Senior Pastor Mark Stafford

The Cross and God’s Mercy

A teaching on communion based on Matthew 5:7

The Colosseum has come to be symbol of the ancient Roman civilization.

In its day, epic battles were fought within the Colosseum as spectators watched.

Wild Animals were sometimes brought in for gladiators to fight.

Unarmed criminals, condemned to death, would face heavily armed soldiers or wild animals during the show.

Like Roman society itself, the demonstrations in the Colosseum were displays of strength, bravery, power, discipline, cunning, and courage.  It was violent.  Rome was established through violence and despised mercy.  A Roman philosopher once said that “Mercy is the disease of the soul that spells weakness.”

These violent displays were not limited to the arena, extending into the homes of Rome’s citizens as well.  For example:

• Slaves were treated as disposable property. If a slave master no longer wanted a slave, he could kill and bury the slave with no legal ramification
• The same was true of a man’s wife. A man could legally murder his wife for any reason, at any time.
• Even a man’s children were not safe from brutality. If a women gave birth to an unwanted daughter or to a sickly son, the father had the right of patria potestas, the right to kill an infant if they were seen as unfit or undesirable.

If this is how a man could treat his own family, imagine how he treated his enemies?!  It was thought that the best enemy is a dead enemy.  The Romans were notoriously brutal and the Jews were not much better, they were often as merciless as the Romans.  Like the Romans, they were quite proud of their own piety and ruthlessly condemning of any actions they deemed as blasphemous.

Into these merciless cultures, Jesus shows up with radical, counter-cultural teaching.  In today’s text, Jesus drops this bomb: “⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

• How is this possible?
• How can a person practice mercy in a cut-throat society?

Jesus’ words would have made their minds spin.  Even in our culture, the implications of mercy seem impractical.  I think before we proceed, we need to talk about what mercy is and what it is not.

It seems built into our natural thinking that if you are nice to everyone, some day they’ll be nice to you.  Many people reason: “If I act kindly to someone else, then when I need help, they’ll act kindly toward me.”  Although that’s a nice thought, it is not mercy.  It is fairness and equality but it is not what the Bible is talking about when it speaks of mercy.

#1 Mercy is not a Promise of Fair Treatment by Other People – John 8:1-11, Luke 7:11-15

The expectation of fair and equal treatment was unrealistic in biblical times, as it is today.  We live in a self-focused, power-grabbing, competitive society.  Even in this modern age, people who show mercy are often abused and taken advantage of.  I once worked for a pastor who said, “those who I help the most seem to kick me in the teeth the hardest.”

Jesus helped people, even if they abused Him in return.  He never sought equal treatment, but was consumed with His Father’s will and glory.  Jesus showed mercy because that’s who He is.  God is merciful and Jesus is a perfect reflection of God the Father.

Jesus was the most merciful human who ever lived:

• He had mercy on the sick and reached out to heal them.
• He reached out to a crippled man and made his legs strong again.
• He healed the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, and the mouths of the mute.

He made friends with prostitutes, tax-collectors, and drunks.  He extended to them His love and gave them access to the gospel.  He showed love to children and to lonely people and to those who had nothing to offer Him in return.  There has never been a person on the face of the earth who displayed more mercy than Jesus.

In John 8, we see Jesus interacting with a women caught in adultery.  She is probably guilty and the Pharisees wanted to throw the book at her.  They were ruthlessly condemning.  They wanted Jesus’ approval as they sought to execute her on the spot.  Let’s read this account together to see a picture of Jesus’ mercy.

8 ¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst ⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

⁵ Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” ⁶ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷ And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

⁸ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.⁹ But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. ¹⁰ Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Mercy is commonly defined in Christian circles and literature as “not giving people the consequences they deserve.”  In the case of the women caught in adultery, this definition seems to apply.  However, I think it comes up short.

As I surveyed mercy in the scripture over the last two weeks, I found some other pictures of Christ’s mercy that go beyond withholding punishment.  Biblical mercy acts sacrificially on the behalf of others, as well.

In Luke 7, there is a stunning account of how Jesus was moved by the emotional trauma of a widow who lost not only her husband, but her son as well.  Picking up in verse 11, Jesus witnesses a funeral procession and is moved with compassion:

¹¹ Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. ¹² As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.

¹³ And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” ¹⁴ Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” ¹⁵ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

What a picture of mercy!  Jesus acted in a way that served the real needs of the widow and displayed God’s power in the process.  There is one more aspect to Jesus’ mercy that we need to consider.  Jesus had mercy on those who didn’t deserve it.

Jesus was so often seen with those of the lowest social class that the scribes and the Pharisees asked his disciples (in Mark 2:16) “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  Jesus was not concerned with being with all the right people and shaking all the right hands.  He hung out with the riff-raff.

Here are three aspects of mercy that we just illustrated from scripture:

1. Withholding condemnation
2. Acting compassionately
3. Ministering to those who are undeserving. Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinner because those where the very people He was pouring out mercy on.

With those aspects in mind, we have to move past the idea that mercy is earning future favors from people.  Biblical mercy includes withholding punishment, but it’s more than that.  I would define mercy this way:

Biblical ‘mercy’ is acting sacrificially to meet another person’s need – especially if they don’t deserve it.

The kind of mercy that Jesus taught and displayed was radical in that is was truly selfless.  Jesus was the most merciful man who ever lived.  Do you remember how our world treated Him?  They called for His blood!  If mercy carried with it a promise of fair treatment in the future, then Jesus would have been made King instead of being crucified as a criminal.  In Jesus’ case, those who He extended mercy to, did not extend mercy to Him in return.

Jesus was merciful for a reward far better than ‘favors from people.’  Jesus was consumed with the will, approval, and the glory of His Father.  The president of the Bible College I attended used to say, “If you do ministry for the people, they will let you down every time.”  Then he would conclude that statement with these important words, “If you do ministry for the Lord, He will never disappoint you.”  I think he was on to something!

Our text today says that those who are merciful receive mercy from God.  In fact, we can’t even begin to extend mercy to others until we grapple with the extent of the mercy we’ve personally received from God.

#2 God’s Mercy for us is Best Displayed at the Cross – Romans 5:8-9, Matthew 26:53

God acted sacrificially to meet our needs at the very moment that we deserved His help the least.  Out of God’s great and perfect love for His people, He deals mercifully with our sin.  Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

It would be easy for God to deal with us only according to our sins and not according to His mercy.  It would be fair for Him to make us pay for our own sins.  We incurred the debt and surely we should be responsible for what we have done.  That would be fair.

The intense hatred shown to His Son on the cross didn’t make our situation any better.  Surely when Jesus was suffering in our place, the response of His people should have been gratitude, but it wasn’t.

• His disciples denied him.
• People mocked Him and spit upon him.

He died a humiliating and painful death.  We deserve God’s wrath.  That would be fair.

However, the immense hatred shown toward Jesus was out-matched by the intensity of God’s love for lost people like you and me.  It’s not that God turned a blind eye toward sin.  Mercy is not oversight or forgetfulness.  Mercy sees a need and sacrificially acts to meet that need – especially when the recipient is undeserving of help.

When the mob came to arrest Jesus on the night before His crucifixion, He could have turned them away.  In Matthew 26:53 he asked, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”

When the chief priests and rulers arrested Jesus, they put Him on center stage.  He had an audience with powerful people in a public forum.  Jesus could have avenged Himself, but He held His tongue.  He willingly went to the cross because we needed Him to pay for our sins.

Jesus knew the evil deeds of the people around Him and exposed those deeds at times.  Yet, He showed mercy to them.  He wasn’t trying to win favor or gain popularity.  He was genuinely acting in their best interest.  In His mercy, He was acting on His perfect love for imperfect people.

His death on the cross was a testimony of the excruciating consequences of sin and at the same time, it was a display of Jesus’ victory over sin.  Jesus paid the debt we had incurred.  He paid for it with His own life.  Jesus didn’t ignore sin.  Jesus saw the full extent of our deficiencies before God and willingly paid the price for us.

In doing so, He opened up a new conduit through which God’s mercy might flow through to us.  God did pour out His judgement on our sins.  He just didn’t pour it out on us.  He poured it out on His Son, Jesus.  Romans 5:9 says, “we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”  At the cross, judgement and mercy are perfectly intermingled.

It is the cross that makes mercy available to us and the cross makes it possible for mercy to flow through us.

#3 We Cannot Truly Extend Mercy to Others Until We Have Received it as a Gift from God Ourselves – Matthew 18:21-35

We would never have right motivation to be merciful to another person if we had not first received immeasurable mercy ourselves.   If God has withheld an infinite amount of judgement from me and placed it on Jesus, then couldn’t I show mercy to someone else?  It makes me think of the parable Jesus told in Matthew 18.

Forgiveness and mercy are not exactly the same thing, but mercy doesn’t act without forgiveness and love being involved.  If mercy was a car, then forgiveness would be the wheels and love would be the engine.  They are inter-related as we’ll see in this parable.  Matthew 18, beginning at verse 21.  Let’s read:

²¹ Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

²³ “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

A talent was a huge amount of money.  The ESV Study Bible says that it represents twenty years’ wages for a typical laborer.  In today’s money, a day-laborer – working at $15 per hour – might make $600,000 in twenty years.  In that case, 10,000 talents would be $6 billion.  It was an impossibly large debt. Trump is only worth about half of that amount, even he would have a hard time repaying that debt!  (He’s worth 3.7 Billion right now.[2])

²⁵ And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

²⁸ But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’

A hundred denarii was also a substantial amount.  In today’s money it would be roughly $12,000, which was significant, but nothing compared to 6 billion!

²⁹ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

³² Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’³⁴ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. ³⁵ So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Here is the motivation for mercy in a Believer’s life:  When we realize that God has poured out such great mercy on us, it is natural that we would want to pour out mercy on others.  We don’t show mercy to receive the approval and applause of men.  We show mercy as an extension of God’s mercy to us.  Consider what Paul wrote to Titus about God’s mercy in Titus 3.  Beginning in verse 5 he says,

⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

Now here’s our grace-saturated reward for God’s mercy:

⁷ so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Here should be our response:

⁸ The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people

It makes sense that since we received a great gift from God, we should be more than willing to extend mercy to others.  When we choose to be merciful, God blesses us even more.  Our main text today says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Receiving mercy from God is not a cold, commercial transaction.  Receiving God’s mercy involves a change in heart toward others.  The problem with the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18 is that he looked on the king’s mercy as something that could have been earned if there had been enough time to work it off.

He said (v.26), “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”  This was impossible, he owed $6 billion!  He did not fully understand the weight of his debt.  The amount he owed the King far exceeded his ability to pay.

Jesus was trying to help us understand that the debt we owe to God far exceeds our ability to pay.  God didn’t let us off the hook, we didn’t talk our way out of paying.  God saw the enormity of our debt and paid it off for us.

Communion

In order to really understand the Lord’s Supper, we need have some experience with God’s mercy.  Many of you have lost a loved one recently.  When we lose someone we love, we often try to forget their death and the pain.

The Bible asks us to constantly remember Jesus’ death.  We never move past the cross, which calls us to examine ourselves.  In light of God’s $6 billion worth of love, mercy, and forgiveness extended to us, are we still demanding retribution for the $12,000 worth of wrongs committed against us?

1 Corinthians 11:28 says, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”  That verse calls us to be confronted by the truth and mercy we find at the cross.  We must come to terms with our own sinfulness and realize the value of His great mercy towards us.

We don’t come to the Lord’s table to remember our sin, but to remember God’s forgiveness for our sins.  We come to remember Jesus.  The bread and the cup are meant to remind us of our need for Jesus.

Someone who has experienced God’s mercy knows that they are a sinner who has been radically forgiven.  Then they go on to say, “I didn’t deserve it, but God met me in the place of my greatest need.  I have experienced both mercy and truth because of Calvary.  I will gladly and enthusiastically extend mercy to you like God extended mercy to me.”

Mercy, truth, forgiveness, and justice meet at the cross to that we can be right with God through the sacrifice of His Son.  To save sinners, and at the same time magnify the immense and infinite worth of His own glory, God laid our sins on Jesus and subjected Him to the brutality of the cross.  Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is what we are remembering together here this morning as we take the communion elements.

Luke 22 – Jesus is with his disciples the night before his crucifixion.

17 And he (Jesus) took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

19 – And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

[1] http://www.preachtheword.com/sermon/bea07.shtml

[2] http://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/#49e497c0790b