The Hero of Our Story: Grace and More Grace

Last Sunday after I finished preaching, I took an alternate route home and stopped by Dominque Inferrara’s home to pick some Grapefruit.   Last year he let me pick some grapefruit from his tree, and then a couple weeks ago he told me to come by and pick as many grapefruit as I wanted. So I did.   I filled up the basket on my golf cart with around 25 grapefruit. But the funny thing was, that after I had done that, you couldn’t tell if I’d even picked even one grapefruit off that tree. It was simply loaded with hundreds of big, ripe, ruby red grapefruit. That bumper crop of a tree reminded me of our God. Our God is a God of abundance. He’s a generous God. In fact, when it comes to the blessings of His grace to us in Jesus Christ, you could say that when it comes to the supply of God’s grace, it’s always a bumper crop. There’s a never-ending supply of God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ. There’s grace upon Grace. Grace and more grace. Grace was what was at the core of Jesus’ teaching.

That’s one of the reasons Jesus is the Hero of our Story. Its because He brought the good news, the joyful new of God’s kingdom to us when He came and lived among us. When we look at Jesus we see the human face of God. When we see how Jesus lived among us, we see the goodness of God in action. And now, as we dig into what Jesus taught, we hear the good news of God’s grace to us in the good news of the kingdom.

We’ve heard the good news of help for the helpless, for the spiritually poor, with Jesus declaring that God draws near the lowly, the humble in heart. Grace! We’ve heard the good news of healing to the hurting, to us who mourn over our sin, who are now blessed because Jesus has come to comfort us by removing our burden of sin and guilt. Grace! We’ve heard the good news of hope to the hopeless, the meek ones, for whom Jesus promises a blessed future. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Grace! Then last week we saw God’s grace for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. How He gives us a new appetite for His will and promises to satisfy us. Again, Grace. Another gift from God to us.

Now today, we want to continue unpacking God’s grace to us from Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:7-9, where we will see three more blessings of God’s grace to us.  And the first of these blessings is found in verse 7,

1. Grace for the compassionate heart   Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Matthew 5:7  The merciful. Jesus is speaking to those with caring and compassionate hearts. These were the people who cared for everyone, but rarely experience care in return. These were the ones who had compassion for the sick and imprisoned. These were the ones who would bring clothing and food to the leper colonies. And these are the ones who try to see the best in people, even when those people try to use them or take advantage of them, because they have a heart of mercy.

Mercy was a rare virtue in Jesus’ day. The religious elite rarely showed mercy. Being merciful was simply not a characteristic of the proud, self-righteous and judgmental. In fact, for many, being merciful wasn’t a virtue at all. One of the reasons could be attributed to their Roman occupiers. For the Romans, mercy was the supreme sign of weakness. It was a sign that you did not have what it takes to be a real man and especially a real Roman. The Romans glorified courage, strict justice, firm discipline, and absolute power. They looked down on mercy, because mercy to them was weakness, and weakness was despised above all other human limitations.

This is still true in our culture today. We hear it expressed this way: “If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.” Not only is this true in our culture, but this attitude of mercy has often been lacking among God’s people – especially men. In one Church I pastored, our men evaluated themselves with all the virtues, and this area of mercy was consistently the weakest. When we talked about this, almost every man said that he needed to grow in compassion. This is consistent with the philosophy where men are taught to be individuals who rely on no one, and that to ask for help from another guy is a sign of weakness. We are not all that different from the Romans of Jesus’ day.

But when Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy,” He was announcing good news to those who hurt for the needs of their fellow man. He was saying that He knows their pain, their misery, their distress, and he will meet their need. He will show them mercy.

Now, if there was ever a merciful person, it was Jesus. He reached out to heal the sick. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and even life to the dead. He included prostitutes, tax-collectors, the immoral and drunkards, and drew them into his circle of love and forgiveness. He made them his friends. Jesus touched the untouchable and loved the unlovable. He was merciful to everyone. And yet, the more Jesus showed mercy, the more He showed up the unmerciful religious leaders. And the more He showed mercy, the more they were determined to kill him. And yet, this was all part of His plan to give us mercy on the cross.

For it was there on that cross where Jesus’ last words were words of mercy. For His executioners He prayed, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:24). To the thief hanging beside him He said, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” And to His mother He said, “Woman, behold your son,’ then and to his disciple (John), “Behold, your mother.” And when Jesus breathed his last and said, “It is finished,” he declared the good news that now mercy is available to anyone who believes. For when He gave up His life for you on that cross, he made it possible for you to be forgiven and made right with God. That’s what mercy does.

Mercy delivers us in our area of our greatest need. And the greatest need of every man and woman is to be forgiven of our sin… For every pain: broken homes and broken hearts; every misery: devastating poverty, crime and abuse; every disease and all suffering, all the problems in our world have there origins in sin. We are not as we should be. We are not right and our world is not right because of sin. And so God gives us mercy by giving Jesus to take away our sin and make us right with Him. That’s the good news of God’s mercy. Out of the abundance of God’s blessing comes the gift of God’s mercy to us in Jesus. He delivers us from the consequences of our sin. He takes away our guilt and shame. He makes us righteous and gives us a new life. That’s the gospel. He gives us what we cannot give ourselves. And that’s grace. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy”

God gives grace to the hurting, but he also gives grace to the hopeful. That’s the next blessing of God’s grace. Look with me now at verse 8. Not only is there grace for the compassionate heart, there is…

2. Grace for the undivided heart  Jesus now says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  Matthew 5:8   This is God’s grace to the hopeful. These are the ones characterized by innocence. They are not perfectly innocent; they are more like little children, who have this sense of innocence that is not corrupted by the world. These are the ones who cringe at the impurity and injustice around them. They’re repulsed by foul language or violence or rudeness. They are sensitive to insults, foul play and sexual immorality. They are not jaded by the indifference that’s so prevalent today. These are the sweet people, the wholesome people who hate the ugliness of sin and how it corrupts and hurts them and harms others.

The Greek term used here for “pure” was a word used of metals that had been refined until all impurities were removed, leaving only the pure metal. In that sense, purity means unmixed, unalloyed, unadulterated. Applied to the heart, the idea is that of pure motive – of single-mindedness, of integrity – in other words, “an undivided heart.”

This characteristic of an undivided heart creates the kind of people who are idealists. This makes them hard on themselves. They endlessly pick over their own motivations. They are often miserable with the state of their own hearts and always see all that’s wrong in the world. But at the same time, they have high hopes for what the world could be. This is why they are called the hopeful ones.

So it is to these idealists, these hopeful ones, that Jesus gives the promise of seeing God. Because they have a childlike faith that’s not jaded by the world, when they look at Jesus, they will be able see God in him, and come to trust that Jesus is God. Because they are idealists, when they look at his acts of mercy and hear his teachings, they will see that Jesus is the God’s anointed, the Messiah, and they will follow in him. For at last they will see in Jesus as the One who satisfies their hopes. And this will bring them great joy.

Let me ask you? When you look at Jesus, who do you see? What do you hear when he teaches? Do you see a man sent from God? Do you hear his words and want to follow Him? Who do you see? Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

This is the promise of Jesus. This is the good news of God’s grace. And I wonder today, what might keep you from seeing God? John tells us that Jesus was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. If you are having trouble seeing Jesus, it could be that you’ve allowed your heart to become jaded by the world. If you are having trouble seeing Jesus, it could be that you’ve got an unclean heart. If you are having trouble seeing Jesus, it could be that your pride has squelched your once child like innocence. Maybe Jesus sounds too good to be true… but there’s still a small part of you that hopes He is true…

…And if that’s you, this is where grace comes in! Because if you have that sliver of hope, then God wants to give you a new heart, a pure heart, so that you can see Him, and know Him. That’s the hope of the gospel, that’s the hope of the cross. For it’s the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross that purifies your heart. He died on that cross to give you a new heart, a open your eyes to see God. This is what God promised in Ezekiel 11: I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19 Jesus came to purify your heart so you can see God. That’s grace. He gives us what we cannot give ourselves.   God sent Jesus to do this for you. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

 3. Grace for the vulnerable heart Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. This last group are those who long for harmony among men. They are the vulnerable ones because they are willing to risk welcoming outsiders; willing to live at peace with those they disagree with, and willing to make friends with the anyone regardless of their race, religion or reputation. And Jesus says that they will be called children of God because they reflect their Father’s character – and more importantly, they reflect the character of Jesus who was a friend of sinners.

Jesus is the ultimate peacemaker. Not only did he make friends with the least likely people; he risked it all to die for us so we could have peace with God. This is the good news reported to us in Colossians where Paul writes, Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. Colossians 1:21-22 Jesus Christ is our peace. God sent Jesus to make peace for us by removing the offense of our sin so we could be reconciled to God. Again, Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. And that’s grace! Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Grace and more grace…

That’s the message of the good news of the Kingdom. God gives us what we cannot give ourselves.

Grace: He gives mercy to sinners who cannot save themselves.

Grace: He gives a new heart to anyone who believes

And More Grace: He removes our offense on the cross so we can know peace with God.