author: Ryan Hayden Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 6. Luke 6.

We are going to look at verses 35-42 this morning and talk about being merciful in our dealings with others.

Before you get there, I want to actually retell the story I preached on Wednesday night.

On Wednesday night we looked at the story of David and Nabal.

Nabal was this super rich businessman who owned thousands of sheep.
His grazing place happened to be near the border of the Philistines.
David, who was on the run from Saul and camped out in that area, provided protection for Nabal's shepherds and the sheep.
When the wool harvesting season came, David sent some young men to politely ask for some provisions because of the service he had offered.
Nabal flatly refused and instead took the opportunity to insult David, basically calling him a nobody and a runaway slave.

Now, David was a man after God's own heart, He was the sweet psalmist of Israel. How do you think he handled this slight and insult?

The answer is he armed his men and was about to go and kill Nabal and all of his male servants.

That is, until Nabal's wise wife Abigail intervened, gave David what was owed him, and convinced him (very kindly) that godly leaders don't go around massacring people when they get offended.

In the end, David acts gracefully and God takes care of Nabal and after Nabal dies, David ends up marrying his wise widow.

Now, I tell you that story this morning because it illustrates two points:

First, it is human nature to want to destroy people when they hurt you or offend you.
Second, while it is human nature, it is not the nature of a godly man to act that way.

How do you act when people offend you? How do you treat people who you think have hurt you?

Do you attack them?
Do you insult them?
Do you try to destroy them?

What about when you think someone is wrong? When you think someone is in error? When they aren't living right? How do you respond?

What we are going to talk about today is how a Christian should respond.

Are you in Luke 6? Let's start by reading verses 35-36:

[!bible] Luke 6:35-36 - KJV 35. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. 36. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

If you were paying attention, I preached on these verses last week. I want to point out two phrases before we move on:

The first is the phrase "ye shall be children of the highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil"

We are called to live as children of God. We are called to live with His character in the way we treat others.

The second phrase is "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful". So the specific Character trait we are supposed to have is God's mercy.

So want I want to talk about today is the mercy of a child of God. Or to put it more simply How a child of God treats others.

Let's read the rest of our text and we'll get into that. Verse 37:

[!bible] Luke 6:37-42 - KJV 37. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: 38. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 39. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? 40. The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. 41. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42. Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

I want to talk to you today about being merciful. Being merciful.

"Merciful" here, means how a child of God treats other people. It's sort of a wrap up word that encapsulates our attitude toward the people we encounter in life.

You've all heard the old quip: "To above with saints I love, that will be glory. To dwell below with saints I know, now that's another story."

Jesus said in another passage that it's impossible to go through life without being offended.

People are going to hurt you. They are going to disappoint you. They are going to annoy you. They are going to let you down.

I was reading a secular book recently on Adlerian Psychology (which is an alternative to Freudian and Yeungian Psychology) and one of the things this man said which is interesting is "all of our problems are interpersonal problems."

Work would be so much easier without bosses, coworkers and clients.

Family life is amazing, until you realize you live in a house with six other people and all of them have different ideas (and the four year old's idea is to find scissors and straws and decorate the whole house with homemade confetti.)

There is nothing better than a loving marriage - it can be heaven on earth. But all of us know people whose marriages went south and turned into hell on earth.

Every relationship we have whether its in church, with our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members - every relationship is a potential source of hurt.

How do we as God's children treat other people? Well, Jesus told us here we do it with mercy. We act mercifully.

Now, I'm going to give you 6 statements on being merciful that we see in this text. Before I do, let's pray and ask God's blessing today.

author: Ryan Hayden

The first thing I want you to you to know about being merciful from this text is...

1. Being merciful comes from being a child of God.

This isn't a way we expect everyone to act. This is something that happens because we are "children of the most high." This is something that is a result of God's nature in us.

This is the sermon on the plain. In the similar Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus said

Blessed are the poor in Spirit
Blessed are they that mourn
Blessed are the meek
Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness

I've believed for a long time that those beatitudes talk about what goes on in our heart when we trust Christ. When we become a Christian.

First, we realize we don't have anything to bring to God - we are poor in spirit.
Then we mourn over our sin.
Then we humble ourselves before God (become meek before him).
Then we hunger and thirst after God's righteousness.

This explains what happens when we trust Christ. But the next beatitude talks about what happens after we trust Christ:

Blessed are the merciful

You see, when we come to God to be saved, we come as sinners. We come with no righteousness of our own. And God through His great mercy gives us salvation and brings us into His family. Not because we are good but because He is good.

His saving us is an act of mercy, and one of the first things that happens when we get that is we become merciful to others.

Let me put it this way: if you have been given salvation when you were a sinner and didn't deserve it - shouldn't that change the way you see other sinners?

If you were dying of cancer and a doctor gave you a miracle pill that healed your disease, would you go back to the cancer ward and make fun of the cancer patients there?

Being merciful comes from being saved and understanding the gospel. It comes from being a child of God.

That's my first point. 5 More to go...

2. Being merciful means we aren't judgmental.

Jesus said in verse 37

[!bible] Luke 6:37 - KJV 37. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned:...

The first way we actually show our mercy is by not being judgmental and condemning of others.

Because we understand our own sinfulness, we are to approach other people's sinfulness with a degree of understanding. Put another way, we don't get to treat other sinners like we never sin ourselves.

That's what I believe Jesus meant here when he said "judge not." He didn't mean we don't make value judgments about what is sin and what isn't sin.

There are many places in the New Testament that command us to judge sin. The early church in Corinth, for instance, was condemned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 because they didn't judge sin in their midst.

In fact, in this very sermon, in this very chapter, Jesus tells us to judge trees by their fruit.

So the way this verse is used to say "we can't judge anybody ever" is obviously not what God intended. Jesus was not saying we have to accept every lifestyle or behavior.

The truth is, we don't have to judge a lot of sinful behavior, because God already issued His judgment on it.

Lying
Sexual sin
Stealing
Hatred
Drunkeness
And so many other things

Are clearly condemned by God in the Bible. It is not being judgmental to affirm what God says about sin.

What is being judgmental shouting about sins that we do not commit while ignoring sins we do commit. It's judgmental and condemning to think about the sins of others without considering our own.

Judge not - that ye be not judged. The point is we all have something to be judged for. We all have something to be condemned for. And if we forget that, and we go around judging people, that is the opposite of mercy.

Being merciful comes from being a child of God.
Being merciful means we aren't judgmental.

Number 3...

3. Being merciful means we are forgiving.

Again, look at verse 37:

[!bible] Luke 6:37 - KJV 37. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

We are commanded to forgive others. In fact, Jesus made it plain that if we refuse to forgive a brother, that means we never really understood the forgiveness we got. Refusal to forgive might be a sign that you aren't really saved.

That doesn't mean that it is easy. Listen to what Kent Hughes said about this:

"True Christians can and do forgive. This is not to say that they do no struggle with forgiving, or that they are free from battles with bitterness and hatred, or that they are never so hurt and in such emotional shock that they are unable to respond with forgiveness, but is to say that they work at forgiving and ultimately forgive"

The closer someone is to you, the harder this is to do. But we are commanded to do it. Being merciful, treating others as a child of God, means forgiving.

Look at the fourth thing...

4. Being merciful means we are generous.

Verse 38 says:

[!bible] Luke 6:38 - KJV 38. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

We are to treat others with generosity. Why? Because God is generous to us and you will never beat God in the generosity game. So be generous with others.

This is a wonderful promise. We cannot outgive God. He will be no man's debtor.

If you give to others, God is going to make sure that it is given to you.

There is this beautiful word picture here "good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and running over."

Many of you have baked before, and a big part of that is measuring out ingredients like flour. But if you weigh two different cups of flour, they won't weigh the same. Because flour can be packed in, or maybe the cup isn't full all the way.

Jesus said that when we give, God will give to us and He will make sure we get the full measure.

But He also said "with what measure you mete it will be measured to you again."

If you are generous in teaspoons, God will return your generosity in teaspoons. But if you are generous in cups, or in gallons, or in bushels or in tons - God is going to return your generosity in whatever measure you decide to give.

So be generous with others. They may not pay you back. In fact they probably won't. But God will always pay you back. You cannot out give God.

So how do we treat others as children of God? We treat others mercifully. What does that mean?

Being merciful comes from being a child of God.
Being merciful means we aren't judgmental.
Being merciful means we are forgiving
Being merciful means we are generous.

Two more things and we are done.

Number 5...

5. Being merciful starts with a clear view of ourselves.

Look at verse 39:

[!bible] Luke 6:39 - KJV 39. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?

Jesus is going to start here talking about how we see. Our view of the world.

There is nothing so silly as a blind man who is leading others.

I want you to imagine this scene with me. You are seated on a plane, about to take off. You are just waiting for the pilot to board. You look up the front aisle and you see a man coming in, wearing the distinctive white and black pilot uniform - but he's carrying a white cane with a red tip, knocking it into the walls and floor - are you staying on that plane?

Would you follow a blind tour guide through the wilderness? No.

Seeing clearly is very important. The easiest way to

We are going to skip over verse 40, we'll cover that with our last point. But look at verses 41-42:

[!bible] Luke 6:41-42 - KJV 41. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42. Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

This is such a ridiculous picture. A man with a giant stick in his eye walking up to you and saying "ooh, looks like you got some sawdust in your eye, let me help you get it out."

It's a ridiculous picture, but it's a memorable one.

The easiest way to be blind is to be self-deceived. The most common type of blindness is self-blindness. Missing your own faults.

Being merciful to others has to include being honest about yourself.

It's not wrong to help others with their sin and to confront sin, in fact, we are commanded to do it in the New Testament.

But it is wrong to confront others if we don't take a long hard look in the mirror first.

Being merciful comes from being a child of God.
Being merciful means we aren't judgmental.
Being merciful means we are forgiving
Being merciful means we are generous.
Being merciful starts with a clear view of ourselves.

One more point and I'm done...

6. Being merciful means being like Christ.

Look at verse 40. The one verse I haven't read.

[!bible] Luke 6:40 - KJV 40. The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.

Our goal is to be like Jesus. Jesus was the perfect picture of mercy.

He ate with publicans and sinners. When the people were about to throw stones, Jesus said "neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more."
When Jesus was on the cross He said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Jesus took the biggest persecutor of the early church, forgave him, and made him the blessed apostle Paul.

Every one of us has experienced Jesus' generosity.

Be like Jesus.

Conclusion

We began this morning by looking at the story of David and Nabal, a stark reminder that people problems are inevitable. Whether it's the conflict with a coworker, the strain in a family relationship, or the disappointment of a friend, we will inevitably encounter situations that test our patience and challenge our capacity for love.

But amidst these inevitable challenges, we have the opportunity to choose mercy. To choose forgiveness. To choose grace. To choose love. This is not always easy, but it is the path that reflects the character of our loving God. Let us strive to walk this path, knowing that in choosing mercy, we not only bless others but also find true peace and fulfillment within ourselves.

The attitude of a child of God