Beatitudes III

would would like to give you all a warmwelcome as today we continue our journeythrough these beautiful teachings ofJesus known uh throughout history as theBeatitudes uh on Monday we took anoverview of the Beatitudes in Luke andMatthew and we're focusing this week onthe Beatitudes as found in MatthewChapter 5 as so so far we've gonethrough the first three Beatitudesblessed are the poor in spirit fortheirs is the kingdom of heaven blessedare those who mourn for they shall becomforted and blessed are the meek forthey shall inherit the earth they aresimple words with profound meanings anduh today we're going to journey throughthe next two Beatitudes that are foundhere in Matthew Chapter 5 we're going tobe looking at verse six blessed arethose who hunger and thirst afterrighteousness for they will be filledand then we'll be looking at the finalone for today blessed are the mercifulfor They will receive Mercy I invite youto Bow your head heads with me whetheryou're here in our audience or on ouraudience online in your homes um as weinvite the presence of God to bless thisstudy together our heavenly father Ithank you that we can indeed hear thesewords of Jesus echoing down through thecenturies father I thank you that inwhatever Nation tribe language or peoplewe count ourselves no matter whatportion of the globe we happen to beliving in today I thank you that theseteachings of Jesus apply to us no matterwhere we are as much as to any anybodyelse I thank you Father that Jesusspeaks to each of our hearts and heguides Us in the path of righteousnessand so Lord as we listen to thismeditation this morning on theBeatitudes of Jesus may your spiritindeed guide the way that we should liveour lives father transform the thinkingin our minds soften our hearts that wemay hear your spirit speak to each oneof us and father as we finish thisseminar this morning I pray that we willbe different people to those who satdown to listen in the beginningI pray that as I speak father there willbe more of you and less of me in myheart and in the hearts of the hearersin jesus' name I askamen and so this beatitude here of Jesusblessed are those who hunger and thirstafter righteousness for they shall befilled and this is a a spiritual conceptbut it is rooted in deep physicalrealities in the developed Worldsustained hunger is almost non-existentyes we have hungry people here inAmerica a large proportion of childrenhere in America go to bed hungry andthey may suffer from malnourishment butas a general rule we we find sustainedhunger mostly in the the 1040 Missionwindow or in the developing parts of theworld today most of us today aresatisfied with our food intake and formany people living in the west hungerindeed is a rare sensation but in thedeveloping world and at the time ofJesus hunger and thirst were dailyrealitiesand just as satisfying our hunger andour thirst is an all consuming dailyconcern so our hunger and thirstingafter righteousness is by implication tobe an all consuming and a daily concernwe are concerned about our daily foodand likewise we are to be concernedabout being filled with therighteousness of God and so here in thisbeatitude it is important to notice thatJesus did not say blessed are those whomaintain a righteous lifestylebut he affirms the dynamic ongoingnature of the search for righteousnessthose who are blessed of God are notthose who have arrived at a certainState like a crystal uh like like umlike a chandelier or or a beautifulpiece of cut glass Crystal no thekingdom of God is represented as thosewho are seeking for greaterrighteousness um just turn in yourBibles to Matthew Chapter 13 and uh it'salways important and helpful totranslate scripture from scripture touse one scripture to shed light onanother scripture and in MA MatthewChapter 13 and verse 45 Jesus comparesthe kingdom of God to a merchant he saysthe Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchantin search of finepearls the Kingdom of Heaven here is notthe Pearl it is the merchant in theprocess of seeking for the Pearl whatJesus is teaching us is that we areblessed by God even as we hunger andthirst every day for more righteousin our lives we're not going to claimthat we've arrived but in the process ofseeking righteousness we experienceGod's blessings if you're ever going ona journey you'll know that as you'repreparing to maybe go to the airport youyou you you put aside all your dailyconcerns and you pack your bags andyou're focused on the journey itself Iare are we not and uh you lay aside umthe hobbies and the projects and all theother things that clutter our dailylives and when you're going on a journeyyour focus is the journey you want toreach that destination and you set asideeverything that would hinder you frommaking that journey and so it is whenJesus has blessed are those who hungerand thirst after righteousness he isteaching us that it is in striving forrighteousness it is in the process ofstriving that God brings the blessinginto our lives but what is thisrighteousness that Jesus is talkingabout in in the Greek the word is deaywhat does it mean that thisrighteousness that hunger and thirstafter righteousness here in Matthew 5well the word righteousness even thoughuh we use it very commonly in ourtheological discussions the wordrighteousness does not appear in thegospel of Mark it only appears once inthe Gospel of Luke but it appears seventimes throughout the gospel of MatthewMatthew records teachings of Jesus seventimes that have to deal withrighteousness and the the Hebrew wordfor righteousness which is teda and theGreek word deay They are packed withmeaning but the underlying idea of theword righteousness is not a standard ofLifestyle it is not that you do not dothis and you do do this to the contraryuh the words the the idea behindrighteousness is there is an underlyingrelationship and every underlyingrelationship makes claims on yourvisible Behavior I hope that makes senseto everybody if you love somebody thatdetermines how you treat them if you'rein a relationship with them and you sayI love you then that person has theright to make certain claims on how youinteract with them how you speak withthem how you honor them or treat them inpublic and so righteousness is theconcept that we are in a relationshipwith our heavenly father and because weare in a relationship with our heavenlyfather that relationship has claims onhow we live our lives how we relate toeach other how we relate to our HeavenlyFather how we relate to those closest tous I just want to explore for a fewminutes some of these concepts ofrighteousness that we find in thescriptures turn in your Bibles back toMicah 6:3-5 and uh Daniel Jose Joel OS ObadiahJonah Micah there we are Micah chapter 6and Micah chapter 6 very famous passagewe have one concept of righteousnesshere that Jesus does touch upon in thesegospels and I'm going to reading fromMicah chapter 6 and verse 6 and this iswhat it says with what shall I comebefore the Lord and bow myself beforeGod on high shall I come come before himwith burnt offerings and carbs ER oldedwill the Lord be pleased with a thousandRams and with 10,000 rivers of oil shallI give my firstborn for my transgressionthe fruits of my body for the sin of mysoul in this passage here uh micer isasking the rhetorical question what isit that God asks of each of us and uhjust before that in verse five um Godreminds his people that hisrighteousness is Manifest to his peoplein his saving acts if you look there inverse 5 that the um the last sentencesays it says that you may know thesaving acts of the Lord literally therighteousness in the Hebrew of the Lordhere we see that righteousness refers toGod's acts in history to save his peopleand so to hunger and thirst afterrighteousness means that you're actuallyhungering and thirsting after God'ssalvific work within your own life itmeans that you're looking for God to doa work of Salvation today in my lifejust as I hunger for food every day soI'm hunger for God to work a deep workof Salvation in my own life on a dailybasis another concept of ofrighteousness that we find again in theOld Testament that that finds Echoes InThis beatitude is in Isaiah 54 and verse10 if you want to turn there in yourBibles with me Isaiah chapter54 and we have there a beautifuldescription of God's righteousness andif I may find it in my my passage hereIsaiah chapter 54 beginning at verse 10it says there for the mountains Maydepart and the hills be removed but mysteadfast love shall not depart from youand my Covenant of Peace shall not beremoved sayith the Lord who hascompassion upon you here we read aboutGod's HED his Covenant faithfulness tohis children he talks about his Covenantof peace that God enters into arelationship of peace and blessing withhis people he goes on in verse 14 inrighteousness you shall be establishedyou shall be far from oppression for youshall not be afraid and from Terror forit shall not come near you then theconclusion is no W no in verse 17 noweapon that is fashioned against youshall prosper and you shall confuteevery tongue that rises against you injudgment this is the heritage of theServants of the Lord and my version saysand their Vindication from me sayith theLord but the Hebrew there is Sedaka itis and their righteousness from mesaying the Lord says the Lord so thismeans that in this beatitude Jesus whenhe talks about those who who yearn andhunger and thirst after righteousnesshe's talking about those who are longingfor a renewed and a renewingrelationship with their heavenly fatherthat God May demonstrate his salvationin their lives that God's righteousnessmay be manifest in their lives that wemay experience a covenant of peace withour heavenly father that we mayexperience HED or this Covenantfaithfulness the love that will not letme go within our relationship with ourheavenly father third point aboutJustice and righteousness that we finduh in the scriptures is that uh whereaswe tend to separate out righteousnessand Justice um in the Old Testament andin the New Testament you find thatJustice and righteousness are very muchoverlapping Concepts we separate it outbut it's hard to separate it out in thescripture righteousness and Justice donot consist in giving every man his duebut in the Scripture it includes showingmercy and compassion to the outcast tothe oppressed to the weak to the Widowto the orphan and job describes thisvery nicely in job 29:14-6 I turn just a few pages back toIsaiah 42 and you have a definition ofjustice that that we will talk again atthe end of our seminar here today Isaiahchapter42 and verse three it's a passagetalking about the servant of God it is aMessianic passage about our Savior JesusChrist and it says there in verse two hewill not cry or lift up his voice ormake it heard in the street a bruisedReed he will not break and a dimlyburning Wick he will not quench he willFaithfully bring forth Justice and sorighteousness and Justice which areoverlapping Concepts in the OldTestament they do not involve respondingwith an eye for an eye and a tooth for atooth when somebody has hurt us ratherwe respond to those who hurt us withcompassionate acts of Mercy because werecognize that they also are broken andexhausted by the burden ofsin and finally righteousness isconnected to peace turn back a few pagesagain to Isaiah 32 and we see there inverses 17- 20 that the effects ofrighteousness within a community thatwhen there is a righteous individualwithin a community within a home withina subdivision within a district there isa wider impact Isaiah 32:1 17 says theeffect of righteousness will be peaceand the result of righteousness will bequietness and Trust forever then verse20 says Happy Will You Be Who s besideevery stream who let the ox and thedonkey range freely that is when God'srighteousness is Manifest and lived outwithin a community even the naturalworld experiences that blessing that theox and the Donkey can range freely theyhave no fear of harm coming their wayand so righteousness creates should wesay a halo effect around it it doesn'tjust affect my relationship with God italso affects the natural world around meit affects the animal kingdom around meand it affects all of my humanrelationship and so Jesus says blessedare those who hunger and thirst for thisrighteousness who yearn for it on adaily basis as much as they yearn fortheir daily food what are theimplications of of this beatitude we'llturn back to Matthew Chapter 5 and uhMatthew uh he starts out the sermon onMount with his Beatitudes and then muchof the rest of the Beatitudes is a of ofthe sermon of the mount is a discussionof what does this mean in practice andso if you just take a look at MatthewChapter 5 there Jesus discusses throughthis chapter what it means to live andto express this new form ofrighteousness within our daily lives sofor instance Matthew 52 1 through 26discusses anger and Jesus is teaching usa new way of dealing with those fromwhom we are alienated he's teaching theprinciples of peacemaking andReconciliation we'll come more to thatwhen we dis when we cover that beatitudeblessed are the peacemakers for theyshall be called the children of God thenhe talks in Matthew 27 Matthew 527-30 which is talking about adulteryand Jesus is discussing a new way ofrelating sexually to others that is in anon exploitative and a non-manipulativemanner and then Jesus discusses in verse31 and 32 he discusses divorce which wasa big problem among the Jews of his timeand what does righteousness mean when wecome to the question of divorce wellJesus talks about a new way of honoringwomen that is we're not seeking toexploit women or to abuse them then whenit comes to verse 33 through 37 Jesusgives us another example of what itmeans to live this righteousness uh hegives us a new Co a new code of honorthat is you live by your word itself andthen coming down to verses 38 and 42concerning retaliation you know ifsomebody strikes you on the cheek Jesussays we'll turn the other cheek Jesusgives us a new way of of dealing withabuse and evildoing that is disarmamentuh through through a a a peacefulresponse this is righteousness in actionand then in vers verse 43- 47 the end ofthis chapter where you've heard it saidthat you love your neighbor and hateyour enemy but I say unto you Jesusgives us a new way of living thisrighteousness um by teaching us that weshould treat all people as members ofour own family we should not be dividingpeople up into friends and enemies butwe are called as we live thisrighteousness that we hunger for dailywe are called to treat people as membersof our own family and therefore we wishthe very best for them this beatitudeconcludes blessed are those who hungerand thirst after righteousness for theyshall be filled this is an importantpoint because God is the one who's goingto satisfy this yearning forrighteousness and for many people todaythis is a strange concept because if webelieve that righteousness is adherenceto a lifestyle or a series of Lifestyleexpectations or an ethical standard thenwhat we're ultimately seeking is theapproval of the community around us butwhen Jesus says they shall be filledgrammatically this is known as a Divinepassive Jesus is saying it is God whosatisfies your hungering afterrighteousness it is not the approval ofthe community that you're seeking forand therefore if we seek daily that ifwe hunger and thirst after righteousnessthat the approval of our localcongregation is of secondary importanceto us to seeking the approval of ourheavenly father we're not concerned somuch about what the gossips might say orthe criticism that might come our waywe're not so worried when people say ohhe's slightly crazy he's taking hisfaith to a new extreme we're seekingfirst and foremost to express ourDelight in our relationship with God ona daily basis and we're seeking God'sapproval we're not seeking the approvalof men or women if righteousnessdescribes a relationship that is grantedas a gift from God that brings peacethen only God can satisfy that longingfor righteousness and the approval ordisapproval of our local community is ofsecondary concern only we are notrighteous to pleas our peers but we arerighteous to show gratitude to God andto maintain our relationship with him sothere are some questions that come outof thisbeatitude I just want to invite you toponder these questions you see them onthe screen here before you what doesrighteousness mean tome how does the Adventist lifestyleamong other things fit into jesus'understanding ofrighteousness does it do we seek to livean Adventist lifestyle because we wantthe Applause of those around us or arewe seeking to receive God's blessing andto receive the approval of God andseeking to honor God in all thedecisions we make on a daily basis am Ialready satisfied with God have I had myfill you might say am I Le deis leodDean or am I still hungering after Godtoday am I still yearning to grow in myexperience have I reached a point in myspiritual walk where I think I've comethis far and I don't need to go anyfurther I have enough head knowledge Ilive a suitable lifestyle that's goodenough forme well in this case this beatitudespeaks to to us in this situationbecause just as we look look for foodand drink on a daily basis Jesus isinviting us no matter where we are inour walk with him no matter how longwe've been walking in the light nomatter what our backgrounds may bewhether an ordained Pastor or an elderor a Sabbath school teacher or whateverwe may do for a professor in theUniversity Jesus is inviting us to dailyseek a deeper and a more lifegivingrelationship with him so is there apromise or an invitation from God for ustoday in this beatitude is the holyspirit speaking to our hearts today asyou watch online from your homes what isthe holy spirit saying to you are youseeking God's approval or are youseeking the approval of men if you'rehappy with the approval of men and womenare you really concerned about what Godthinks and so I want to challenge ustoday to to hunger and thirst afterrighteousness on a day daily basis toseek a more a more wholesome expressionof our relationship with our father inorder that we might that that we mightbring joy to him and that there might berejoicing in Heaven above which bringsus to the next of theseBeatitudes the next of these Beatitudesis found there in verse 7 blessed arethe merciful for They will receive mercyand it is a paradox of human nature thatwe tend to seek Justice for those whooffended us but Mercy from Those whom wehave offended ourselves we want Justiceto be applied to somebody that hurt mebut when it comes to me then I don'twant Justice to be applied to me I wantyou to receive mercy and this is aparadox of human nature doesn't matterwhat part of the world you live in itseems that people want Justice for thosewho hurt them and they want Mercy whenthey've hurt somebody themselves and yetwhen we look in the scriptures theHebrew Old Testament and in the seantthat is the Greek translation of the OldTestament we find that the the conceptsof justice and mercy are closely relatedjust as we've just been discussing thatJustice and righteousness are alsoclosely related within the OldTestament and so but it's interestingthat the word for merciful only appearsonce in the gospels and it's here inMatthew 5 and verse 7 we may major inMercy and that is a good thing but theonly time the word for Mercy or mercifulapp appears in all four gospels is herein Matthew 5 and verse 7 blessed are themerciful for They will receive mercy sowhat was Jesus talking about well thePharisees operated under a retributiveconcept of Justice which often hurtindividuals it means you hurt me I'llhurt you back an ey for an ey and atooth for a tooth and the point about aney for an ey and a tooth for a tooth wasnot that I hurt you and you hurt me backis because if you hurt me not only do Iwant to hurt you back but I want to givethat little bit extra just to teach youa lesson and so the whole point about aneye for an eye and a tooth for tooth isis not that know you hit me I can hityou back is actually restraining thehuman desire for vindictiveness andrevenge and just to give you that littlebit extra when I hurt you back and sofor an ie for an i a tooth for tooth isactually God restraining our humandesire to hurt one another but in thetime of Jesus in the second templeJudaism an eye for an eye and a toothfor a tooth had become merged with theidea that you hurt me I'm going to hurtyou twice as hardback but Jesus argues in this gospelhere that Mercy fulfills the demands ofJustice turn just a few pages to Matthew9 and verse 13 and this is the the onlypassage of the new of the Old Testamentthat Jesus quotes more than once uh hequotes it again in Matthew 12 and verse7 but this is what Jesus says it saysMatthew 9 and verse2 those who are wellhave no need of a physician but thosethose who are sick go and learn whatthis means I desire Mercy not sacrificefor I have come to call not therighteous butSinners and so Jesus in in the words ofJesus Mercy becomes a li a liberatingand a dignifying force mercy and Justiceare not to hurt the V not to hurt thosewho caused pain but in the in thekingdom of God Mercy isn't the agent bywhich God restores the Dignity of humanbeings when there is a conflict nowLeviticus 19 1-2 God called his peopleto be holy and this is what it says itsays the Lord spoke to Moses sayingSpeak to all the congregation of thepeople of Israel and say to them youshall be holy for I the Lord your God Iam Holy and in a sincere effort to befaithful to this command from God to beholy among the people of God the leadersof Israel had developed over thecenturies in the oral Torah a verydetailed list of the physicalrequirements for that Holiness what didit mean to be holy and by the time ofJesus in second temple Judaism Holinesswas equated with Purity and Purity wasequated with ritual cleanliness oruncleanliness and cleanliness was wasassociated with the notion that somepeople are ritually clean and somepeople are ritually unclean and so manyof the disputes that Jesus has with thePharisees such as Mark 7 when they askhis disciples why do you not wash yourhands before you eat these are questionsof ritual cleanliness but the good newsof Jesus is that Holiness the call toHoliness is not associated in theteachings of Jesus with cleanliness oruncleanliness in the teachings in thelife and Ministry of Jesus the conceptof Holiness is equated with Mercy in thegospel the politics of Purity arereplaced by the politics of compassionand this is what led to constantconflict with the religiousauthorities we see in the ministry ofJesus that being merciful involvesresponding to real human needs withcompassion inaction but there is a paradox here andwe need to explore this for a minutebecause being merciful and showing Mercyis a paradox for modern Believers andwhy do I say that well firstly do weforgive others as God forgives us theLord's Prayer in Matthew6:9-13 says this forgive us our sins aswe forgive those that sin against us andit sounds here as if the two forms offorgiveness me forgiving you and Godforgiving me that these two forms offorgiveness are actually parallel toeach other but if you turn over to theLord's Prayer in Luke 11 something elseis said there Luke 11:4 maybe turn inyour Bibles there we see there thatJesus says something slightly differentin Luke chap 11 and verse 4 uh we readthere it says and forgive us our sinsfor we ourselves forgive everyoneindebted to us the implication here isdo we forgive others in order that Godwill then forgive us it's slightlydifferent to what Matthew says where weforgive others as God forgives Us inLuke's gospel we forgive others in orderthat God will then forgive us and so wemust forgive others in order to receiveGod's forgiveness but there is anotherthere is another picture forgivenessback in Matthew's gospel if we turn toMatthew chapter 18 is the parable of theservant who was forgiven an incrediblesum of money by the master this is a paron Matthew chapter 18 A very famoussermon of Jesus and Jesus is talkingabout forgiveness and and the settlingof debts within the community of faithand In this passage here the parable ofthe unforgiving servant he tells of aservant who has forgiven a huge debt byhis master only to subsequently refuseto forgive a poultry debt over him by afellow servant and for this failure hewas condemned by his master and thelesson of Matthew 18 relating to mercyand forgiveness the question is does Godforgive us first and then we are able toforgive others because we've experiencedGod's forgiveness we now know what Mercytastes like we can then pass it on tosomebody else as a practicalillustration if you had to describe tosomebody what does ice cream tastes likewho's never tasted ice cream how wouldyou describe the taste of ice cream it'svery hard to do if you've never tastedice cream it's hard to describe youmight say well imagine um imagine thatyou have um uh you take some margarineand you put and and and you put yourspoon into the margarine then yousprinkle a bit of sugar on it and youput it in your mouth maybe that's theclosest you're going to get to toexplaining what ice cream tastes likeand the point here is that unless youhave experienced God's grace andforgiveness yourself it's very hard topass it on to somebody else but when youknow what forgiveness is you can passthat forgiveness on around the worldthis is one of the reasons why thesaints of God can look forward in Danielchapter 7 to a shared Dominion withJesus Christ for all eternity throughoutthe Universe why does God trust theSaints this the the Saints who make itthrough to the final Conflict and theymake it through to Heaven why does Godtrust the saints of God with eternalDominion of the universe a sharedDominion with Jesus Christ because therest of the universe may have seen sinbut we have experienced sin and the restof the universe may know that there's asuch thing as forgiveness but we haveexperienced God's forgiveness thereforewe can Faithfully represent hischaracter to the universe for the restof Eternity and so we have threepatterns of forgiveness that Jesus talksabout or Mercy within the gospels herefirstly do we forgive others as Godforgives us secondly do we forgiveothers in order that God forgives us andthirdly does God forgive us in orderthat we now know what forgiveness is andwe can offer Mercy to those around uswhich of these three patterns offorgiveness best captures what Jesus istalking about in this beatitude blessedare the merciful for they shall receiveMercy it's actually very hard to saythat Jesus is talking about one patternof forgiveness and not another patternof forgiveness maybe the reality is isthat in the complexity of our humanlives in the Brokenness of our livesthrough the pains and the aches thehurtful work and the painful memoriesall three um understandings offorgiveness come into play in differenttimes of Our Lives to show Mercy or toforgive truly is difficult but thealternative to showing Mercy is physicaland spiritual self-destruction throughthe nursing of grudges or the seeking ofRevenge such grievances are often passedfrom generation to generation and theybecome a destructive force in the livesof individuals and in in wider Societysuch as in vendettas the gospel teacheshere or Jesus is teaching in thisbeatitude blessed are the merciful thatthe Blessed Escape these cripplingcycles of Vengeance and bitterness andrevenge precisely because they aremerciful that they break the cycle ofhurt of hurtful actions and they chooseto forgive and in in choosing to forgivethey are blessed because they escape forgenerations to come those cycles ofvendettas and the seeking of Revenge sowhat are the implications of thisparticular beatitude well firstly Jesusmodeled Mercy to the social Outsiders ofhis day in the gospel of Matthew Jesusministered to tax collectors and sinnersin Matthew chapter 9 Matthew andprostitutes in Matthew's gospel inMatthew chapter 15 Jesus ministered to aa Canaanite woman a woman from the samepart of the world as Jezebel in thestory of Ahab and Elijah in Matthewchapter 8 Jesus ministered to lepers whoare literally social outcasts in Matthew26: 1 6-13 Jesus has an emphasis onMinistry to women in Matthew chapter 9Jesus ministers to those with Dreaddiseases and even to the dead are thebeneficiaries of his ministry Mercy forJesus was not an abstract concept but itinvolved a personal reaching out tothose who were excluded from the visibleand the respectable Community of Faithin his time and he sought to draw drathem into the kingdom ofGod secondly like the Pharisees of oldmany modern-day disciples are Adeptdrawing circles to Define Kingdominsiders once you've defined who akingdom Insider is by implication youdefined who the kingdom Outsiders aremany disciples today we tend to havedefinitions of modern day orcontemporaryCanaanites and uh many modern daydisciples they seek to avoid all contactwith Outsiders to avoid some kind ofspiritual cont contamination yet how arethose Outsiders going to be warmlyinvited and led into the kingdom of Godif the kingdom insiders are so focusedon their own standards of Purity andtheir own lifestyle that they actuallywant to avoid those on the outside andso the previous teaching of Jesusblessed are those who hunger and thirstafter righteousness comes into play heredoes it not if we're focused onmaintaining a lifestyle and not tocontact and come into contact withpeople who don't have that lifestylethen we we're barking up the wrong treerighteousness in action is very similarto Mercy In Action and it involvesadopting the the the mission of Jesuswhich was to seek and to save that whichis lost yet the dynamic of Mercy as wesee in the teachings of Jesus is anabsolute necessity for those who dwellwithin the kingdom of God Mercy in theteachings of Jesus isnon-negotiable yet it is often prizedless among Believers today than holdingto Absolute and often very arbitrarylifestyle standards or standards ofrighteousness as we understand themtoday yet in the teachings of Jesus inthis beatitude a refusal to show Mercyor refusal to work to show Mercy toothers actually excludes disciples fromthe kingdom of God look in Matthewchapter 6 in The Sermon on the Mountthere in verse 14 and 15 Jesus says forif you forgive others their trespassesyour heavenly father will also forgiveyou but if you do not forgive othersneither will your father forgive yourtrespasses this is a stark warning fromJesus that Mercy is a non-negotiablecomponent of what it means to live inthe kingdom of God today we want toreceive Mercy from God and so we arecalled by God to show Mercy to thosearound us God's people are therefore tobe known as people of Mercy for we areto reflect the image of God who said toMoses in Exodus 34 that the Lord ismerciful and gracious it is his verycharacter and finally of offeringforgiveness and mercy preempts the needfor future forgiveness because we breakthe cycles of Vengeance seeking when weforgive from our heart we recognize thevarious forms of human and personal andinstitutional helplessness anddeprivation and we allow ourselves to bemoved by the same compassion that movedJesus this compassion in the ChristianCommunity is to be tangible we talkabout becoming free of debt and when wetalk about being free of debt we talkabout Financial Freedom but Jesus isprimarily concerned about freedom fromemotional and spiritual debts for someindividuals this forgiveness involvesreconciliation between groups Jesus isteaching us about conflict resolutionbetween nations Jesus is Calling maybefor the Forgiveness of financial debtsthat prevent other nations andgenerations from being freed of theburdens of the past whatever the debtforgiveness may be Matthew's housechurches were to be a living witness tothe transforming power of the GospelJesus wants wants us to live debt-freeand he's not talking about financialdebt so much he's talking about havingno spiritual debts among ourselves weactively seek to clear the balance to toclose those accounts on a daily basisthat we do not maintain anger andbitterness and rage but we work forreconciliation and we work we weourselves show Mercy as we' going toexplore in the next two days um blessedare the peacemakers which is a beautifulbeatitude peacemaking in the mind ofJesus in involves sacrificing myself inorder that the wider Community can beblessed we'll come to that later in ourstudy on these Beatitudes I want to uhclose this morning we have a few minutesleft with an example and uh I likegiving practical illustrations so um I'mI'm hoping I don't burn the church downhere today but on my morning walk uhthis morning I I collected a read andI've lost that read so um or it's stillmy car so I don't have it here there isone individual in the gospel of Matthewwho exemplifies what it means to be arighteous and a merciful individualother than Jesus and that isJoseph Joseph it says in Matthew chapter1 Joseph was a righteous individual andwhy was Joseph A righteous individualwell the the gospel tells us that whenJoseph discovered that Mary was pregnantout of wedlock it says being a righteousman he was minded to put her awayquietly now in that in those days therewere two kinds of divorce theconservatives insisted you could onlydivorce for grounds of sexual immoralityand that involved condemning the guiltyparty the no fault divorce was where aman could divorce his wife for literallyburning the proverbial toast I mean youhave no reason you could just say Idivorce you and that was it and the wifewas divorced whether she wanted it ornot and Joseph when he discovered thatMary was pregnant he could have optedfor the fault the at faal divorce theconservative option for divorce whichwas you you have committed sexualimmorality you are now pregnant outsideof childbirth my reputation has beenharmed and if I don't sue you fordivorce on the grounds of immoralityeverybody's going to assume that I'm thefather and that I've been guilty ofimmorality as well and Joseph ratherthan taking that option and putting allthe blame onMary he chose to put her away quietlythat is a no fault divorce that is noSee See No Evil Hear no evil speak noevil we're just quietly going toseparate and I'm not going to shame Maryin public public he chose to se toseparate quietly and to Bear for therest of his life the shame and the theScandal and the whispering and thegossip that where did Mary get pregnantwho's the father of her child but hechose to put her away quietly and thegospel calls him a righteous individualthe literally is a dios we get the wordrighteousness from that diun which iswhat Jesus talks about in his beatitudeof blessed are those who hung and thirstafterrighteousness wellthe Messianic concept of justice aswe've already seen in Isaiah chapter42 it says that uh they will not quenchor throw away a burningWick well I have here this is um asecond century oillamp um it's from a time of Christianpersecution now the reason we know thisis from a time of Christian persecutionit's from Palestine it's made of TerraCotta is that on the top we have theselittle um looks like flowers have beenimprinted in in in this in this itemhere but and there's there's a wicksticking out here but you know it's aChristian lamp because underneath itthere's a cross carved into the base andChristians would often carve a crossinto the bottom of theirlampstand um as a sign as a symbol thatthey are actually loyal to Jesus andthey are the light of the world and soyou know it's a Christian lampstandbecause there's a cross on the bottomand it's on the bottom because there waspersecution of Christians and they wouldput olive oil into this then they put awick bit of flax or a piece of cotton ora bit of wool in there and the wickwould soak up the um the wick would soakup the oil and it would burn so I havesome olive oil here and I'm not going toburn in my second century I'm not goingto burn in my second centuryum lampstand that's too precious forthat but I have a wick I'm going to soakit in the oil hereandthen I'm going to burn it there you haveyour lamp the lamp stand and it'sburning through thewick and when the lamp the light goesout what you're leftwith is something of no value thisreally has no value the only thing thatis that this is fit for is to be thrownout and that is the point of MessianicJustice you see when Joseph sawMary he he lived out Messianic Justiceit says that Messianic Justice meansthat he will not he will not uh um throwout a broken Reed he will not throw outa burnt Wick even something as uselessand as broken as a burnt Wick that theMessiah will notharm Joseph could have chosen to throwMary out of his house and get rid of theScandal but rather than getting rid ofher and maintaining his own um socialstanding he chose to take her into hishouse as his wife he showed her mercy hesaw her yes broken the subject ofcommunity Scandal as a young teenagegirl uncertain of her future with achild by the Holy Spirit not knowing howshe would provide for that child when itwas born he chose to see her as a burntWick or as a broken Reed and he took herinto his home and he stood by her he wasa righteous individualand in so doing the Messiah cameliterally into his ownhome had Joseph chosen to get rid ofMary the Messiah would not have enteredhis home and the man who spent more timewith the Messiah while he was on Earthwas Joseph precisely because he wasmerciful to Mary in her hour ofdesperateneed Jesus said and he knows this fromhis own family experience blessed arethe merciful for they shall be filledblessed are those who hunger and thirstafterrighteousness for they shall be filledJesus knew from his own life that whenwe show Mercy to those in theirBrokenness when we hunger and thirstafter righteousness we actually make itpossible for the Messiah to enter ourown homes to enter our own marriages andto enter our own lives it's my challengefor us for all of you here todaywatching at home online or in ourcongregation today is there somebody inyour life that you need to show MercMercy to today how do you relate thesedynamics of forgiveness that we've beenreading about in these these beatitudeof Jesus are there any modern dayCanaanites in your life is God callingyou to to recalibrate our thinking sothey're no longer Canaanites butpotential brothers and sisters and isthere a promise or an invitation for youin these two Beatitudes today blessedare those who hunger and thirst afterrighteousness for they shall be filledblessed are the merciful for they shallreceive Mercy Joseph did both and theMessiah entered his home and heexperienced the blessing of Jesus forthe rest of his life may that be ourexperience as we live these Beatitudestoday in the name of Jesus I pray thisfor all of us amen