The Village Church
Blessings of the Kingdom, Pt 3 - Audio
Father God, we come now before Your Holy Word. And I am inadequate to open Your scriptures to preach to Your people. But Your Spirit, Lord, we call upon Him to come that He would take this preach word and apply it to my heart and to the hearts of everyone that's here. We all need encouragement. We all need the gospel. We all need Jesus. There isn't a person here who doesn't need Christ. There isn't a person here who doesn't need to be touched by a Savior. Redeemed by a Savior. Hilled by a Savior. There isn't anyone here who doesn't need Your truth to come into our life, to encourage us, to strengthen us, to change us. So Spirit, we call upon You to do what You do best. By the word to our hearts, in Christ's name I pray, amen. If you have about your Bibles, please open them to Matthew chapter 5. For the past two weeks we've been talking about the blessings of the Kingdom, our happiness of those who live within the Kingdom of God, we talked about citizenship, we talked about comfort, provision, and even satisfaction that comes to those who are members within God's Kingdom. And along with those blessings, along with those blessings of the Kingdom, we also talked about character marks of the Kingdom, things that are produced in us because of who we are, this poorness in Spirit, mourning over our sin and this meatiness before the Father. And as I said, I've been saying that these blessings and these character marks are given to us, all believers by grace, through the work of God's Spirit. It's not because of us that we have them, not nothing that we do, that we can earn them. They're all gifts, all free gifts. The blessings of grace and the work of grace is that work and everybody was like, not just some believers. Today, we're going to finish our discussion about these blessings of the Kingdom and look at the, for the changes that the, for the character changes that take place in us because of who we are in Christ. So we're going to look at verses from chapter 5, verses 6 through 7 through 9. Here's God's Word, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy, blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." We're going to look at three of those blessings this morning and two changes this morning. So the first one is in verse 7, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." When you first read this, it seems like Jesus is saying that you only receive mercy if you have mercy on other people, is that what he's saying? But that's how it looks, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. But we only receive mercy because we're at sin mercy, is that what he's saying? No, it's not. If you know anything about the gospel, he's not saying that. And as we've seen before, the blessing here is not being merciful, that's not the blessing. The blessing is the fact you have received mercy, that's the blessing. We are to be merciful because we have already received mercy. The receiving of mercy is not just a future blessing, is this not something that's going to come? Each and every one of us should be experiencing that now in our life at this present moment. God has shown you mercy. Look at your life. They get what you've been past, you know, it's the past struggle, your past hardships. Don't you have a testimony of his mercy to you? All of us do. Okay, where you live or what you've been through, God has been good to you, it's been good to me. Is mercy the same thing as grace, is there a difference between the two? Is there a difference between mercy and grace? Yes, I found a good definition this week as I was preparing for this sermon. And one Christian office says, "Grace is associated with men in their sin." Grace is associated with men in their sin. Mercy is associated with men in their misery, in their misery. In other words, grace is pardoned from sin and guilt, mercy is relieved from the consequences of our sin, relief from the consequences of our sin. So the mercy we receive and embrace from the Father deals with relief, it deals with restoration, it deals with healing from the consequences of our sin. Our own sin and the sin that's been placed upon us by other people, relief from it. This restoring mercy is new every morning, every morning in the court of lamentations. Every morning, God extends mercy to his people, helping us, relieving us from the misery of living in the fallen, broken world. Grace is pardoned, mercy is relieved from the consequences of our sin. This means God cares about your pain, He cares about what happened to you when you were a six-year-old. Cares about yourself, cares about your hardships, He cares about the fact that you've been abandoned, cares about the fact that you suffer, broken families, joblessness, poverty, abuse, abandonment, financial problems, homelessness, sickness, injustice, He cares about it. Your misery and distress that you're going through this day, at this moment, your Father sees, do you believe, do you believe it? I'm sure many of you have seen these pictures of, I might have used this illustration before, but if I have, forgive me, the three wise monkeys, who are the three wise monkeys? See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil monkeys. And in our culture, you know what those monkeys represent in our culture? Look in the other way, when you see injustice. I ain't see it, I ain't hear it, and I ain't telling anybody. We look the other way, we turn a blind eye to what other people go through. All of us are guilty of this, but not Jesus, not Jesus. Whatever Jesus would turn away from your pain, turn his ears to your pain, didn't speak of your pain. Well I ain't see that, Alex, I didn't see it. I didn't hear about it, I'm not going to speak of it. He never looks the other way. He never turns a blind eye to the fletions of his people, never, never. His mercy means he sees it, he speaks of it, he hears it and he does something about it. He relieves it. Hebrews 4, 15 says, we do not have a high priest who is, we have a high priest who is, hold up, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us and don't but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin, let us do a confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. Jesus does not speak as one who has not suffered. You know that right, you have a suffering savior, you have a savior who's been through the fire. You have a savior who knows what it's like for his friends to turn his back on him and his time of need. A savior who know what it feel like to have his father abandon him upon the cross. That's the type of savior that we have. That's Jesus. He's just not saying, I kind of understand what you're going through. No, I know what you're going through. Look at my side, look at my hands, look at my feet, look at the thorn upon my head, the blood that flows. I know what it's like to live in a fallen, broken world. So he's able to sympathize with you. He understands. You have a God who understands. He's not clueless, he's not setting up in heaven, wondering what it's like. He knows. And here's the thing, the workings of mercy don't happen on your timetable. That's the hardest thing for us to accept, because he's not coming now, therefore he doesn't care. He cares about what you go through. He will provide relief. He will come and heal. But there's also some things that won't be healed until glory, remember this blessing is also a feature, mercy, that everything in a life ain't going to be made right on this side of glory, but one day it will, one day it will, we taste of that mercy now. You taste of it, or you taste it, or you taste it. The blessing of mercy we receive, and we embrace it, is produced in us. There's an extended of mercy also to others. That's what is produced in us. So the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Now who do we extend mercy to, do we extend it to Jesus, do we extend mercy to God, who do we extend it to, to other people, to other people, we extend mercy to our fellow man. And this extended of mercy is a work of grace in your life. It overflows from your being, B-I-N-G to your doing, D-O-I-N-G, and showing mercy is something every Christian is supposed to do, and guess what, it's not a spiritual gift. You can't say, well, that's a spiritual gift for Alex, I don't have to do it because I don't have that gift, no. All Christians are to be merciful to other people, all believers are to show mercy, not just some of them. They say, where you live, we all are to do that. Nor does it mean you turn a blind eye to injustice, hardships, pains, and sufferings of others. Just like Jesus does for us, we do for other people. We see it, we speak of it, we hear it. As one British pastor says, mercy really means a sense of piety, plus a sense to relieve the suffering. That is a central meaning of being merciful, it's piety plus action. So the Christian has a feeling of piety, his concern about the measure of men and women leads to an anxiety to relieve it. Do you have that anxiety, when you see the surface of others, that piety and that anxiety to relieve it? Do you have that compassion, that type of sympathy? Are you like, better you than me bro, thanks to be you, thanks to be you, and what would you just say that to you, thanks to be you, thanks to be you, he never does that. In the parable of the good Samaritan, who are you? Who are you? Are you the Samaritan? I know the one's going to raise the hand for that, are you? Are you Samaritan? Are you the priest who passed by, y'all can participate, who are you? Are you the Levite who passed by? In the parable of the good Samaritan, who are you, see what, yes, you're the guy on the ditch, half past dead, that's where we start, that's our starting place. You are the one on the side of the road, dying, which means you need mercy, and you have received mercy, you're recipients of divine mercy, you know your own brokenness, you are irrelevant, and when you are aware of your own brokenness and your sense of brokenness, you won't develop this messiah ego that I'm here to fix and save all the other broken people in the world because I have no issues on my own, that hurts people when you come at folks like that. You won't try to fix other people's problems, instead, you will compassionately walk alongside of them and that's so funny. The reality for all of us is this, you won't ever have this kind of piety until you embrace the fact that you are just as broken and messed up as the people you look down upon, and if you don't have that perspective, then you're not going to be merciful to people, if you think you're better than the guy you passed by on the side of the road begging for food, if you don't see yourself as that guy, that that was you, then you're not going to have mercy, but that's who we all are in Christ, we're that God, you're that God, you're that husband, you're that dad, you think you're better than, that's you apart from Christ, that's you, you're not that God because of Jesus, if it wasn't for him, you'd be that God, I would be that God, I would be that husband, I'll be that dad, we all would be. We are a church filled with mutually broken people, not just some, from the pastor down, we're broken, I'm messed up and I said, if you think I got it all together, I'm sorry. If you think this depends upon me, I'm sorry, it's going to fail, it doesn't depend upon me. Now I got to be a good leader, be a good student of my time, yeah I'm going to do those things, but ultimately it depends upon Christ, not some arrogant jerk, it depends upon him. We're mutually broken, we've all got issues, and here's the thing about being merciful like Jesus, it's dirty business, you know that right, I mean being merciful with dirty business, I know it's the cool thing right now in some churches to do mercy ministry, it's the new hip thing to do, but it's dirty business, it's not sex, it's not going to get you on the front cover of the time, it's dirty business, what do you mean by that, Alex, I'm going to do it, many people, some of us here this morning, we have one, we have a door mat beneath the front door of our porch that has welcome on it, do you have one of those mats in front of your house, now what's the purpose of that welcome mat, you want folks to feel welcome right, you want your guests to come to your house, to feel welcome, do you want to be neighborly, but what's another purpose of that mat, and clean your feet, not only that, you expect people to clean their feet before they're walking to your house, and what if they don't clean their feet, they're going to track their mud all through your nice carpet, so it's a common courtesy for folks to stump the dirt of their feet before they're coming to your home, showing mercy to other people is you welcoming other people into your life, but you don't tell them it's something the dirt of their feet before they come, you bring your dirt into my life, that's mercy. Now just you bring all your dirt into my life, I'm going to get dirty with your dirt, and you're going to get dirty with my dirt, that's mercy, that's mercy, there you go Alex, there you go, and we do it to one another, we get dirty with each other's dirt, that's being merciful, that's being merciful like Jesus, because he's got dirty for you, that's him hanging on the cross, that's your sin, do you see that? That's your sin, all upon him, because we have received mercy, we at stand mercy, all through the power of the gospel, bless the other merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Second blessing, the blessing of seeing God, and there's a change of a poor heart, look at verse eight, blessed up here in the heart for they shall see God, now what does Jesus mean by this, because we know that in this lifetime, we're not going to ever physically see God, and God is not going to come sit right here and say, "Hey Alex, how are you doing?" Well he's not going to do that on this side of glory, so what in this prison reality does this mean? First let me ask you, when a wife says to her husband, "You don't see me," or vice versa, what does she say? When your wife says to you husband, "You don't see me," what does she mean by that? Are you looking right at her, but what does she mean by that? You don't understand me. You don't understand me. You don't know me, that's what she means. You don't understand me, you don't know me. So the present reality of seeing God in this life is the same thing, it means you can know him, it means you can understand him, all through grace, that's what it means. How is that possible through saving faith in Christ? Only through Christ can you have saving faith, there is no other way, and if you don't know him today, then that means you don't know the Father and know where you ever see the Father. If you don't have that saving faith in Christ. Only believers can have this assurance and this awareness that they are in the presence of God at all times, Psalm 139, "Where should I sin? Where should I go from your presence? Where should I flee from your presence? Nowhere, if I sin to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bad and shallow, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and the well and up my parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall leave me and your right hand shall hold me." His sovereign hand is over your life at all times, does it believe it? Second God is to know him personally, a relationship, that's what it means to see God in his life. You can have a relationship with him, a growing relationship, I can have a relationship with my wife. I can have that type of intimacy with the Father, do we have it, do you have it? The second thing this means is that you can apprehend God, you can understand him. In other words, you can know the right things about him when you see God. Because there are a lot of things that people believe that God is not true. So when Jesus said you can see God, it means you're going to know the right things about him. An example of that is that one, that God is transcendent, that he's higher than us, but he's not only that is he, he's also imminent, he's close, he's relational. Is he just holy? No, he's loving, he's merciful, he's just, he's all those things together. What is this? It's the attributes of God that you can know and understand. When you understand those, you see him by faith in his life. So the question is, do you know the right things about him? Because it's not Allah, that's not our God. Now Buddha, Nandofan, the idea is God who's, that's a clock maker, but he's Yahweh. He's Elohim, the covenant keeping God, that's who we know, and that's who we see through Christ. You see him as Father, you see him as Redeemer, you see him as holy as loving. All these things you see, that's the present reality that is blessed, knowing and understanding God. And I see him, one of our favorite things to do as a family is on a boring weekend, we go to walk around super-target, and we're just, every other weekend, and every time we go without fail, probably pay for that later, but every time we go without fail, I know my daughter Madison is going to, she's going to warn her off to the Toow. Every time we go to Target and walk by the Toow Department, there she goes, up and down, looking at all the nice toys, thinking she's going to get everything on of them. And if this world was one big super-target, then all of us are Madison within that target, wondering up and down the Toow, warning all the toys of the world, because it doesn't mean it's here today. Some of you were doing it yesterday, the football game, warning the toys of this world. One Christian says, "But when we hold this world in its contents too near, we no longer see Christ, we no longer see His glory so clearly, the world, the value of this world grows out of proportion, we compromise, we stumble, and we fall. We're prone to warning from Him, prone to warning from Him to the toys of this world, and that is why along with the blessing of seeing God, something else has to be happening inside of us by grace through the Spirit, and that's what this prudence of heart is, introduced in us, it keeps our eyes on the Father, not wondering to other things of this world. Again, blessed are the prayer and heart. What is Jesus talking about? Is it perfection? The prayer and heart is something that's produced in us. Proverbs says, "The heart is the well-spring of life, guarded without diligence. The well-spring of life, the sin of the life, sin of the inner person, the mind, the will, the emotions, all come from the heart." And what else do we know about the heart of Conan Jeremiah, sick, above all things? Who can understand it? Not us. I can't understand my own heart. Yet your heart, the Father understands it, and that is what He seeks to change in each and every one of us. And He does. For every believer, if you are a Christian this morning, this is true of you. In Ezekiel 36, I will give you a new heart and new spirit that I will put in you. I will remove your heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules. All believers who have saved in faith in Christ have received this new heart, this heart of flesh that is now sensitive to the things of God, sensitive to the things of God, and by the continuous ruckled grace, your heart grows and being pure. And that means you will one thing. To will one thing, what is that one thing that we will, that's the will of God, to do His will. What did Christ say, I do my, I'm all about my Father's business, and when your heart grows and being that pure, you're going to be about the Father's business in your life. I will be. You will be. My, it means your heartbeat is in rhythm with his heartbeat, not the other way around. He's not getting on board with what you're doing. It means you're getting on board with what he's doing. This agenda, his plan for your life, his will becomes your will. You value what he values, you love who he loves, you love the things that he loves. It's grace. Now, you can't produce that in yourself, so don't leave for the night or the day. Well, I'll make my heart more pure today, you pray, spirit, help me be more sensitive by the things that God, in my life, my marriage, my family, in my job, let me be about his business in my life. And when that happens in this present life, you begin to love him more. Not a duty, not a trying to earn favor, but simply because he's your dad. He'll realize that he's your dad, you're his son, you're his daughter, and when you live with him, it's not because you earn his favors because you already have his favor, you already have it. You think the kids of President Obama have to earn his favor, earn the favor of the president that go right into the Oval Office anytime they want to, the same as for you. God welcomes you, but you approach him as if he doesn't care. He cares. You're no longer live a man's senate life, but a Christ's senate life is what we strive to live after in every area. Let's sit up here in heart, for they shall see God, please pray with me. Father God, thank you that it is through Christ and him alone that we have all of these blessings, and there's no other way, no one else, not through our works, not through what we do, but it's all grace, it's all your grace, and so I pray that you will help us to have this understanding, that who we are in him, that we have received mercy, that we do have, that those who are Christians, how relationship with God, how relationship with you, and the cause of that law, we can extend mercy, and we can walk with you and with integrity. That's why I thank you Father for Christ, thank you for His sacrifice, I thank you that He's now sitting at your right hand, still in the sitting for us, and then Christ in my place. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]