeed. Most of us could follow that one pretty easily as I could yours.

No the standard that we're talking of here, the benchmark is God's mercy, God's mercy to you.

Now as mercies are new each day, and mercy we have to understand to be something different than common grace,

God does in his common grace send rain and the sun to the crops of the just and the unjust alike.

But mercy is a little different. Mercy is his particular favor shown to undeserving sinners.

So when we speak of mercy as something that is given forth from us to others, and that mercy is the mercy of God to us, it's a particular kind of mercy.

It's a mercy that is not just, well I feel good about people, so I'm a merciful person. No. This will issue forth, and as we'll see this very clearly as we go into the latter parts of this

Sermon on the Mount, into deeds. It does something.

This mercy wishes to act upon what God has given. And it's God's mercy that is the benchmark.

Now I want you to understand something about this mercy as we go through this. We could go for a very long time speaking about mercy.

As I said, there's a lot of words in this family of words that mean mercy. We have to limit ourselves this morning.

Look, if you will, in your Bibles at 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 13. The first, one of the pastoral epistles as we call them, written to young Timothy, Timothy the pastor in Ephesus.

First Timothy 1 .13, this is Paul's instruction to the young man, the pastor there.

Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief.

And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love therein Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom

I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost,

Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

Do you see the welding together of mercy and salvation?

Sinners are saved because of God's mercy. Now we know by grace you've been saved, of course, that's what Ephesians 2 .8

says. By grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. We know that.

Grace deals with our sin, with our guilt. Mercy deals with something different. Mercy deals with our misery.

It goes back to one of those definitions I gave you, to have compassion, to have pity on someone, to see their miserable estate and do something about it.

To do something about it. Neither grace nor mercy are deserved, nor can either of them be earned.

It's by his grace that he saves. It's because of his mercy that his grace is aroused.

Because of his mercy that his grace is aroused within him. Matthew 5 .7, the word used in Matthew 5 .7,

blessed are the merciful, it appears in this particular form, blessed are the merciful, in that particular form only here in Hebrews 2 .17

in the New Testament. And really only a few times in the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the

Old. If you want to look at Hebrews 2 .17, that apostle writes,

Therefore, Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful, now there's our word from the beatitude, become a merciful, a compassionate, a pitying high priest.

Every way that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of his people.

Now propitiation can also be translated atonement. And that makes us think of the cross, where God's wrath was propitiated because it was poured out on Jesus Christ.

The cross where atonement, which is the means by which we can be forgiven, was accomplished. Psalm 78 .38

also ties together atonement to God's mercy. Yet he,

God, being compassionate, and that's our word again, merciful, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them.

Listen to this next part. He restrained his anger often and did not stir up his wrath.

Mercy is God's patient dealing with sinners. Now if by grace you've been saved, it's because of mercy that you're alive to know

God's grace. Mercy is his patience with sinners. It's mercy that holds back his just retribution against all mankind.

It's his mercy that holds back wrath long enough for grace to come upon us.

If grace is getting what is not deserved, which is salvation, it's only because of his mercy that we survive long enough to know that grace.

So I ask you, do you understand it? Do you appreciate it? Have you known this mercy of God?

Do you know now this mercy of God, this great mercy of God by which he held back his wrath and didn't destroy it, but instead because of grace showed you

Jesus Christ and his salvation? Do you know his mercy?

Is the answer yes? I pray God for all of us that that answer is yes, then the answer to that is do it.

Do you know God's mercy? Then do it. Do mercy. Do mercy. Show mercy. Only by mercy poured out on others do we prove that God's mercy has had any part in us or of us.

Is that important? Remember as we go through this, that I'm not just moralizing at you.

I'm not just holding up Jesus as an exemplar and say, well, therefore be like Jesus, be like David, don't do like Abraham did when he left

Hagar with the Philistine and all that stuff. It's more than that.

We're talking about citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. We're talking about salvation here. We're talking about eternal souls.

Consider what Jude says in his letter in the 22nd and 23rd verse of that short letter.

Jude 22. Here's what he says to us. And have mercy on those who doubt.

Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

That's not far off from Paul's argument in Romans 14 about how the stronger brother is to treat the weaker brother and how neither is to judge each other.

And one is told not to destroy him because of food, that one for whom Christ also died.

That whole argument, very much like what Jude just said in those two verses. I ask us, as we think of God's mercy to me, as you think of God's mercy to you, as you think of what

Jude says about showing mercy to those who doubt, can we say without hurting that text at all, say those who are a little bit timorous, those who do not stride forward with the military confidence that you have, those who are unable to just read a verse and say,

I understand it, I'm going to do it. And they're done. They're doing it. We have to be just like them.

We have to be just a little bit gentler than we usually are with those who are a little timorous, those who are not quite so confident, those who are not quite so bold as we are.

I ask us, with this in mind, with God's mercy to you, do we humiliate someone's infantile understanding of the faith when they don't quite get it as quickly as we did?

Do we become impatient? Maybe we hold back our tongue, but inwardly we commit murder by wondering how the church survives when populated by such fools.

The one who receives God's mercy shows it to others by their loving patience, just as God had mercy to them.

Mercy and forgiveness are so tightly interwoven as to be almost indistinguishable at times. Not just for God, but again, for us.

I would have you turn again in your scriptures to Matthew chapter 18. I want you to look at verse 33.

It's the end of a very well -known parable, the parable of the unforgiving servant. And this is the final word from the master, who of course represents

God. And Jesus of course will, after he gives us this, he will give us his point of this parable that he gave us.

But the master is speaking to that servant who had gone to him and said, have patience with me.

I'll repay you all. Well, he couldn't repay a dime. So the master says, because I have compassion, I have pity, I have mercy upon you,

I forgive you your debt. Let's not go into estimates of what it was. I just forgave you $10 million.

Done. Go away. And then he finds from the fellow servants that what he did next was he found a servant who owed him five bucks.

And he grabbed him by the throat. He shook him. He humiliated him in front of his coworkers.

He grabbed him by the ankles and shook him upside down to get that money out of his pockets. He just treated him exactly opposite of how he had been treated.

We all know this parable, don't we? Hear how it ends. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

That's chapter five. Now chapter 18, see how this theme pervades the gospel.

Master says, and should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

What's the mercy? Forgiveness. Mercy was the forgiveness. And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.

So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

You see, mercy and forgiveness just can't be split apart. Without mercy, forgiveness will never come.

Without forgiveness, there's no evidence of mercy. Do you see that? Without mercy, forgiveness will never come.

Without forgiveness, there's no evidence that there's any mercy. Samuel 22, 26 says of God, with the merciful, you show yourself merciful.

And then James 2, 13 warns us, for judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.

God said this so many times in Jesus confronting the merciless legalism of the Pharisees.

He said this too. What? I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Mercy rises above even the holy law of God.

In fact, it could be said that mercy is the whole point of the law of God. And so if you think you know the law, if you think you're an instructor, what's the point of the law?

How did Jesus sum it up? How did Paul sum it up? Love your neighbor as yourself and all that that entails.

Again, as I feel so fond of saying, just to drive this point home, we don't harm that text if we say, show mercy to your neighbor as mercy was shown to you.

And look again at that verse I just quoted from James 2, 13. Do you see what the rest of it says? Mercy is without judgment to him who has shown no mercy.

But hear what it says next. Mercy triumphs over judgment. For God, whose judgment of sinners is just and perfect, what wins?

Mercy. Mercy wins. For us, blessed are the merciful. And those on the receiving end of that shall receive mercy.

Those are those whose mercy to others is the same mercy they themselves receive from God.

The mercy shown is the mercy God gave to you. And that's the mercy received from God.

You see how important this is to show mercy? If we show not mercy, we have no evidence that we know

God's mercy. Jesus says if you don't forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you.

How tightly welded together is forgiveness with mercy?

All of us need to check our hearts here. All of us need to look at our grudges here. All of us need to look at how hard we hang on to that affront because somehow it makes us feel superior or at least gives us a reason and a cause for not being joyful in the presence of the assembly.

That sort of thing. Not forgiving. Being unmerciful damages us, damages all around us.

It says that we are not in this kingdom. That's what it says.

That's how important it is. He goes on, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see

God. Purity of heart is singleness of heart. It's a heart united as in Psalm 8611.

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name.

It's what Jesus means when he says that we cannot serve two masters. A divided heart is one that shares its loyalties and its affections.

And therefore, it's neither loyal or affectious towards either of them.

Because they're both compromised. How will this one see

God? John's answer is the ultimate in 1 John 3 .2. When Jesus appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. It's not just for when we're called home to be with Jesus.

This hope purifies us in this life by keeping us focused on him. There's no room for anything else.

And Moses' great request is seen here. He said that I may see you, that I may see your glory.

He was in the cleft of the rock, protected as God walked by and saw him as he went past. But we see him now by the eye of faith, do we not?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And I would suggest to you that pure in heart see him now.

If they are those described in these Beatitudes, this citizenship test.

We see him now. Hebrews 2 .9, but we see Jesus. Ephesians 3 .12 says we have access to God right now by way of faith in Jesus.

Hebrews 4 .16 says that when we seek God's help by our faith, we stand at the very throne of grace and there we find help in our time of need.

Remembering that mercy steps out and helps those who are needy. We see

God now because of the purity of heart. We trust God is the living

God, the true God, the one and only God who did in fact send his son and has given us his spirit.

And by all that, and knowing his word and studying it and gathering around it, we see

Jesus. Brethren, do you believe that Jesus is here with us this moment, in this place, literally? If you don't, you don't believe his promise where he said, where two or three are gathered, there

I am in the midst of them. If you believe it, then I would say we see

Jesus. And that comes from purity of heart that God gives, the changed heart that God only can dispense.

A pure heart doesn't hesitate to do good. He doesn't hesitate to show mercy.

He doesn't need to stop and think. It's not being naive, rather it's a heart with room for nothing but God.

Knowledge of him informs everything. Purity doesn't mean sinless perfection. We'll never have that in this life.

It means to be dedicated only to God and his kingdom. And this one sees God now and will see him as he is in the last day.

You see, our Lord is concerned with the heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, not with externals.

He looks to the inner man and God be praised that intellect doesn't impress him. Our accomplishments are of nothing before him.

You or I might be amazed at someone with a really bright bulb shining. But God says what?

He says, who made man's mouth? Who made him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord? He's not grateful for great shows of piety.

Now, he does demand our obedience and as we move through Jesus' sermon, there's gonna be much that we're told we must do.

But if it flows from anything but a heart given over to God, you have your reward here and now.

Here and now only. You who've read the Sermon on the Mount, you know where I'm pinging forward to.

We will get there, Lord willing. It seems contradictory, but a pure heart is essentially one that admits its lack of purity.

It's the cry of the psalmist, search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there's any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

And no doubt that searching I will find fault. And then what happens? Blessed are the poor in spirit, says

Jesus. Blessed are those whose deficiencies make them see their need for Christ all the more. Blessed are those who mourn what

God exposes are driven to repent. Blessed are those whose meekness is enhanced by knowledge of their sin.

Blessed are those when all this is set before them with all more desperation, hunger, and thirst for righteousness.

Do you understand now that a pure heart doesn't need to lead a perfect life or have perfect obedience?

Well, the Lord made no mistake when according to Ezekiel 36, 26, your heart of pure stone was replaced with a heart of pure flesh, yet that heart is surrounded by the old flesh and all the desires that the old members arouse within us.

The heart God gave us is a good heart. The spirit who indwells us is good. The Savior God sent to rescue us from our sins, he too,

Jesus too, is good. The converted heart is good. To grow in the

Lord is to put on Christ every day and by the power of his spirit, follow his dictates more and more, to deny what the flesh would have us do, preferring

Christ's pleasure to any momentary satisfaction. And all this is purity of heart.

How else could David ask God, oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright in heart?

Do you know what a pure heart is? It is one that recognizes its impurity. It is the disciple of Jesus whose mourning is intensified when he or she understands that God gave them a pure heart and that there's no room in anything in it but for God and yet allow the flesh to overwhelm and sin and stumble despite that.

A pure heart simply recognizes its impurity, its impurity of obedience, the inconsistent discipleship.

How do we see God? On the one hand, we see him in nature as Psalm 19 says and in history as Paul said at Athens in Acts 17.

And this is in a way that only the Christian with the eyes of their heart enlightened, Ephesians 1 .18, only they can see.

There's more to come. We now see as through a glass darkly. Moses was given but a glimpse as he hid in the cleft but we see

Jesus and God willing, he is seen in us. And one day we'll see him plainly with no interference from sin and flesh.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Our final beatitude for this afternoon.

For they shall be called sons of God. This does not hearken forward to adoption. Jesus speaks here of the one who so closely resembles someone that they're called a son.

Like when Elijah's disciples in his school of prophets were called sons of the prophet, they weren't his children.

They were his sons because they mimicked their father, Elijah, they followed his ways, they represented him well.

I would imagine all they had to do is speak a little bit and they'd hear the tone and the preaching style and they'd say, oh, you must be from the school of Elijah.

That sort of son of the prophet. Sons of God by being peacemakers. Ones who follow the ways of their father, who represent him.

Jesus said the Pharisees in John chapter eight, he called them sons of your father the devil and your will is to do your father's desires.

The last part of that is instructive. You're God's son if your will is to do what he desires, what father

God desires. A son, one who molds himself after him. In this case,

God and the peace that he wrought by his son, Jesus Christ on the cross. Blessed are the peacemakers.

What's the standard for peace? It's the cross. What's the standard for mercy?

It's the cross. What's the standard for any of this? It's what God has done for you.

In the gospel we hear this day proclaim, blessed are the peacemakers, they'll be called sons of God.

How much is it God the father's desire that there shall be peace? Just think of it.

I'll go through these quickly. Think of the angel's announcement in Luke two that Christ's incarnation would bring peace on earth.

Isaiah 9 .6 calls Jesus the prince of peace. Colossians 1 .20 says that by his blood shed on the cross,

God has reconciled all things to himself, thereby making peace. Romans 5 .1 says therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. God's desire for peace was accomplished by the death of his son. And if we are

God's sons, our desire for peace must be no less than that.

That's the standard of these beatitudes. Don't take them lightly as if Jesus was speaking in a gentle, soft voice and saying blessed are, blessed are, and God just wants to pour it out on you.

There's standards here. Sort of what I said a week or so ago at Psalm 109. These are too lofty for us.

Only by God's intervention in our spirits, by his spirit in us, can we even hope to begin to approach these.

How then do we justify stresses and conflicts that we have? How can we?

James blames it on our prideful egos, the opposite of humility of spirit, the opposite of purity of heart, the opposite of meekness, the opposite of mercy.

He says what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. The opposite of all that Jesus opens his sermon with.

Passions within is just what was said earlier. It's the inner conflict between the heart and the flesh and too often the flesh wins out.

Too often our Father's desire for peace gives way to our need to be right. What then?

Blessed are the poor in spirit who repent of their violence. Blessed are those who mourn and seek God's forgiveness. Blessed are the meek whose mildness towards others makes quarrels and fights less and less common.

Blessed are those whose hungering after God's righteousness overcomes those desires. Everything opposed to his righteousness.

Blessed are the merciful who have more compassion in them than anger. Blessed are the pure in heart who seek

God's examining eye and drive out all the dross that it exposes. Do you see how important the

Beatitudes are? Do you see how important it is for us to take them with the steel with which they were pronounced by Jesus Christ?

These are hard and fast statements. Not only of royal pronouncement of the condition of these people, but this one and no other will enter into the kingdom of heaven.

This one and no other would have Jesus say, not depart from me, but come to me, you who are blessed of the

Lord. Our souls depend upon God doing this work in us.

And as we go through the sermon, we'll see the proofs of it. I wanna close with a quote from S .A.

Brooks of the old Puritans. He speaks here of mercy, but I think it also applies to purity of heart, to peacemaking.

Think of it that way. And with this, we will close. Mercifulness, then, is a quality of the whole nature, a certain soft, sweet, tender, gentle, gracious atmosphere in which the whole man lives and breathes, in which he continually acts toward injury and wrong.

And under its warm and sunny rays, injury and wrong melt away day by day, like icebergs that come floating down into the tropical stream.

And those are blessed who have it. They live in soft sunshine of their own making, and in it, all the simple charities of life, which are like the most common flowers that adorn and make sweet the woods and fields, flourish until the whole world rejoices in the life of those who live by mercy, by meekness, by peacemaking, by purity.

And their speech is delightful as the songs of birds, and their daily acts, like the soft murmur of such streams, as gently flow through meadows.

In all this inward beauty of soul, they are blessed indeed for mercy blesses him who gives it.