Blessed Are the Merciful — Don McClure

The Beatitudes and the Happiness Found in Christ

Some things to me here in the Beatitudes that we're going to get into tonight, I don't know if these things are helping you much but I think they're phenomenal. The more and more we get to know what Jesus was saying here in the Beatitudes when he said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled, and tonight blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

Now once again just to reflect for a moment this is the word here blessed it means oh how happy. Here Jesus is talking about the key to a happy life which is really the reason you and I exist above all else in the sense of I and not just that we have a fun life or that we have a pleasurable life or other ways that we may want to interpret happiness but that that there would be a happiness though God created man in such a way as that above all else that we would have great spiritual ecstasy essentially in him that we would have an overwhelming joy in who he is.

Jesus in John 15 he says you know I'm the vine you are the branches he that abides in me and I in him the same brings forth much fruit and he goes on and he after he kind of lays out that wonderful illustration there being the vine and the branches and he says these things have I spoken into you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.

There he talks about it and says he looks there that life would be joyous that there would be this wonderful happiness in life not something to wear and notice though it doesn't say in here oh how happy are those who seek happiness.

Oh how happy are those who seek pleasure. Oh how happy are those who seek fun. Or oh how happy are those who are able to avert trials or chaos or problems or burdens. No this is actually you know this is a happiness that's not superficial it's not something that is just a giddy sort of a thing or or you know a soothing sort of a pleasure that all isn't this wonderful sort of a thing.

No this is a happiness that penetrates the very depth of the human soul. Somebody who is who is totally happy with God. They're happy in their spirit. They're happy in the sense of who they are and who they found when they know him and they know their identity with heaven.

Oh how happy are those who who know how that you know how they're right with themselves. They're right with others that things have occurred within their life. And as we have gone through these Beatitudes the first three as you may recall were essentially as I said an empty.

They're a draining. There's where God kind of it's like he says I'm gonna make you a happy man. But it's almost like the first thing he does it with the man when he says I'm gonna make you immensely happy tremendous you know immensely blessed.

But it's like the first thing he does he goes down to the toe or something and he pulls the plug out and just drains you. That's what the first three are all about when he says oh how happy are the poor in spirit.

Oh how happy are they who mourn. Oh how happy are the meek. These are things essentially as you may recall they're things to drain a person of an essentially their own identity their own self-life their own right to rule their own anything of themselves.

But Jesus says a man is truly gonna be happy at the core of his being. First of all there's no confidence in his flesh. He is poor in spirit he is. He looks at himself and he is utterly spiritually poverty-stricken.

And he knows it. Leave this man this truly happy man alone without God. And the man's bankrupt he's devastated he is hopeless. He is destitute to the max. And and he says to. But a man that is truly happy is what he is.

He's poor in spirit. He knows not to be far away from where the real riches in spiritual life are. He is somebody that he he looks there and that that part of his joy and his happiness because it isn't gonna be found in himself in anything he's gonna reach in and pull out of himself or of his own ID or identity or ego or pride or self.

Or there's nothing worth trying to discuss within yourself to try to find out about yourselves. And I remember one time a psychiatrist who came to Christ by the way through. It's a long story. I won't get into that.

But wonderfully one of the things that he once told me when he had ended up coming to Christ because a patient of his had come to who he had been treating for a couple of years for paranoid schizophrenia had come down to is when I was down at Calvary in Costa Mesa.

But he'd come down there and she'd come down and had come to the Lord wonderfully. And then she kept on going back. And this doctor soon realized this woman's absolutely normal as he began to talk to her found out she's happy she's at peace.

Her whole life was so transformed. And he wanted a witness. What's happened to you. She says I found Christ. And of course then he tried to cure over this religious hang-up she was trying to get into.

And then when he realized this tremendous thing that happened to her and that it was genuine he ended up coming down. And the wonderful thing that he had to say to me that just blessed me. No end. He said you know as a psychiatrist I spent my whole life in this and he says but you know I've come to the realization that the best I can do is a psychiatrist.

The best is diagnosed. You can't change anybody. I can only diagnose but in the sense of getting into the human heart into the human soul and actually transforming it. There is no such power to do that within man and we can only at best diagnose what's wrong.

Just like we have an x-ray of the human soul and we can look at it and say well this is wrong this is wrong. But we have no equipment to get in and reorganize a human life. And I thought that was some early wisdom in this guy's life and he wonderfully came to the Lord and grew wonderfully.

But the through this witness and testimony initially of this gal he was working with but the first he drains a man oh how happy of the poor in spirit. Then oh how happy are they who mourn about it. There's a sadness within they look when they look within their own heart God what is wrong with me what have I done.

And then they realize as time goes on maybe it's quick maybe it's not so quick but that every human being is committed absolute anarchy against the kingdom of heaven. Absolute you know when we think on our own when we act on our own when we strut around the master of our own destiny charting out our own course doing what we want is righteous as we may think it'd be.

It's absolute anarchy against the rights and the privileges of the throne of God that made man in his image to rule and reign sovereignly on the throne of a man and no matter what he does with his life is a good may be as good as it may be if it's on his own apart from the fullness of the Spirit of God is anarchy.

It's rebellion in the in in the worst of senses. And it's a terrible thing. But when somebody begins to mourn over and says God why do I live this way. Why do I have to run my own life. Why do I have to have be.

Why do I need to be self-sufficient. Why. And they begin to and there's a grief over it. They realize the exceeding sinfulness of man as the Bible calls it you know calls it the exceeding sinfulness of sin and realize that is something that has gotten into every human being from cover to core.

It's like like a cancer. It is absolutely corrupted. A human being beyond any hope of anything within himself to correct it. There's no capacity to put it right. And he begins to mourn over it he begins to grieve.

Jesus said this guy's on the road to happiness. Then he says oh how happy are the meek. Now you've got somebody not strutting around shaking their fist at God commanding heaven to do something and blaming other people.

Now they take full blunt brunt of the of the accusations that they've ever gave to anyone else and it falls upon themselves. And there's a meekness before God the broken and a broken and a contrite heart.

God will not despise. The Bible says it's a you know something that God looks at a man and how he loves it when he sees a man or a woman. Then when they come to the end of themselves and there is they and at the end of themselves they're hopeless and they're destitute and they're desperate.

And their only hope is that somehow another God not because he owes it to them because he's indebted to us because there's any obligation whatsoever God owes man nothing absolutely nothing. Anything he does is out of the love of his own heart out of something that he has chosen to initiate himself.

But it is something though that that when he gives it he gives it to a person who knows these first three to a person where there's a poverty of spirit there's a mourning over their own sinfulness and has produced a meekness in a gentleness within them.

Now when they come before God kind of like the prodigal son again before when he when he left he says father make me or father give me give me. But when he came back he says father make me rather than demanding his head was bowed and there's a wonderful humility and he could say father make my life make me what you'd have me to be.

That's what God Jesus that's so that's gonna be happy person. That's the person that's on a wonderful road to recovery. But the first three just kind of pulled the plug drain somebody you know it shows them themselves.

God wants to show us a mirror. Sometimes we can come to Christ he can do it rapidly. Sometimes he may take years to begin to really show us the the nature that we have. Like Paul when he said in Romans 7 18 I don't think he found that out quickly as a Christian.

Perhaps he did maybe it was years in Arabia. But when he came out and he says I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Or as it says in the Living Bible is that insofar as my sinful self is concerned I am rotten to the core.

It's a good translation of that. By the way he looks there and he says you take the Apostle Paul he says you remove anything that God's mercy and love and grace is poured into me and in expressed in the person of himself you remove himself and there is corruption from one end of my being to the other and I am destitute and desperately wicked like the Bible says the human heart is desperately wicked above all things who can know it.

And when somebody comes to that realization first of all it's going to. It seems devastating to the human. But it is also something that it equally elevates our deep love and appreciation for Christ. When we meet him he was forgiven much loves much.

The Bible says if God if Jesus just forgave me of a little bit when if I met him all I was was ten dollars in debt and he gave me ten dollars. Well that's thank you. I appreciate that I needed if I was five hundred dollars in debt and he was and he gave me five hundred dollars.

Well now I appreciate him a little more. So well that's very nice. If there is fifty thousand dollars in debt and he comes and he takes out and he pays fifty if they. But if there's somebody that's fifty trillion dollars in debt I mean they've got a national debt of their own succeeding sinfulness that's beyond lifetimes and generations ever dream of paying back.

And now he does it. Now the person just humbly bows before his Savior and it magnifies him in his life his appreciation and his esteem for him grows and grows. Now though the transition has changed. Now it's come though the first three he drains a person.

Then he fills him with himself. Bro how happy are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. For they should be filled. Here we have somebody now they've been drained. They've been drained. They've been drained of themselves and has produced an insatiable hunger within them.

In them there's a desire and something to where it just reaches out. And there's a hunger in their soul. There's hunger in their spirit. Their whole life is starving for spiritual attention through this process and they're hungry.

And it's Jesus says oh I have you they'll be filled. And of course God only has one thing to fill a man with essentially himself spirit. God doesn't give things so much essentially to people. I mean he entrusts things to people.

But the issue is that when God gives things he gives himself we ask for his peace. We ask for his love. You know we asked you know for his you know some attribute of his nature. But he doesn't. He doesn't give attributes.

They don't come that way. It is you know when somebody says God give me peace he gives you himself. Galatians 2 14 says he is our peace. So when somebody says God give me give me peace there's actually what God comes to say.

Well here I am. We say God I need love. Well God is love David said and it's something that when when I'm saying I need love I'm saying I need the person. When I say I you know I need joy. Well I say he is our joy.

The joy of the Lord is our strength. Nehemiah says it is something you take every attribute of God and it is nothing other than that himself in in a specific dimension. But it's it's indivisible from him.

You can't separate it. And so when God fills somebody it's himself that he wants to pour into us. It's his very being. And then though he now turns us around as we're in tonight blessed are the merciful and he wants to start living through us.

Mercy as the First Social Beatitude

And these are things now that are happening within within a person. These are things now when he you know he says blessed are the merciful. And as he looks at these are things now that a person has become.

These are things that we ought to look at and say God I want to be this person. I don't want to just carry out the activities of doing them. I don't want to do them. I want to be them. Being is always much harder than doing is it you know always in a sense trying to just you know you can I can I can act kind without being kind.

I can I can act. You know I can I can go and enact caring without having that all the way through my being. But this is something when he's talking about the Beatitudes that God is wanting to actually put in the fabric of our being by his presence within us.

And he wants to say I want to make you merciful. I want to begin to so pour myself into you that you will begin to see my mercy coming through you you that is that is something that a Christian ought to long for not to deeply desire of wanting more and more and more of him in us.

But not necessarily these are not ways sometimes that we would ask for. These are not kind of the list but they're things that he wants. And because this is something that he wants wonderfully to pour within somebody of himself because here as he looks at in this particular issue he's saying oh how happy are the merciful.

This is not a human trait either by the way it's not a human personality type like we have someday I'm gonna have to go read people tell me I'm a cleric or something like that. Or I thought they were a washing machine or I've seen cleric caloric or something I don't know melancholies and all these different things they immersive.

But this is not some sort of a natural trait. This isn't some sort of a personality type sort of a thing. And this isn't you know a a nicer type of person that's a mellower or somebody that just happens to kind of be this sort of a get-along type.

No this isn't that sort of a thing when he says oh how happy are the merciful. This is something of the deepest nature of God being poured in to somebody. The pastoral epistles Paul oftentimes so you say grace peace murder grace mercy be unto you.

It is something that that then oftentimes grace and mercy. You'll see him in the Bible right next to each other cousins as some people call them and things they go right in hand in hand and there. But they're very different as much as as alike and they coincide oftentimes with each other in activity they're different.

Grace is something that essentially deals with men in their sin. It's unmerited. Favor is what it means. It's God giving his favor. But mercy it's different than that. Mercy deals with men in their misery.

Mercy is something that it looks at something and it hurts. Mercy is something that it sees misery. It sees something that is wrong there and when it's you know grace grace is what helps to fix it. But mercy perceives it and wants to see it fixed.

It's deeper. Mercy is what what produces grace. God has been graceful to you and I because in the deepest sense he has been merciful to us. God lifted us gracefully out of our you know out of our desperate situation because he had pity on us.

He looked in there and he saw that you know the men in their misery. He saw a man fallen. He saw what he was without God. He saw what he was without his presence. He saw what he did to himself. He saw what he did to one another.

And and and mercy it sees people in their misery and it hurts for us. Grace lifts it out. But but but mercy sees in and it in it. And in mercy is something that it that it doesn't measure sin it doesn't measure even the consequences of it or the righteousness or the you know the of of our misery that we may have it coming full-on.

We deserved every bit of the misery. But even then mercy goes deeper and it says whether you did it all on your own and you deserve every bit of it. It is something that it's. It's pity essentially plus a desire to relieve suffering.

It is something that gets within the heart that says maybe they did it and it was all their fault. They calculatedly they planned it out they knew what they were doing to their life and other people's lives.

And it's done. It's all happened and they've got they they've they've got there just do in it. But mercy hurts and it says I want to stop the suffering there. That's that's essentially what it is that God has had towards us.

That's the only reason you and I will ever know any joy at all or ever have known any. Not because we we found a way to earn it or we found a way to deserve it or we found anything at all. It's only because if anything we have found the fact that God looks at us in justice I mean in a heart and in a knowledge of justice.

It knows every one of us deserve all of the world's worst and we've maybe gotten a major of it. But God hurt. And he said I'm going to forget the law for a moment. I'm going to to set aside you know essentially righteous judgment an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life sort of a thing.

But God looked down and he hurt so much. He was moved with compassion when he saw the the the tragedy that had happened to mankind and he and he sent his son to pay for all of the injustices. And he just says pay for it just pay for it.

I hurt for them. And and of course when Jesus he was in for he was equally into it he equally wanted to do it. His pity was it was the same. But it is something that God he sent his son to say find a way to get them right.

Yes they've offended. Yes they knew and yes there there's no good in them at all. But at the same time I need to set away where this this hurt that I have in my heart can be met and the need in their lives can be met.

The justice of my eternal wisdom can be met and the debt can be paid. So we just can't forget it just for the sake of forgetting that there's got to be a point and a reference point that we can meet there and justice is absolutely fulfilled.

And there is no condemnation that can ever come back from the law. And yet my heart for man can also be appeased and his need can be met too. So the law is satisfied the holiness of God is satisfied the longing of my heart is satisfied and the need of man is satisfied.

That was what mercy that was its project in a sense. And it sent Jesus to forgive us of our sin. Didn't want to explain our sin or some sort of a thing. Let's sit down and discuss it. He just says go forgive it.

In such a way is that God can look and say I've completely forgiven you I completely accept you and I completely restore you. That's what mercy does so much. So is this very hour the Bible says about Jesus to everyone that he's done this for is that he's not ashamed to call us his brethren.

He looks at us even though I feel I must bring him tremendous shame. He says I'm not ashamed of you. That's mercy. God how can you say that. Well I'm very merciful. God can say extremely merciful in your case.

But at any rate it is something that did. Now though here what Jesus is saying is this is not only something that God has done towards us but now he wants to do through us. For he says blessed are the merciful.

Not blessed are those who have received mercy. That's the four previous beatitudes the receiving of mercy. But now he wants to. God wants to embed here in this very first social beatitude essentially the one that is now the first four really relate just me alone with God.

But now we're taking the Christian life public and now he's wanting me to relate with you and you to relate with me and all of us with one another. And he's saying I want to take. I don't want to just teach you to love.

I don't want to just teach you to be kind. I don't want to teach you be you know patient or gentle or good all those things. Of course he wants to teach us but God is saying no. I want to teach you the very deepest part of my heart what it is that caused me to ever want to fix you.

I want to put the deepest thing of my nature towards you the deepest act of the thing that it all the love all the mercy all the grace all the work of the cross all the grace that ever happened. It was something that was rooted that was what happened on the surface.

But the root that went down into God's soul was he. God himself is merciful. And he says he wants he says I want to put this within you. I want it to be something that you not only receive mercy from me but you're giving it to others.

And it's something that he that he doesn't just simply say I want to pretend teach how to pretend to be this way. Or I want to teach you how to work at this. No this is something he's putting within us.

And where I wish I would I if I had a chalkboard here. What I draw up here on the thing is I take the first three Beatitudes and I would put oh happy or the poor in spirit number one. Oh how happy are they who mourn in.

Oh how happy are the meek. One two and three. Then I would take the middle one. Oh how happy are they who hunger thirst after righteousness in a sense that's the transition. And then four five and six.

Essentially I would say oh how happy are the merciful pure in heart and peacemakers. And the amazing thing is is that you could draw a line from one to four from two to five. Then if this makes sense this probably it's dumb even to try to pretend as a chalkboard here.

But at any rate the thing is is to the measure. To the measure that a person is poor in spirit interestingly enough will be the measure that they will be merciful to the measure. And we'll see more of this in future studies though that somebody mourns over sin is the measure that they'll be pure in heart.

Into the measure that somebody is meek is the measure they'll be a peacemaker. A person who is not very merciful is only one who has yet to see how much mercy they themselves have received. But if the to the degree of poverty of spirit that I know of in my life the read to the degree that I know the rottenness of my own humanity.

The degree that I know how much God loved me and forgave me. The degree that I know what he has done. Well you know when he looked at my spirit when he looked at my nature the direct equation of that is going to come out in the degree in which I will express that same thing to another.

If I'm kind of semi self-righteous I thought well I grew up pretty living a pretty good life. I was never as rotten as some people I know me look you know and look over at somebody else and say they're terrible.

I was never a sinner like they were. You know it's something to where usually a person like that is all not very merciful to others they're very judgmental. But when there is something to where a person sees their own sinfulness and what God has forgiven them it is becomes very difficult for them to judge another for it.

But when a person realizes I have I am rotten all the way through God is you know that the degree the more and more and more that somebody is poor in spirit and they realize how far God had to reach down to get them that's how far they will tend to reach to get others.

It's amazing the way these work that's why to me I mean they grow through life. Somebody oftentimes comes to Christ. Well I'm a little bit of a sinner. As the years go by they'll grow in the rareness of their sin.

And the more they realize they're a sinner the more gracious they'll be to other people. And the more merciful they'll be to other people. And they'll find themselves looking at other people in a different light and in a different sort of a way.

And as I think I mentioned in one of the previous studies where the mourn over sin I think is what it was is that as far as reality is concerned just to make it theologically clear once again every single one of us are equal as far as sinfulness is concerned biblically theologically in the eyes of heaven it may be you know that some people are only more aware of it.

It may be something that I look and there may be somebody here you may have murdered somebody. Maybe we got a murderer here. If I said is there anybody if there's a if there's anybody who's ever murdered somebody there may be somebody that yes did and others maybe look over and say well maybe kind of clear a little airspace for him you know and stuff.

And the thing in it it may be that I go around say anybody here ever been unfaithful to your mate you've committed adultery and we're not. I'm not getting don't don't don't worry folks we're not. But the thing is is maybe some would reluctantly if all if there was some mechanical thing that forced us all to be honest you know or some you know then maybe others and we look over and say oh boy that's terrible.

And we may look over is there anybody here that's robbed you know or something. And but the thing is is in the economy of heaven Jesus says that if I hate my brother I've committed murder. I did it. I maybe had nobody had a gun in my hand at the time and I didn't have a way you know.

And so maybe I actually stopped the act. But in my heart in my spirit maybe there was some occasion that that caused it not to occur. I was afraid to get caught or I didn't know what to do with your body or something like that sort of a thing but something stopped me from doing it you know or whatever.

But if I thought it in my heart Jesus said I did it. If it is something that right on down the list of things and that if we tend to look over it's me. And sometimes the person has to actually do something before they will accept guilt of it.

But it ought to be that it and unfortunately a lot of people actually do have to. But then once the guilt comes now the real cleansing the real awareness God I'm really this bad aren't I. God says yes.

I think a lot of people can save themselves a lot of trouble if they'll just accept that the Bible's condemnation essentially of their flesh nature and say God I am this bad I've robbed I've seen you know I mean I mean I I stole Buckingham Palace as far as the Bible is concerned I walked through the place I've been there went through it.

I sat in the throne room I went all through it says whoa I acted like I was King Tut or something I guess he never rained there. But at any rate or but I can boy and I've been through and in seeing the crown jewels and imagined all of that.

Well I'm a thief in a sense of there maybe I never took the goods or I never did it. But in the sense of envy or jealousy those things take the human soul and cause the soul to grab it as if they have the possession of it whether they actually literally did it or not as far as evidence concerned it's immaterial.

And when a person realizes this and you can save yourself having to go through things to come to a realization if you can look maybe hopefully I mean it'd be wonderful if there's not a person here that ever committed adultery.

But if you're one that wants to say I'm not I'm not I'm not capable of that. Well that's the one I want to move away from kind of because they may have to fall into it to come to a realization. But by God's mercy and grace we shouldn't have to.

And the thing is is that when when mercy is really happening when it's beginning when when a person is understood God has forgiven me of all of these things and he has taken me and drawn me to himself.

And in spite of all of the things that I'm capable of thinking or dreaming or desiring and all of the other things that caused me to run away from heaven and to rebel. Steal my own heart life my own mind.

You know one of the worst things that you'll ever steal is your mind from heaven. When God wants to take the human heart and fill it every day with worship and with love and adoration. And he wants to take the human mind where he says whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are just if there be any virtue any praise or a good report.

Think on these things. When I use my mind to think on something else I've stolen my mind from the hand of God. I've stolen it out of heaven. I've robbed God of his time and fellowship and communion with me that is more precious to him than any man's money.

And when I can look and say God I'm a sinner stolen my life. I steal I you know I've committed spiritual adultery against you day in and day out taken my life and flirted with the world and the thoughts of it and not given a thought about you for hours on end days on end.

I'm an adulterer. God forgive me. Then God wonderfully comes and he applies his mercy. But then he also wants to turn and he wants to put that heart within us where he can say I'll make you merciful to others.

And that when others would fail you when others would sin against you that now you can do the same for them without a merciful spirit. If you don't have this beatitude personally I think you're in deep trouble.

And I mean that whether if I'm talking you know to I mean I met a lot of Christians that personally I think an awful lot in honesty of mental health and mental disturbances that people have as directly as a Christian oftentimes related to these type of things many people they have a root of bitterness within them.

There is something that happened to them in their life and you know by something or somebody that offended them that was unjust it was wrong and maybe it happened here. And then they have a few of those things kind of come and a lot of mental burdens a lot of stress a lot of anxieties that people have a you know have within their life is because something sometimes somewhere somebody abused them in one way or another and they can't get over it don't know what to do with it.

And a lot of people though we know we're human though we may know we were sinners we don't know everyone else's or they're all people and all people are fallen people. And all fallen people hurt other people unavoidably.

It is something that this side of heaven if you exist on this planet and you are a social human being and you have anyone else around your life you will be hurt. You will be offended countless times oftentimes through life.

Sometimes it'll be through just direct calculated sin against you. It may be through some iniquity some rebellion against your person that was intended that way. Sometimes it was just to ignorance. Sometimes some people are hurt because of a direct offense sometimes just by neglect of how other human beings that ought to love ought to care ought to be there ought to give a certain amount of attention don't know how or don't care how or have their own priorities in their life because they're fallen and be as a result.