20 Why Jesus Says Only the Merciful Will Receive Mercy (Matthew 5:7)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for downloading Wednesday in the Word, my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the 20th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. We're studying Matthew chapter 5, verse 7 today. You don't need to take notes, you can find lecture notes with links to everything mentioned in the talk and an outline of the main points on my website. Just click on the link below the podcast or go to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 20. You can find all previous episodes in the series and many other series on my website. That's wednesdayintheword.com. Glad to have you along today. We're continuing our study in the Gospel of Matthew. We're still in the Beatitudes portion of the Sermon of the Mount. And let me remind you, for those of you just joining the podcast, how I'm approaching these Beatitudes. I have argued that Jesus is describing people of faith in the Beatitudes. Now, he doesn't use the term faith here, but he describes those who will inherit a place in the kingdom of God. And we know from the rest of Scripture that people who have a place in His kingdom are those who have saving faith. And I have argued that the Beatitudes say four things about such people. First, they are fortunate. They are in a highly desirable situation because of the activity of God. That's what it means to be blessed. Second, each beatitude gives a reason why such people are fortunate, and the basic reason is that they have a glorious future promised from God. So it is their future destiny that makes them fortunate now. Third, the beatitudes are exclusive, only these people have this glorious future, only those who have these qualities described in the beatitudes will inherit the kingdom of God, and these are the qualities that define saving faith. And then fourth, the beatitudes are surprising or ironic. At first glance, the qualities that gain you the kingdom of heaven do not appear to be very desirable at all, and yet the people who have them are truly fortunate and blessed. The beatitude we're going to look at today is a little bit different than the four we've looked at so far, where in Matthew 5 7, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. In some ways it may seem like we're turning to a new theme. This beatitude addresses how we treat other people, in contrast to the ones we've looked at up to now, which focus on our inner attitudes. However, I think there's a strong connection between the first four and the rest. It is the person who has these attitudes that are found in the first four who can treat others in this merciful way. Now I've argued that the beatitudes have these four aspects and let me take you through them one by one for this beatitude. So first, who are the fortunate ones? In this case it's the merciful. Now in broad terms, to be merciful is to act kindly towards someone beyond what is required of us. If I owe you ten dollars, it's not merciful of me to give you back your ten dollars. It's required of me. I have an obligation to repay my debt. But if I hear a story of someone who is in need and I send them ten dollars, in broad terms, that's merciful. I am acting kindly toward them beyond what is either legally or ethically or morally required of me. Now sometimes the Bible uses the term merciful in this general sense of helping someone who is in trouble or being kind to someone when it's not required. But more often this word has a more narrow focus. If someone sins against me, acting kindly toward them is truly going beyond what's required. Because if someone has sinned against me, I have justice on my side. I could demand that they pay for what they have done and put right their wrong, but if I act kindly toward them, I am setting aside the demands of justice and I am being merciful instead. Now often the biblical word mercy means virtually the same thing as forgiveness because it's used in this context of overlooking a sin or a wrong that has been done. To be merciful in that context is to forgive. To be merciful is to act kindly instead of demanding justice. I think that's the force of what Jesus means here. The merciful person is the one who acts kindly toward those who have wronged him or her in some way. So who are the fortunate ones? They are merciful, the people who act kindly forgiving someone who has wronged them. Second, why are they fortunate? They are fortunate because they will receive mercy. Here again, as I've been arguing for all the Beatitudes, I think the focus is on the future when God establishes His kingdom. We are all sinful and selfish people who have rebelled against God. If God is not merciful toward us, then we will not have an inheritance in His kingdom. God's kingdom coming is not going to do us any good if God is not merciful toward us. We will not enter into the kingdom of God unless God forgives us. Those who are merciful toward others are fortunate because when the kingdom of God comes, God will be merciful to them. He will forgive them and grant them life in his kingdom. Third, we know that only those who are merciful are fortunate, only those who are merciful will receive mercy. Now how do we know this beatitude is exclusive? How do we know this is true? Well for one thing, this is the pattern that we have seen in the beatitudes so far. In several cases, we have had Luke to help us see the exclusive nature of the beatitudes because he has a corresponding woe. Luke's version makes it clear that those who have this quality will be blessed and those who lack it will be cursed. Now we don't have a parallel in Luke for this beatitude, but we would expect it to follow the pattern of others and expect it to be saying, Blessed are those who are merciful and woe to those who are not. But we have a stronger reason to think that this beatitude is exclusive. This is a very strong theme in Jesus' teaching and in other places in the New Testament. One place we see this is in the Lord's Prayer, which is part of the Sermon of the Mount, and we're going to look at in the next chapter. Jesus tells us to pray and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. In the Lord's Prayer, we are asking God to forgive us our sins and our trespasses in the same way that we have forgiven others. And in case you missed it, after the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives this explanation. This is Matthew six, verses fourteen and fifteen. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Well there's the contrast. If you forgive, you will be forgiven. If you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven. That's a very straightforward statement, but also very scary. We also have the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew eighteen, and we're going to talk more about that parable in a minute. In the parable of the unforgiving servant, at first, the king or the master is willing to forgive his servant a great debt, but when the servant is unwilling to forgive someone else a smaller debt, the master changes his mind and refuses to forgive the servant. And Jesus ends that parable this way This is Matthew eighteen, thirty two through thirty five. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me, and should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? 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. Again, that's very sobering language. Jesus is saying God will not forgive you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And the New Testament continues this theme, connecting being forgiving with forgiveness. Paul makes this connection in Ephesians four thirty two. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. And also in Colossians three, twelve and thirteen. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And it's not just Paul. James says in 213, for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. This is a very important theme in the New Testament. If we will not be merciful, we will not receive mercy. Combine that theme with the pattern of the beatitudes, and I think it's pretty clear that this beatitude is exclusive. Only those who are merciful will receive mercy. The fourth aspect of the beatitude is that it is ironic or surprising, and that's been pretty clear in the others we've looked at. But this beatitude might not be so obvious. How is this one surprising? As Christians, we're used to thinking that being merciful is a good thing. It's a virtue. We applaud those who show mercy. But think about real life when the rubber meets the road. Being merciful can be costly. If I forgive someone who owes me a great deal of money, then I'm out that money. If I forgive someone who has wronged me, I am relinquishing my right to demand justice, and that can be a very costly and painful thing to do. It's hard to be merciful to those who have wronged us because it costs us. It may cost us emotionally or it may cost us financially, it may cost us in reputation, it may cost us in success in our careers. There are lots of different ways it could cost us. And when we stop and think about it, being merciful to those who have wronged us is frequently a very hard choice to make. Those who are merciful are not getting justice. Those who are merciful may be paying some kind of price. It doesn't look like they are in a desirable or enviable position. The person who gets away scot free, that person looks like he's the one who has it made, but the person left holding the bag, not so much. So Jesus is saying those who are willing to pay the cost of being merciful are the ones who are truly fortunate. It's a short term cost with a very long term gain. So I would paraphrase this beatitude like this As surprising as it may seem, those who are willing to commit the costly act of being merciful are the ones who are truly fortunate because they and only they will receive mercy when the kingdom of God comes. Now, the question still left on the table is why is there a connection between showing mercy and receiving mercy? What's the connection between being forgiven and forgiving? Why would such a thing be true? Well, I think the best answer to that question is found in the parable of the unforgiving servant. I'm only going to cover the main points of this parable. However, I do have another series on the parables on my website, and I've podcasted it, and I do cover this parable. So if you want to dive deeper into the parable, I invite you to listen to the other podcast. I'll put a link to it in the lecture notes. Let me read from Matthew eighteen. I'm going to start in verse twenty one. Then Peter came up and said to him, so that's him as Jesus. 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? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times. This is the context for the parable of the unforgiving servant. Peter comes up and says, Okay, my brother sins against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? The rabbis at the time thought that you were legally bound to forgive someone three times. So if you forgave them seven times, which is four more than required, you were surely doing a great thing and you were righteous. But Jesus answers, not seven, seventy-seven. And I think that number is more symbolic than literal. I think he means an unlimited number. So Peter is asking, how far does my responsibility to forgive go? How much is enough? And Jesus tells Peter, you have to forgive, period. It's an unlimited amount. And then he tells this parable as an explanation. Now notice that Peter's question assumes that I have a right to redress. So someone has wronged me and I have a right to restitution that I am forgiving or I am giving up when I forgive them. If someone offends me, I have a right to demand an apology and an appropriate restitution in whatever form that restitution might take. So to forgive them then is to give up this right to the apology, this right to restitution. And essentially what Jesus is going to go on to say in this parable is when God asks you to forgive, God's not asking you to renounce a right. You have no rights in this matter because you are just as guilty as the person who offended you. Those who are holy and blameless, they might have such a right, but none of us are in that group. Essentially that's the point of the parable, but let's take a look at it. I'm going to start reading in Matthew eighteen, verse twenty three and go to twenty seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents, 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. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. Now from Jesus' opening statement, we would expect him to tell a parable about someone who is constantly being wronged and constantly forgiving. Instead, in a surprising twist, the story he tells is about someone who refuses to forgive. Now in the parable, a king forgives his servant a great debt. The servant's debt is huge. Jesus tells us it's a thousand talents, which is something like two point five million pieces of silver. This is like saying he owes the equivalent of the national debt. This debt he owes is limitless. There is no way this servant will ever be able to pay it back. Now, as I understand the cultural background, the king is perfectly within his rights and within reason in ordering the servant and his family to be sold into slavery. Today that may sound really harsh to our ears, but at the time, the king's action would have been considered a just and reasonable response to this situation. The debt is so large and the price of slavery was considered so small in comparison that what seems like harsh treatment to us is actually just an infinitesimal repayment of the debt. It doesn't even compare to the debt owed. It's a small gesture toward repayment. But even though repayment is impossible, the king forgives the slave everything. So what we see in the king is an act of mercy and grace pure and simple. The king is forgiving the servant with no hope of gaining any form of repayment from the servant in return. Justice demands the debt be paid or that the folly that caused the debt be punished, and yet the servant merely asks for forgiveness and he gains forgiveness. Going on in the story then, picking up in Matthew eighteen twenty eight, but when that same servant went out and 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. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. Okay, now our servant goes out and finds someone who owes him a hundred denarii, or about four pounds of silver. So he owed the king two point five million pounds, this guy owes him four pounds. This is a small debt. The servant could be patient and it's highly likely that his friend will repay him. But the servant is unwilling to forgive even this tiny debt. Then the king hears about the servant's actions, and the master changes his mind and refuses to forgive the servant. So this is Matthew eighteen, starting in verse thirty one. 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. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? 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. Now notice we have two summary statements here. One is in the mouth of the king, that is in eighteen thirty three, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you. And then we have one directly from Jesus eighteen thirty five, so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Now it seems pretty straightforward here that Jesus is saying, If you don't forgive others, you will not be forgiven yourself. And in that view, he is no different than the rabbis of his day. The Jewish rabbis thought that if you did not forgive sins of others, your own sins would not be forgiven to you. The difference is the rabbis thought you only had to forgive someone else three times. But Jesus is saying forgiveness is not only necessary, it's unlimited. Now the question we want to answer is why is the kingdom of heaven like this? Why does lack of forgiveness disqualify you from the kingdom of heaven? One of the clues we have is this contrast in the amounts. The contrast invites us that to ask the question, how can someone who has been forgiven such a great debt fail to understand the value of mercy? Doesn't the servant see that his debtor is exactly like himself? And that's the crux of the issue. When I look at someone who has sinned against me, am I willing to see myself? Am I willing to acknowledge that I have sinned against others just as much as the person who wronged me? Am I willing to admit that I myself am a great sinner in need of grace? I myself need God to be merciful to me, just as this other person needs me to be merciful to them. I think the reason that people who will enter the kingdom of heaven will be forgiving is because forgiveness is an integral part of saving faith. And you must have saving faith if you're going to enter the kingdom of God. Part of recognizing my own need for mercy makes me realize I am in no position to judge others. If I realize how deeply sinful I am, why should I expect holiness in everyone else? Saving faith puts you in a position of humility. The first step of saving faith is recognizing the depth of my sinfulness and that God owes me nothing, and once I realize how sinful I am and undeserving of mercy, I should also realize everyone else is in the same boat. My response to other people's sins should be forgiveness, forbearance, and compassion, just as I am hoping for forgiveness, forbearance, and compassion. Once I realize how deeply I am indebted to God's grace and how truly dependent I am on His mercy, then I realize I don't have a right to restitution for things others have done to me because I have done the same things to others. After all, what sin could anyone commit against me that I wouldn't do myself apart from the grace of God? The same evil that lurks in that other person's heart that caused their sin is in my heart. I have no basis on which to judge them, for I am just as guilty. Now I may not have physically expressed that sin yet, but give me a chance, apart from the grace of God, I would. There's no sliding scale of sin. We like to compare ourselves to others and say, well, I know I'm a sinner, but thank God I'm not as bad as my neighbor. After all, I didn't do XYZ. But that's the whole point God is making here. Sin is sin is sin. I may have refrained from adultery, prostitution, and murder, but pride, arrogance, and selfishness are just as bad. They're just easier to hide. I can hide my selfishness from you a lot easier than I could hide an affair, but it doesn't make me any less sinful. The same evil that causes my pride causes adultery or causes murder or causes selfishness or arrogance. My sins may be more socially acceptable, but I'm just as guilty. I have to be prepared to be judged by the same standard I use to judge others. And then I have to realize there is no standard by which I can condemn my neighbor that does not also condemn me. Recognizing the depth of my sinfulness and my need for God's grace is an integral part of saving faith. And once I recognize my own wretched position, how can I turn around and say, Well, thanks God for forgiving me, but could you throw the book at my neighbor? The same standard that condemns my neighbor condemns me. If I'm asking for judgment, if I'm demanding my rights, then I really haven't understood my true position before God. I haven't really understood that I am just as guilty. If I haven't come face to face with my own sinfulness and my standing before God, then I don't have saving faith. And if I don't have saving faith, then I will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So to be unmerciful is to refuse to admit how great a sinner I am and how much I need to be forgiven. In other words, I can't really be a person who is poor in spirit and mourning over my sins and hungering for righteousness if I look at other sinners and think somehow I'm better than they are. To be unforgiving is to look at my fellow sinners and say, they've wronged me, they deserve to pay. But in that attitude, I'm not acknowledging that I have wronged others and I too deserve to pay. So if I refuse to see how sinful I am and how much I need to be forgiven, then I haven't really taken the first step of saving faith, recognizing that I am poor in spirit. Interestingly, I think we find this same idea in the Old Testament. You're probably familiar with the idea that Jesus said loving your neighbor as yourself is one of the two greatest commandments. So I look at the other person and I see myself, and I ask, what if that person were me, how would I want to be treated? That's familiar to us, but do you remember the context in which this statement is found? This is Leviticus 19, 18. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge, that is, you shall not retaliate against someone who has harmed you, and you shall not encourage or nurse harsh feelings against someone who has done you wrong. Well, that sounds a lot like forgiveness. In that context, he's saying, don't strike back, don't nurse a grudge, instead, love your neighbor as yourself. So the commandment implies that we ought to be willing to forgive because we are putting ourselves in the other person's place. What if I was the person in the wrong? How would I want to be treated? Well, of course, I'd want to be treated with mercy, and so I should be merciful. I think that's implicit in the logic of the commandment. And Jesus is taking that logic and applying it to our relationship with God. What we need most is for God to have mercy on us and welcome us into his kingdom, even though we don't deserve it, and we should be willing to look at our fellow sinners in the same way. Let me make a few last comments to wrap this up. First, let's talk about forgiveness. The way Christians commonly practice forgiveness can often become a form of denial, and I think that's because we confuse forgiving and forgetting. It's an easy mistake to make because the Bible talks about God not remembering our sins in conjunction with his forgiveness. But the term that's usually translated not remember, or it's sometimes translated forget, it's a legal term. It's closer to our word pardon. It is not that God develops amnesia about our sins, he doesn't remember them legally, that is, he does not hold them to our account. But sometimes when we read about God not remembering our sins, we think he's forgetting them and we conclude that we should forget the sins committed against us. But sometimes, despite our best intentions, we continue to remember all those past failures and grievances, and we begin to suspect our inability to forget shows a lack of forgiveness and thus a lack of faith. Well, forgiveness is not the same thing as forgetting. Forgiveness is choosing not to hurt back. Forgiveness is a decision to let go of the hurt, to let go of revenge, to let go of restitution and grudges. It's a decision I make, sometimes despite my emotions, despite my hurt feelings or anger or painful memories. Forgiving may be a decision that I have to make over and over again, and it has nothing to do with forgetting. It would be really nice if we could forget all our sins and the sins of others. It would be nice if we could just wipe from our memories all those painful past mistakes. But sometimes that doesn't happen, and sometimes it does happen, but it takes a long time. And sometimes I think it might be healthy to remember, because remembering those sins may be the thing that keeps us on our knees and reminds us what God has done in our own lives so we don't forget what grace is all about. So forgiveness is not forgetting, it's a decision, and neither is forgiveness a feeling. We want to make a distinction between feelings of forgiveness and real forgiveness, just like we make a distinction between feelings of guilt and actual guilt. You may feel guilty and in fact be forgiven, and you may feel forgiven and in fact be guilty. Feelings deceive us. Reality is what matters. The only answer to real guilt is real forgiveness. And sometimes our feelings deceive us about what's actually happened. The answer to objective guilt is objective forgiveness. Believers have to come to terms with a very fundamental truth, and that is we're sinners. One day we will stand before our Creator and we will deserve condemnation and eternal death because of our sins. What we need most is for God to forgive us and rescue us from our sin. That's what the kingdom of God is all about. The kingdom of God begins when God sends His Messiah to establish His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. The Beatitudes are all about coming to terms with that fundamental truth, are what I've called the four convictions of saving faith, knowing that I'm sinful, longing to be made holy, knowing I'm unworthy of God's blessings, but trusting that God will forgive me and save me because of the work of Jesus Christ. As these convictions grow in us, then we will come to feel compassion for our fellow sinners and show them the same mercy that we ourselves have received. I think this call to mercy puts the earlier beatitudes in perspective. And here's what I mean by that. I understand the beatitudes as focusing on my internal attitudes and state of heart, but you could understand them to focus on my external, difficult situation in the world. And some have interpreted them as it focusing on the way other people in this sinful, broken world are giving me grief. Why am I poor? They would say, I'm poor because I live in a bad world and other sinners in this world have taken advantage of me. Why am I mourning? Well, because life is hard and those other sinners aren't treating me fairly. I'm humbly waiting for God to fix the world because these other sinners out there, well, they're just getting me down. I'm hungry for righteousness because I want God to finally vindicate me so that my life will be better. Now, if the focus is like that, if the focus of these beatitudes is external, then I think the Pharisees would have embraced them wholeheartedly. They would say, Hey, I, the Pharisee, am already hungry for righteousness. All you sinners out there, you other guys, you need to get with the program and start keeping the law like I do. But when we hit this beatitude, we have a problem. Because how does an external focus lead to being merciful? If my focus is on how all those other sinners out there are the real problem in my life, that doesn't really promote a desire to be merciful, that promotes a desire to see those other sinners shape up, face justice, and get with the program. And that's not the nature of what Jesus is saying. Being poor in spirit, mourning, being non presumptuous or meek, hungering for righteousness is primarily about my own inner state. Yes, I recognize the world is also broken and corrupt, but that's not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is me. I myself am morally bankrupt. I myself am the cause of my own sorrow. I must humbly wait for God to rescue me. I myself lack the holiness I long for. When I see how much I am the problem, then I understand how much I need God's mercy, and in turn I can understand that my fellow sinner is in the same boat and I can strive to be merciful to him. Now one last comment. Am I saying that my salvation depends on how perfectly and consistently I forgive others? No. Let me remind you of what we've talked about before. This is one of the ways that Jesus often teaches. Jesus often makes these strong categorical black and white statements, and he makes such statements that at first glance sound like he's saying if you ever in your life fail to forgive someone else, you're toast. But that's not what he's doing. As I've argued before, he's describing the curriculum his disciples must be willing to go through. He's describing the lessons we must be willing to learn if we want to follow him. So he's describing the end maturity of a long process of growth. Forgiving others is an implication of our faith. If we really understand that we ourselves are morally bankrupt before God and we need God's mercy, then the gospel begins to make sense. I can understand why the cross is so important. I understand how much I need a savior, and I understand my relationship to other sinners who are just like me. Being merciful is another one of those situations we'll face into as we live our daily lives. We will be thrown into situations that present us with a choice, and we have to decide what do I really believe is true? Do I want to stick with what Jesus said is true and try to learn this lesson and forgive someone who has wronged me? Or do I want to just abandon the gospel and go my own way? This is a long, sometimes messy and usually humbling process. Learning these hard truths is our life's work. Some days we will fail and some days we will succeed. But learning these hard truths is an implication of having saving faith. So I don't think what Jesus is calling us to do here is be a hundred percent perfect and obedient. He's calling us to persevere. We are not required to courageously be perfect at all times in all situations. Rather, we are called to stand firm in the faith, to weep and mourn over our sins when we fail, and to continue to trust God that He will save us because of the blood of Jesus Christ. What we don't want to do is abandon the struggle entirely. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but shows you how to figure that out. You can hear all the episodes in my series on the Gospel of Matthew and many other series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. No chart, no spam, and no ads. It's all free to help you improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe to the podcast, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you find it. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you so much for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.