In June an article came out in the Harvard Gazette titled, “Stealing a ‘superpower’” and the subtitle read, “Study finds some sea slugs consume algae, incorporate photosynthetic parts into their own bodies to keep producing nutrients.” The author of the study, Corey Allard described their findings as “some of the craziest biology I’ve ever heard of.” A co-author of the study, Amy Si-Ying Lee, an assistant professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School, said, “the wow factor is that sea slugs can essentially steal ‘superpowers’.” The article explained that some sea slugs will “consume algae and incorporate their photosynthetic organelles into their own bodies” and so they steal “the ability to make energy from light through algae” they eat. But interestingly, that’s not all, as the article went on to say “Other sea slugs steal the ability to attack by stinging,” or even “the ability to glow in the dark.”
How cool is that? As Christians we don’t steal superpowers, but we are given them. The Spirit of God who lives in us gives us new abilities we didn’t have before. Those abilities aren’t exactly glowing in the dark, or photosynthesizing, or attacking with stingers. Instead, the Spirit of God enables us to live out the characteristics of our Savior, Jesus Christ. They are “super” powers because they are beyond human ability. So we are superpowered, you might say.
One of those superpowers we are given that we are to use is mercy. God has shown us mercy and we are supposed to show others mercy.
Disciples come to Jesus to be taught by Him so that they can go live out his teachings. We have to always keep in mind that the Christian life is a Master/Servant relationship: Christ is our Master, and we are His servants. If I name His name, then I must walk his walk. And He says that being merciful is part of His walk. He is merciful, and so we are merciful. “Be merciful,” Luke 6:36 says, “just as your Father is merciful.” So being merciful looks like our heavenly Father.
Last week we saw Blessed are those who are merciful….and we explored what being merciful meant, and ways the bible demonstrates we are to show mercy to others. This week we zero in more on the second half of this equation: for they will receive mercy.
RECEIVING MERCY
Blessed are the merciful FOR they will be shown mercy. Jesus promises mercy for anyone who has shown mercy. Giving mercy to others will result in God giving us mercy. Lets walk through some thoughts.
First, we need mercy. It may not be readily visible when reading this beatitude, but the clear implication is that we not only need to GIVE mercy, but WE need mercy. “Those who are merciful will be shown mercy” he said. Why would getting mercy be something that matters to them? Because the people showing mercy to others also needs mercy from God – and others.
One of the most important ways in which we need mercy is to have new life. The new birth which is a spiritual birth is completely dependent on God’s mercy. First Peter 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great MERCY he has given us NEW BIRTH…” Ephesians 2:4 says, “But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in MERCY, made us ALIVE with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” Without mercy, we are without new life.
APPLICATION: Have you received God’s mercy? Do you know you need God’s mercy? You need mercy whether you realize it or not.
Second, what is evident in this beatitude is that God is merciful. God is many things: just, righteous, holy, eternal, infinite, Spirit, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, majestic, glorious, compassionate, gracious, patient, loving, faithful, and more. Read A.W. Tozer’s Attributes Of God, or go back to our sermon series on Knowing God. He is all these things. But He is also merciful. What did Ephesians 2:4 say again? “But God who is rich in mercy.” What did 1 Peter 1:3 say again? “In his GREAT MERCY” His mercy is great and it is rich.
APPLICATION: Start bragging. God says there’s one area we can brag. Turn with me to Jeremiah 9:23-24. God says you can brag that you know him as a God who is kind, just and righteous. The word for kindness there is a Hebrew word translated often as mercy, or lovingkindness or steadfast love. God says you can brag that you know me that way. Start bragging!
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: You can brag if you have tasted the reality of His mercy. If you have received it, and you know how it has made you a new person and has opened your eyes to God’s eternal love for you, then you have something to open your mouth and brag about.
That bragging and boasting is born out of the joy that comes from knowing God’s mercy. You know who else has joy in God’s mercy? God. God is not merciful in a begrudging or resentful way. It is a joy for him. Turn with me to Micah 7:18-20 ….and then Ezekiel 33:11…
The point Jesus is making here is this: “Blessed are those who are merciful to others because God will show them mercy in return.” He is full of mercy and rich in mercy. God is merciful.
Third, God’s mercy is the key to leaving sin. Growing in righteousness is based on us receiving God’s mercy. Now I’m making this point actually a two-pronged point. As we taught extensively last week, mercy has two meanings: one is helping others who are in need and the other is pardoning someone from the consequences of their sin. Both of those ways that God shows us mercy are what are key to leaving sin: God’s mercy in forgiving our sins motivates us to leave sin and God’s ongoing mercy helps us do it as we live out our lives for Him
First, our salvation in the beginning should motivate us to leave sin behind. Why? Because mercy is what makes you love God and want to leave behind what was so displeasing to Him.
- In Luke 7 the scandalous woman who crashed a Pharisees party where Jesus was at fell at his feet and worshipped him, crying on his feet, wiping them with her hair, and pouring perfume on him. Why? Because she had been forgiven much. She worshipped Jesus because He had shown her such incredible mercy.
- In John 5 Jesus told a paralyzed man whom he healed, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Part of the thought there is the mercy Jesus showed him was to motivate him to leave sin behind.
- In John 8, the woman caught in adultery is saved by Jesus and told by Jesus, “Go, and leave your life of sin.”
- Or Romans 2:4 when it says, “God’s kindness leads you to repentance.” It is the mercy and kindness of God to sinners that leads them to repentance.
- Or Titus 2:12 which says the grace of God has appeared and has brought salvation and it teaches us to say *YES* to ungodliness and worldly passions? No! God’s grace and mercy teach us to say No to our own ungodliness and our own worldly passions.
- Don’t you love those famous words from Romans 12, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, this is your spiritual act of worship. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind….” We love those words, but do you know what the very beginning of that verse says? “Therefore brothers, in light of God’s mercy, let us offer our our bodies as living sacrifices….” It says that with God’s mercy in full view, we should go on living holy lives, pleasing to God, having our minds renewed, being transformed, no longer thinking and living according to the pattern of this world. All this is because we KNOW God’s mercy!
You’ll notice too that he says to offer our bodies to God as “living sacrifices”. A living sacrifice is different than a death sacrifice. A living sacrifice means that you live your life sacrificially for God. You sacrifice everything in your life for God. You “deny yourself and take up your cross”, you “put off the old man with its evil desires”, you “resist the flesh and its sinful urges”, you reject the “ways of the world” and the “spirit of the age”. A living sacrifice means you are living in a way that shows have killed your old sinful way of living in order to live in a new righteous way for God – and it means that you are sacrificing anything and everything that would come between you and Him.
A death sacrifice on the other hand, is where Jesus comes in. Jesus was the death sacrifice for our sins. There is no way for us to live sacrificially enough to be acceptable to God. The only thing every human being deserves at the end of their life is death. No one can live well enough for God to grant them eternal life. Judgment is what everyone deserves.
APPLICATION: God’s mercy motivates us to live righteously. Nobody who knows mercy thinks its a license to go sin.
APPLICATION: Chronic self-loathing or guilt is not characteristic of someone who knows God’s mercy. No one is growing in godliness with that state of mind. Mercy transforms our minds – cleansing them, renewing them.
Second, God’s mercy empowers and supplies us to be able to leave sin behind after we are saved and as we go forward living out the Christian life. Turn to Hebrews 4:14-16 with me and see how God’s mercy helps us stop sinning. We receive mercy to help us in our time of need. That need is our battle with sin. Verse 15 says Jesus never sinned. The context is our weakness against sin and the supply of mercy from God to help us. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted he will provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Fourth, getting mercy requires giving mercy. There is a relationship between giving mercy and receiving it. Now on the one hand we see in the Bible that when we receive God’s mercy it produces a merciful heart towards others in us. God’s mercy makes us more merciful. But here Jesus is talking about it in the reverse, and says that mercy from God will be given to those who are merciful to others.
This is all based on the Golden Rule, “Treat others how you want to be treated,” or “Do unto others as you would have them to unto you.” That was Jesus. In God’s judgment of us it is true that a factor in how he will treat us is based on the way that we treated others. “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” (Mt 6:12). “For in the same way you judge others you too will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Mt 7:1-2).
APPLICATION: Treat others according to how you want to be treated.
APPLICATION: Karma is idolatry. Christians should not be talking about karma. Karma is justice without God. It’s not the “universe” that is paying people back or rewarding people for their behavior. It is God.
CONCLUSION: Communion