Will it stand for the reading of God's word is two of our
seniors? Olivia Island Lane Jones, Come
and read to us from Matthew Chapter 5, the Beatitudes.
All right, seeing the crowds he went up on the mountain and when
he sat down his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth
and taught them saying blessed are the poor in spirit for
theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for
they shall be? Comforted blessed, are those the
blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for
they shall be satisfied. Blessed, are the merciful for
they shall receive Mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart
for they shall see. God blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness
sake? For theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven. Blessed?
Are you and others? Revile, you, and persecute, you
and other utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my
account rejoice, and be glad for your reward is great in heaven
for. So they persecuted the prophets
who were before you, this is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated. Thank you both.
I'm very grateful. May is a month for many people,
where our eyes are moving back for all the seniors.
It's probably already happened and if it hasn't yet, it will
over the next couple of weeks where you're going to see your
parents and grandparents others, who love you, dearly shedding
tears. They're going to see pictures
and you're going to see pictures, sometimes in private,
sometimes on big screens where you are a baby and you probably
didn't. Choose the picture they put up
there, but it's going to move through with music signifying.
These incredible events that took place in your life.
You've just graduated or about to graduate high school.
There are other seniors in our church.
Those who have just graduated college or about two?
Others are moving on, from eighth grade to ninth grade.
In some of those schools, have their own graduation ceremonies.
And then each time there is this turning of a page there is a
moment especially for parents and Grandparents were the
remembering what took place just as As you are and then looking
forward to what's next. Our daughter Madeline, our
second born graduated yesterday from the University of Oklahoma.
Here's what was great about that ceremony for her College, it
only lasted one hour. It was incredible, but it was
very different when my wife and I and some of her siblings came
into the huge Auditorium was pretty full, but we didn't know
one person other than our daughter compared to graduation
where we knew almost everybody that was there.
It seems pictures are going to flow, you're going to see
things. And remember, things and be
celebrated and it's wonderful. But then the next chapter of
your life is going to come with new pictures, my daughter Maddie
and Major is soon going to be teaching at Yale.
Not the one known as a college with the handsome, Dan the
Bulldog, but they yell roadrunners.
Here in Richardson, should be teaching fourth, grade listening
to the young woman, who spoke at her graduation, she said some
very interesting things not unlike what you're going to hear
your graduations centered on the world as it's been while you've
been in school. Think about it spring break two
years ago and all that begin to change so quickly.
I heard that woman began to speak of it that thinking we're
over this we don't need to hear any more about the pandemic that
was a wake of Destruction we're still experiencing but let's
move on. But reality is when she said
this we're all teachers we're going to be teaching in
textbooks. The reality of what we have been
living. It's true you guys have grown up
in an amazing season in the history.
Not only of our country, but our world.
Leaving graduation celebrating that wonderful day.
Coming back from Norman to Dallas turning on the news last
night, I had not heard of what took place a buffalo.
A young man about the age of some of you decided out of hate
that he would go and take the lives of innocent people.
We live in a dark divided in dangerous worlds, and I'm not
going to spend a lot of time, staying in the darkness and then
the In and then the danger of this morning because I want us
to remember what we've been singing that we will not deny
the reality of that pain, that Brokenness that evil.
But we must remember who we are in Christ in the midst of it.
I love what will said to you that in Christ, you will be a
problem for the enemy wherever you go.
We want that for you. We want you to look at us and
challenge us to see if we're being a problem for the enemy in
the place. Has of work that we go in the
church that we worship in and we will be an enemy.
Of the enemy, a problem for the enemy of serious problem for the
enemy. If we abiding in Christ live
out, the Beatitudes that are before us this morning.
As I said last Sunday, we're going to continue to talk about
mercy and mercy in this text is primarily centered on
compassion. It's centered on this idea of
compassion. That's not just an emotion, a
feeling for Those who are suffering in the misery of sin
in the world but it's compassion with action.
I love how will said that you are committed to missions.
Well Mercy is Mission. It is being moved by something
that you see that is broken. Something that is dark,
something that is divided, something that is dangerous.
The world in which you have grown up in, especially the last
couple years, though. It's Unique is not new in
history. Think about Genesis 3, all the
way back to the beginning of your Bible. when Adam and Eve
ate the sin that the evil deceiver tempted them with when
they ate the apple committing that sin, they experienced This
incredible Darkness, they experienced division between
them and God between them and one another.
They were naked before sin and didn't even know it and as soon
as they ate the apple, their eyes were opened, and they
realized they were naked in the head, pay attention to the word
eyes today. Then they experience the danger
of what sin does in the world. The violence of their first two
children, one murdering the other ever since the fall the
world has experienced the darkness.
It is experience the division, it is experienced the danger.
So I want us all to think about today, not just the seniors is,
how are we looking at the world? And how was the world looking at
us, does the world? And those who are lost, see the
radiance of something or someone in us, that is compelling.
They will. If they see these attributes in
her life, they will see mercy and not understand it because
Mercy is truly shocking to understand it.
I want everybody to grab their own Bible.
If you brought it or open the bloop you Bible, In turn to Luke
the Gospel of Luke chapter 10. I encourage you last week to go
to this place and listen to this story.
Again, it's not new to any of us.
Maybe there's a few would be new too, and I'm glad that's new to
you. I'm glad you're here to hear it,
but I'm going to read the parable of the Good Samaritan
for. There is no greater story that
Christ use outside of his own example of Mercy.
Luke chapter 10 look with me at verse 25 and let's walk through
this. Behold a lawyer stood up to put
Jesus to the test teacher. What shall I do to inherit
eternal life? Now, listen to what he says.
Jesus says, what is written in the law?
Have you, how do you read it? And he answered, you shall love
the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and
with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor
as yourself, and he said to them, you've answered Directly
do this and you will live, but the lawyer wanted more
justification. He wanted to justify himself,
that's what he was asking for. And who is my neighbor in other
words, he wanted to know who do I have to love that way?
Now, listen to what Jesus says, he replied A man was going down
from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped
him, and beat him and departed. Leaving him half dead.
Now, as I I've said before we often read our Bible so fast we
can be in a Bible reading plan and we're just simply trying to
check the box for the day read slow, slow down, ask the Holy
Spirit to illuminate your eyes and open your ears.
Pay attention to what the story is being told how would the
people have heard the story? How could this story relate to
today? So picture the man he's been
robbed. He's been beaten.
He's been left half dad, have you ever seen someone like that?
Not just on TV but really beaten, it's a disturbing
picture. Christ is telling this
disturbing picture before he tells what's even more
disturbing. He says, Now by chance verse 31,
a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he
passed by on the other side. Likewise a levite when he came
to the place and saw him passed by on the other side, but a
Samaritan as he journeyed came to where he was And when he saw
him, he had compassion. So what do you notice about
those three? All three individuals saw him.
Every day, we see people, maybe not lying half dead on the side
of the road but lying dead spiritually in the lunchroom.
On our teams in our classrooms co-workers neighbors, we see
people every day who were lying half-dead.
We see people who are experiencing the misery of Sin
Sin done, too. Them by them sent outside of
them. And inside of them, the priest
who in this case would be the most religious sees him.
And you could tell by the way, Luke The Physician records this
from a distance, he recognizes that.
It's a person who could be dead and if he touches someone who is
dead he will be defiled and unclean.
So from a distance of seeing the man in need Or potentially dead.
He simply crosses the street and moves along the other side.
He turned away from what he saw. He did not have compassion.
He did not show Mercy. He might have felt sad.
We aren't told he might add sorrow, but feeling sad and
having sorrow is not Mercy. That doesn't Shock the World
seeing something that's wrong. Seeing the Brokenness and acting
in love with, however, your He ball that's Mercy.
The levite who's also religious not as highest status as the
priest but the one who's responsible for the Liturgy and
the temple. He sees him and based on the
way, the Greek unfolds, we see that he actually got closer to
the individual, but what does he do?
He steps away as well. It goes down the side of the
street whether he felt anything or not as not Mercy.
He didn't show Mercy. Now comes the shock.
Those listening to this story would have been expecting Jesus
to say, but then a Jewish lay person.
A person who's part of our community but not of the
religious establishment. Lay person was walking down the
street but that's not what they heard because it's shocking is
that might have been and a slap at the establishment of religion
that Jesus might have given he does something more.
He says, somebody that you despise somebody who would have
been despised by the man laying on the street beaten half-dead.
That is who comes, who sees the same man.
And instead of crossing the street and pretending he's not
there, instead of only feeling something, maybe not even that
perhaps, but doing nothing, even if he felt something, he moves
towards him, pick it up with me at verse 34, but a Samaritan
went to him and bound up his wounds pouring on oil and wine
on him. Then he set him on his own
animal and he brought him to an inn and took care of him.
And the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to The
Innkeeper. That would provide 24 days of
food and he gave them to The Innkeeper saying, take care of
him and whatever more. You spend, I will repay.
To you, when I come back then, Jesus asked the question from
this story, which of these three do you think proved to be a
neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?
And the lawyer says this, the one who showed him what to say,
Mercy. What Mercy, the one who was
fulfilling, what Christ has said, was the Samaritan who
showed Mercy, Mercy is shown compassion, can be felt, but
compassion without Mercy is not Mercy.
Compassion without action is not Mercy.
The one who showed him Mercy he said and Jesus said to him you
go and do likewise picture the story.
The priest saw him and went the other way didn't want to be
defiled didn't want to take time the levite the same way
expecting this to be a story about a Jewish layperson who
Rises to the occasion and shows what it really means to be Godly
Christ goes further and shocks him.
It wasn't a Jewish layperson, it was the very people that you
racially despise, this individual comes and offers
Mercy. What does the mercy look like
first? When he sees them?
He went to him when you see someone who is in a dark place,
who's experiencing the division of this world, who is in a
dangerous place, go to them. Last week, I read from Matthew
chapter 8, and 9, the two chapters of Follow The Sermon on
the Mount. And I showed us one after
another. Another, how many times Jesus
showed Mercy. That section of scripture ends
with two Blind Men. Crying out to Jesus.
Jesus is passing by and the two Blind Men know that he's coming
and they shout out, have mercy on us.
Jesus. What does that mean?
Don't just have compassion. Do something like the leper who
went to Jesus. Early in Matthew 8 said if you
are willing you can make me clean.
Jesus said I'm willing. He was willing.
Now, to The Blind Men, when they cry out, have mercy, son of
David. Jesus asked them, do you believe
that I am able to do this? And they said to him?
Yes, Lord, Jesus was willing in. Jesus was able in Christ Jesus,
because we are filled with his Spirit.
He has given us the ability to show, others Mercy did not just
feel, Shin and walk on the other side of the street, to ignore
the lonely person and walk to the other side of the cafeteria,
to ignore the person who is just committed a heinous sin and is
struggling in shame. He's given us the ability to
show Mercy to hold Jesus out. But will we have, the will do we
have the will Jesus had both and Jesus gives both the Samaritan
went to him. Then we're told that he touched
him, the very wounds that the man had needed to be tended to.
He wasn't a doctor, but he had the ability to do triage.
He had the ability to do what was needed in that moment.
And the will to do it, to make sure this man might be able to
survive. He took all and wine, his very
own things in poured them on the wounds.
And then he took the man and he carried him how many lonely
broken people could be carried by us?
To the throne of Christ. He's given us the ability in
him, he can give us the will as well.
From there. He transports him to a place
where he can receive greater need.
And then he pays for the care. He gives what's necessary for
now. And I'm guessing based on the
credibility of the man, The Innkeeper receives the promise,
that whatever it costs, I'll take care of it.
When I return, which tells us That he wasn't just going to
show Mercy For a Moment. He was going to return.
Mercy isn't drive by. Throwing turkeys over a wall to
starving people. Mercy isn't just occasionally
writing a check to be done with it, that's part of it.
But it's being engaged with the people that God has put in your
path, our path that are experiencing the profound
Brokenness of sin in them and outside of them done by them,
done to them. It's amazing story.
Keep your eyes open. What do you see?
And when you see a need has God given you the ability to do
something about it every time not just sometimes, And are you
going to? That is where the will comes in.
And if our life is characterized by a consistency of not caring,
that means there is an enormous disconnect and our understanding
of the mercy, that was done to us by God himself, who sent his
son to die that we might live forever.
One of the most amazing displays of Mercy.
The most amazing display of RC is Jesus Christ on the cross.
But from that, remarkable place of Mercy.
Jesus says one of the most amazing things.
Father forgive them. For they know not what they do.
Mercy. Given by our Lord shown by our
Lord is also given to us. Enabling us to show the same
kind of Mercy to those like us who didn't deserve it. one of
the most powerful occasions of Mercy on display is when we, as
Believers, show it to others who have sinned against us, Others
who don't think like us others who have wronged us Mercy is
seen, so bright and so beautiful.
When Believers are willing to say to someone who has wronged
them and even severe wrong. He's and say, I forgive you what
I'm going to share for a moment is not cheap.
Forgiveness I know his children at some point.
If you've got a sibling, your parents said to you, when you
were in Conflict, tell her, you're sorry, I'm sorry.
Tell him. If you forgive him, I forgive
you, good move on. Nothing of significance happened
in that transaction, except the parents got a little bit of
peace, and every parent has set it and you will when your
parents. This is not what I'm talking
about. Some of you have experienced
profound wrongs domestically, Some of you have experienced
some profound wrongs professionally, and forgiveness
is really hard, and that's why forgiveness is so incredibly,
beautiful, especially in cases, when it is so, so difficult.
So, please don't hear me saying that this is easy or shallow or
a very quick. I forgive you, let's move on.
But sometimes we think the only reason Jesus was able to save
from the cross. Father forgive them for they do
not know what they know what they do is because he was God.
So let me close by taking this to Acts chapter 7.
Verse 54. Prior to what I'm about to read.
Steven a follower of Christ, have been telling the history of
redemption up to this point. Sometimes we think if we show
Mercy, we're compromising truth. We never need to compromise
truth but I'm afraid that many Christians say and spew in Yale
truth and never show Mercy. That is not what God is calling
us to either. Steven wasn't compromising truth
prior to what I'm about to read. He said to the Jewish leaders,
you stiff-necked people. Uncircumcised in heart and ears.
You always resist the Holy Spirit as your father's did.
So do you He was telling the truth.
And when they heard the truth that have been going on for some
time, as Stephen filled with the Holy Spirit is saying these
things. It tells us in verse 54 what
happened? Now, when they heard these
things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him
picture that But he Stephen Full of the Holy Spirit.
If you're a Christian, the same, holy spirit, that filled
Stephen. In this moment in history is the
same. Holy spirit that lives in you
the same, Holy Spirit, not a different one, not unless Iran,
but he full of the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and he saw the
glory of God. Can you imagine what he saw?
And he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and then he
said these words before Hold, I see the heavens opened and the
son of man standing at the right hand of God but they cried out
with a loud voice and they stopped their ears and rushed
together at him. Imagine the scene.
This isn't Jesus. Now this isn't a Divine being.
This is a man just like us. He's looking up and seeing
something that's beyond description.
But the same time, those who are grinding, their teeth are
rushing at him verse 58. Then they cast him out of the
city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their
garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Who is this young man? He's the one who's going to
write thirteen books of the New Testament?
but now, He's endorsing celebrating.
What's about to happen to Stephen?
And as they were stoning, Stephen, he called out Lord.
Jesus receive my spirit and falling to his knees.
Imagine. As the stones are being thrown
at him, moved on him and falling to his knees.
He cried out with a loud voice, Lord.
Do not hold this sin against them.
And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Chapter 8, you probably would stop reading at this moment to
check the box for the day but I don't want to let me read the
first verse and Saul approved of his execution.
They didn't have mercy on Steven.
Because they were blind. They were doing in this moment
of stoning, him what made sense to them, because they were
blind, Saul, who would go on to write 13 books of the Bible was
doing what made sense to him to protect his religion because he
was blind. Not many pages past this.
We know what happens. As Saul is on a road.
This isn't a parable now. His eyes are blinded.
He hears the voice of Christ. Saul Saul, why are you
persecuting me? He spends a season blind a few
days and then his eyes are opened and when his eyes are
open to see the Glorious similar glory to what Steve and saw his
life is transformed. No one could have imagined that
this man who was throwing Christians in prison throwing
Owns that Christians approving of the execution of Christian
leaders. He would one day profess with
his lips. That Jesus Christ is the one who
saved me. He's the only one who can save
you. He was shown mercy and from the
mercy, he received, he spent the rest of his life seeking to show
that Mercy to others. Some of you.
No, the story of Corrie, Ten. Boom.
And I'm going to close by reading something from her book,
from her journal. It's too easy for us to think.
With stories about Christ in stories.
Like this about the followers of Christ in the Bible that they
were just some level of super Christian, it's not true.
Corrie Ten. Boom, was at Robins Brook
concentration camp. She experienced the darkness,
the division, and the danger of this world.
Like we can't even imagine But it was at a church service in
Munich years later that she writes.
I first saw him, the SS man who had stood guard at the shower
room door in the processing center at Robins Brooke.
He was the first of our actual jailers that I'd seen since that
time and suddenly it was all there, the room full of mocking
men, the heaps of women's clothing Betsy.
Her pain, blanched face. Corrie, Ten.
Boom. Had been speaking at this
church. The man didn't know who she was,
but he heard what she said. He came up to me as the church
was emptying beaming and bowing. He said to me how grateful I am
for your message to think. That as you say, he has washed
away, my sins. His hand was Thrust out to shake
mine. That hand.
That hand which had done so much evil. and I who had proclaimed
so often to the people, the need to forgive kept my hand at my
side. Even as the angry vengeful.
Thoughts, boiled through me. I saw the sin of them.
What Mercy? Jesus Christ had died for this
man. Was I going to ask for more Lord
Jesus, I prayed forgive me and help me to forgive I tried to
smile, I struggled to raise my hand.
I could not. I felt nothing.
You blame her.
I felt nothing. Not the slightest spark of
warmth or charity. And so, again, I breathe the
silent prayer sometimes. That's all we can do.
Sometimes, it's all we can do. I breathed a silent prayer,
Jesus? I cannot forgive him.
She couldn't and we can't. Apart from Christ.
Give me your forgiveness. As I took his hand, the most
incredible thing happened. As I took his hand.
Can you imagine feeling that hand?
From my shoulder, along my arm and threw my hand.
A current seem to pass from me to him while into my heart
spring. A love for this stranger.
That almost overwhelmed me. Mercy.
Compassion for a sinner who had done so much evil against.
Her sister and so many others. Mercy isn't just feeling sorry
it's action and what was her first action?
A prayer. I can't do this.
I'm not able. I'm not willing.
But he was, and he did. And she was just a woman, not
divine. And so are you and so, are you?
So, are we? Who are in Christ.
We're Jesus, thank you for the love that you've shown to us.
You loved us first. So we can say we love you back.
You showed us mercy and you show us mercies each day.
And father, from this place of Mercy, you give us the ability
to see To have compassion and to act as we are able.
So would you do that even now bring to mind first, the mercy
that we have received and overwhelm us?
Even in this moment that we might leave this place eager to
overwhelm others with forgiveness, with compassion,
with love. We pray in Jesus name.
Amen.