In this sermon, the preacher discusses the Beatitudes and their significance in human behavior. He emphasizes that the Sermon on the Mount addresses various aspects of life, relationships, and thoughts. The sermon is described as a powerful and profound message that takes the whole Bible to fully understand. The preacher highlights the importance of humility and meekness before God, using the example of the publican in the synagogue who humbly asked for God's mercy. The sermon concludes by emphasizing that encountering God's love and grace can bring true happiness and joy that the world cannot comprehend.

Matthew chapter 5 and as we continue on in the Sermon of the Mount this evening and of course while you're turning to it but Jesus said or it tells us there in Matthew 5 that and seeing the multitude again this is Jesus there seeing the multitudes he went up onto a mountain and when he was set his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and he taught them saying and then he gave us of course the sermon blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you and men shall revile you and persecute you and say all men are of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Father we thank you for your word tonight we thank you Lord for your desire to take it and to write it literally on the tablets of our heart. Lord we ask that we wouldn't just know it we wouldn't just even understand it but Lord that it would be a powerful way that you would draw us closer to you give us a greater and deeper relationship with you and father that through these things as we discover what they mean to us may they strengthen our life and our walk our union our communion with you father we ask it in Jesus name amen. Well of course so far we've been looking at these Beatitudes as they're called one by one so we've just been going to verse at a time but I promise you we will speed it up once we get through these but the Beatitudes are fundamental to all human behavior Jesus is going to go on in the Sermon on the Mount he's going to speak of so many things basically all other relationships in life I suppose there's hardly a topic of all of life in human behavior human relationship and human thought in in life that isn't addressed somewhere in the Sermon on the Mount it's most unbelievable message and it's actually it's only about a 17-minute sermon and takes the whole Bible to understand it but it's something there what a stand-alone powerful message it is the greatest I suppose in all of history safe to say that I believe but it's something there that that the whole foundation of it though is built upon the Beatitudes the capacity to be able to enter in and strengthen all those relationships all those thought all this behavior all of the external things that he's going to discuss with us in the Sermon on the Mount are basically founded or predicated upon a comprehension in our entering into a personal experience of these Beatitudes and and the so they're so important for that reason they're also important for the very reason that it just says each stage one of the Beatitudes oh how happy there the Lord is looking to say this is the key to the happiness that every human soul is looking for what drives a person every day what it is so often when somebody is going about all of the pursuits of life that so many times or if I do this or I get this or I buy this or I do you know find this or I go there or I'm with so and so then maybe I'll be happy but happiness as far as God's concerned it isn't it's much deeper than anything superficial it's an abiding joy it's a rich joy it's a true joy and it's a joy I suppose as we said before the world knows little of it or probably nothing of it you worldly joys their human joys their creature joys their soup their superficial joys their circumstantial joys their joys that can be taken away and but the joy there that Jesus here is talking about it it requires nothing external this this is an internal joy this is an internal joy that is built through a deep profound relationship with God and these are the building blocks of understanding for that relationship and so this is the great joy that the Lord has revealed to us and here as he tells us the first three as you recall blessed are the poor in spirit blessed are they who mourn and blessed are the meek and here we have essentially there's somebody is so wonderful when you look at this because the Beatitudes are such a wonderful thing because of the fact it's it's it's it's where the absolute truth about man and the truth about God meet where man and God are absolutely open and honest and true with each other and man there well he's got to do to really be happy is come to the place to do one of the hardest tasks I suppose there is in all of life and that is to be honest with himself and honest with God about himself and if a man will do that he'll have to he'll always end up poor in spirit he'll always end up somebody there that something's gone wrong sin has gotten into my heart in my life and it is devastated me it is it is dealt a fatal blow to me it's absolutely destroyed me so much so is there's no hope left utterly spiritually bankrupt poverty-stricken Jesus said that man's gonna be a happy man if he can be honest with step one with the fundamental truth it's not a hard thing to do and to to get there only based upon the difficulty of being honest with yourself coming to that place that we fight all of our life saying I'm better than this I'm really good I've got a potential I've got all sorts of things in my life yet undiscovered and give me another shot and I'll make it but finally when somebody finally tires and says no I'm a sinner and I failed and to the degree that they even mourn about it that something happens within them where they grieve over it God what happened what is it that has occurred and there's a deep sorrow is the sorrow of a death that's what the word means there to mourn to mourn at the death but the death that we're mourning is our own and that will produce some meekness not somebody coming before God shaking his fits God you owe me I got this coming you know you look at the world and all the cheap little shots it makes it God that is if they're never going to be answered you know where the world wants to turn to how could a God of love how could if God's really how come all of these things look at the wars and look at the trials and look at these things where in the world is a godly had the arrogance to shake their fist and the man of God and put him down and to take shots at him there's a man that he knows nothing about himself but when a man sits there and he's honest about himself instead of being before God and shaking his fist you'll find himself there a meek before God humble before God worthy of nothing like the publican in the synagogue who came in and he couldn't even so much as look up on to heaven but he smote himself on his breast and says God be merciful unto me a sinner Jesus that I tell you that man had his prayer heard and here Jesus says that your person is going to be happy when they're poor in spirit there's a they mourn over and it produces a meekness and those things absolutely drain a human being they take us down to nothing but then that's what opens up this tremendous hunger this tremendous thirst and it's a thirst to be right it's a thirst for the first time in my life not just some other pursuit that I've run after before and before and before but now God I am hungry and thirsty to be right with God to be right with my created identity right with the Spirit of God right with all that you want to be all right with the Lordship of Christ that's what I'm hungry and thirsty for and Jesus said that man is going to be filled and he's going to know a joy that few can only dream of he's gonna enter into a joy that's not only you know and one that's now and in real it's eternal it's one that's a going on to coming into a greater fullness one day and in a full satisfaction one day when as David says I'll be satisfied when I awaken my likeness that person's realized that one day God is going to awaken him in heaven and he's going to be in the very likeness the very image of God he's going to be conformed back into that man that he once was and fey and fell out of in sin but God through his love and his mercy is going to give it all back to him and now here Jesus goes on and he says now what when the first attribute that he mentions about a person who has been filled there as he says the blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled and then he turns and he says now blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy and here's one of these amazing things is a you know in a sense that when you look at it you know of another wonderful key to happiness truly happy person you know when you stop to think for a moment how infinitely merciful God has been to us you may wonder why has God been merciful to us and that's a good question I suppose we got the rest of eternity to try to figure that one out and but it's one there that all we know is that somehow another God has loved us he's given himself for us and he has given us his grace unmerited favor is what the word grace of course means God has just chosen to favor us we didn't merit it we had no right to it but God has favored us with forgiveness of sins he is for he is favored us with the promise to come and to fill our hearts and our lives he is favored us that to ever live to make intercession for us he is favored us by presenting us faultless before God day and night constantly without wavering and he has favored us to care for our every need knowing our thoughts and our needs even before we do but caring for us and there is his amazing favor one day to come back for us his favor to take us to heaven conform us to his image and share his home with us forever and ever but somebody may ask well why would God favor me this way being a sinner being somebody there that walked out on God that rebelled against God there that sinned against God there that you may think you've never murdered you know a lot of people go around saying I've never murdered anybody I'm not a bad person well you killed yourself that's one you know and the and as far as God's concerned I mean the wage of sin is death and we sin and we murdered God's child conformed created in his image we murdered ourselves may say I never committed adultery well in the Old Testament the Lord spoke to Hosea and he says go take thee wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for the land hath committed great harlotry departing from the Lord God looked at the children of Israel whose hearts were created to love him we were created to love the Lord our God with all of our heart mind soul and strength and then we went off and we loved others we love the world we love ourselves we love praise pleasures anything else but him and God looks at that as spiritual adultery our affections are given to another in there we may say I've never you know stolen anything we stole our own life from heaven we murdered our own life we adulterized our own heart we are all guilty of the grossest of sins that we would ever look at any human being that's maybe done it down here on the you know the this side of heaven running around on the planet we see other people that have done those things to other people but how much more should the child of God not look there and be honest say wait a minute everything even though one person may have done it to another person I've done it against God I'm guilty of all of these things and there when they realize that God came to them and he and he forgave me and then he extended his grace to me he offered himself to me you may send me and then we have to ask why why did he do it which I suppose brings up the one of the deepest if not the deepest attribute is perhaps of God and that is because God himself is merciful is merciful Psalm 37 26 says he is ever merciful and his seed is blessed Psalm 78 38 says but he being full of compassion or maybe in your version it says merciful means the same thing he forgave their iniquity destroyed them not yea many a time turned he his anger away and did not stir up his wrath here it tells us that God would stop there you mean with to forgive iniquity I'm so grateful that God doesn't just forgive sins sins I'm sure you know it's just to miss the mark it's a it's sins is a word for a good guy that tried hard and still missed the mark he was trying to do well he just the poor fellow just because he's spiritually dead he can't do anything but just do dead stuff anyway and so he misses he can't hit it and so we're all sinners and we all miss the mark even if we try but then there's something worse than sin that's trespass which did it trespasses are just like you would think the word you know you're walking down the road you want to go someplace you see a shortcut there's a sign there's no trespassing but you look said but it's a shortcut and I'm gonna make it quicker I'm gonna go that way and so we trespass there's not somebody who is trying to do good and missed it now there's somebody who just deliberately came across an option and an opportunity to do some a different way that would expedite his journey and so he trespassed it was a conscious deliberate thing to actually go wrong but then there's even worse than trespass and that's iniquity that's a pre-planned that's a thoroughly motivated you know outline it's not just somebody's walking down the road and sees a shortcut and has the pressure saying I gotta do it I maybe it's not right but I'm doing it anyway but iniquity is somebody that just gets up and says hey I want to do it I'd maybe don't even have to but I want to sin I want to sin big time I wanted I got plans and I wanted to do all sorts of corrupt things and they plan on it they work at it they train for it and they and they fulfill it that's iniquity and here the Bible says there God in his unbelievable mercy he there you know he he's full of mercy of compassion he forgives iniquity destroys them not many a time he he turns his own anger away and and does not stir up his wrath but what does that is mercy what does that is God has this mercy within him Psalm 86 15 says but thou Lord art a God full of mercy full of compassion and gracious long-suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth here the psalmist again he tells us God has this this kindness this long-suffering that graciousness but it is rooted in this thing called mercy Psalm 103 8 says the Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger plenteous in mercy here he starts with mercy and he ends with mercy Psalm 116 5 gracious of the Lord and righteous yea our God is merciful you see the word though that so we see here that one of the deepest attributes about God is he is merciful he has a sense of mercy about him and the word there again is sometimes translated compassion same word oftentimes and sometimes it's used in the New Testament of bowels of mercy which also describes it because mercy is is it's a very emotional word it's not just a mental behavior it is a mental behavior that is rooted in emotional feeling of bowels of mercy bowels of compassion in the sense there what it's what it suggests there and I'm sure we've all had times where sometimes if you've seen something you've seen some tragic thing you've seen something so painful or so hurtful or you hear a story that it literally hurts you right in the gut right in the stomach right in the pit of your stomach you just ache something there happens within you you hear this great tragedy and in and in the bowels of mercies and something pushes there with it the mental attitude has happened but some but you're gripped by mercy and it's a word of pity it is a word there of deep embedded sorrow you so deeply hurt inside and and this is in a sense what God when he looked at man and did we sin yes did we trespass yes did we blame shake our fist at him tell him what we thought of him go right out and do everything we possibly could against him yes did we steal our lives yes did we run our own lives and were we our own master and our own king and chart our own course and the captain of our own vessel yes and we loved it and we wanted it and yet in the midst of all of this somehow another God looks at us and he hurts he hurts justice calls for death but yet the inside inside God's heart as he looks at us said something calls for mercy something calls for compassion it's a very deep in a wonderful thing perhaps you we've all seen I'm sure stories and follow them of some terrible rapist or murderer who has done it and done it so wicked so evil so perverted so sick so totally wicked that virtually the entire planet rises up and says you're out of here we reject you the you are the reason capital punishment exists you we we no longer accept you on this planet you're going to die and the whole planet says if ever there's one that ought to go it's him you're off the planet and yet still somehow another so often when all of that is true so often there is still some mother somewhere somebody that sits alone and with and it hurts and hurts and hurts and she weeps and weeps and she weeps and something there in her bowels there in the depths of her soul she cries out because it's her son yes he did it yes he is guilty yes he is wicked yes he is terrible but he is my son that's mercy that's that's something there that cries out and this is what God has had for you and what he's had for me it isn't based on reason it isn't based upon justice it isn't based on truth or nim and invalid information it's based on something much deeper than that it's something there that God looks at you and I and there the wonderful thing that's happened is that this is what the cross is all about this is the place essentially where God in his justice and in his mercy can meet with a human being and perfectly there and not violate either one when a human being now comes to the cross and says it is true it is true I am wicked I am fallen I have sinned I have committed trespasses I have an iniquitous heart forgive me may I have mercy and God looks and he says you know it just seems to be a part of me and the wonderful thing is is that this is something there to where now Jesus as he turns in the Sermon on the Mount he now looks at the person there who's been poor in spirit himself that's met him at the cross he's mourned over his own sin there is a meekness that's happened within his own heart he's cried out to be filled and God has filled him with one of the most wonderful of all attributes of all heaven and earth mercy in the process there of God now meeting him there if he is truly met there if he's understood what his trend the transaction that happened there what God what got God up off of his throne sent his son down to die take all the sins of all the world of all time upon himself and he who knew no sin became sin for us how could it could God ever do a thing like that mercy he hurt he hurt like no one can dream of hurting and there he came and he loved us and when somebody meets him there meets him at the cross to where those two and natures meet the fallen sad terrible wicked truth about man clashes and meets with with a glorious wonderful truth about God and then he cries out fill me God then loves to turn to him says fill you I will I'll fill you with me and you can walk away with the greatest of attributes the most wonderful things for here Jesus turns to man he says I'm gonna give you a happiness I'll give you a joy the world I know anything about happiness there of having the life of God resident within you and not only the life of God but the deepest things of the nature of God beginning to take over yours and here it is something to where sadly though many people they don't understand this and that's they're not happy we walk away from the cross having had our sins may be dealt with but we have yet to meet the heart and the nature and the character of God that gives great joy and where his nature is being poured upon us and and we walk away forgiven but we don't walk away with the intent of forgiving we walk away having received mercy but not necessarily being filled with it but here Jesus he says I want to give it to you and oh how happy are the merciful the person there that discovers there that that God can literally put his nature and let me make it clear mercy is not something you do grace is what you do grace is as great as we sing of God's grace and say you know and it's greater than all of our sin but as wonderful as grace is it is it good mercy is deeper you see mercy motivated grace mercy was something there because God so hurt he's looking around and what are we gonna do not as if he didn't know but I mean look there in grace he says I'll do we're gonna we're gonna favor them we're gonna favor them and without merit on their own we're gonna bless them we're gonna restore we're gonna bring them home we're gonna fill their lives and we're gonna just give them ourselves again and again and again time and eternally but why does he do that because he hurts without us because he has this amazing compassion he has this deep profound love and so grace is something you can do or you can at least try to act graceful mercy is what you are a merciful person is somebody there that that you can't do it it's what happens deep within the soul there when when now God has done such a work within them that they begin to see others in the very state in which God found them and the very pain that was in God's heart you know towards us now we have it towards others now his nature is literally being bequeathed to us in a and it's a wonderful thing it's a wonderful thing but it only happens in Luke 7 you know the story I'm sure Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus over to his house trying to find some occasion to accuse him bring him down you know catch him in a trap and something and there is he is invites Jesus over this woman adulterous or a wicked woman comes in and there this woman comes in and she begins to weep and she or tears you know she washes Jesus feet and then with her hair she's caring for him ministering to him and and Simon is thinking to himself it says there that if this man were a prophet he would know what manner of woman this is I love this verse in there because then it says and Jesus answered him Simon was just thinking to himself that's a scary thing you're just sitting there carrying on if this guy knew you while you're going hi how are you nice nice to have you over I thought we'd just have a little chat while he's sitting there inside with this guy I don't have to get him he's got himself if he knew what kind of woman this was that was there taking care of him right now he'd have nothing to do with her if she was if he was a prophet he'd know therefore he's not a prophet Jesus answered him he says I'm gonna have someone to ask you and he says say on master and he says there's a fella you know King who he had a couple you had a guy that you know a couple people when I moaned him a lot one owned him a little neither one had a way but so he forgave him both he says which one do you suppose loved in the most he says well I suppose the one that he's forgiven most Jesus said bingo it's in the Greek but he says bingo you know he says you got it the and he said yes you struck gold you do you can think but then he looks at him and he and he said you know I came in here you've done nothing for me you didn't offer me a water you didn't refresh me you didn't you know do a thing and whatsoever this woman came in here and her sins are many I'm quite aware who she is I know all sorts of things about her but he that is forgiven much loves much and here as he looks there I mean the person so often that has the greater realization of the cross and by the way every one of us have are given the exact same amount I'm convinced it's just that more people most of the many people or some or a few or so I don't know numbers but anyway the the thing is is that some people are aware I mean they all if we're all sinners and we're all dead how dead is dead I mean we're all dead now some people are nicely dressed dead you know or something some people had a beautiful funeral dead but they're dead now some people did a real job of it I mean they just smashed themselves up a wall and there's a bloody dead but they're dead some people just died a pretty death but dead is dead we're all dead it's just that some people are aware in a greater sense of what it was that the mercy and the grace and the love and the power of the cross in their life and it had such a profound effect that they begin to love others greatly and again this you know grace is something there that it comes because of the heart and it is sky and it and it knows this but mercy engages the heart mercy is something that motivates behavior this is a grace is an activity it can superficial we can be very nice to each other without having any mercy we can carry on and many people if people are graceful to them they're graceful to them if you be graceful to me I'll be graceful to you if you're not so nice to me well might have might find another side of me you didn't want to meet and be because that's where mercy comes in you know but it's conditional and sometimes in the sense of people's grace you know it's like Romeo and Juliet they can look beautiful and be playing the grass it's a wonderful play or not I've never seen it I just know Romeo Romeo wherefore art thou you know and he's that's all I know I don't know where he was I don't know what he said back but I just use great love story or something we're in reality they may hate each other the people that are playing the parts they may have a big contract dispute with their boss and you know and they don't want to play this thing and I want another Juliet in here I'm not being Romeo no more or whatever and you can do the same in life you can act very graceful you can go play a part you can say the words you can get through the night's play so to speak but in reality not care a straw about the person mercy on the other hand is something that goes deep and when mercy is happening there the heart and the life is engaged something has transformed it and that's the thing that that that God wants within us is to take our sinful heart and forgive it to take our trespass heart and forgive it to take our iniquitous heart and to wash it and cleanse it and when he takes that out he puts in a merciful heart that's why David once said he says if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me if I if I haven't been to the cross or to speak if I still have this gunk in this trash and I don't understand the power of the cross in my own life it'll shut down my spiritual life and he says I can't live that way but you see the person is poor in spirit he mourns over it and he's meek and he hungers and thirst that'll result in a merciful heart again so often in our marriages or our homes you know again if you're nice I'm nice you're good I'm good you know we just kind of go back and forth and until somebody slips up till somebody forgets to be nice oh no I was supposed to be nice I forgot you know or whatever else in the or else there else that's just sin or else then we after we forget and then they tell us we forgot then we decide well I'm gonna trespass and I'm gonna tell you not only did I forget I want to forget because you forgot last week you know or whatever else and then the next thing you know we go to bed determined to wake up not just a sinner and not just trespass I'm gonna commit iniquity I'm gonna tell her tomorrow what I really think of her you know or whatever and back and forth we go because mercy has yet to have its power within our life but mercy produces this wonderful thing of forgiveness and until we know it until we come there and realize God give me a merciful heart we'll never be happy we'll never be happy we it'd be because the true joy that God wants to give to us of sharing his life with us is being denied until I look there and say God give to me take me to the cross just show me myself show me who I am and then give me this merciful heart is if you don't you go right back and we'll be the same and be like the story the fella you know maybe heard it you know he's walking down the beach you know the old proverbial bottle comes up and he picks up the bottle he pulls the cork on a genie comes out and the genie says I've been in there hundreds of years thanks for getting me out of there and you get three wishes anything you want three wishes however there's just one little catch whatever you get whatever you want your mother-in-law gets twice as much this guy hated his mother-in-law and he's thinking oh no I don't but he's saying well I still get three wishes and so he's the first he thinks well he says all right I want a billion dollars in gold and all of a sudden poof you know and smoke there and the smoke clears and there's a billion dollars in gold right there and then he looks over and there's two billion for his mother-in-law he's he's a little bummed by that but he still think I got my billion he got my billion then he goes on and he thinks well this is I better think this material next thing you know he says okay my second wish I want I want a hundred thousand acre estate hundred thousand acres and I want jets I want a landing strip I want golf courses and tennis and recreation and horses and you know all in every game and toy you can ever think of built into this thing and I want a hundred thousand square foot house with every invention there's ever been the greatest of things all the entertainment all the place I want pools and now everything all of it and don't miss anything and then I want 500 employees to take care of the place forever as long as I'm alive if they're all taken care of and I'm just gonna enjoy my hundred thousand acre estate hundred thousand acre you know a hundred thousand square foot house who smokey looks all of a sudden he's looking over this unbelievable hundred thousand acres he's just looking out in the seniors sees his airstrip sees his pools and shards and his courses and his gardens in his mansion and but then he looks over and there's two hundred thousand acre estate for his mother a two hundred thousand square a thousand employees to take care of her joint and these guys so bitter he's so angry he's thinks on the third one he says my mother-in-law he can't think what he says okay God heard the genie my third request I want you to beat me half to death well that's a sad commentary on a lot of people's lives I think sometimes because on one sense I mean how it is that here's somebody instead of being able to enjoy the compassion in the love and the gifts and the blessings and the grace that God has poured out on them the next thing you know because of that then be if they don't have mercy on others if they don't love and have compassion for others it'll ruin whatever they got whatever blessings if there's somebody that has a root of bitterness in their own heart and lacks forgiveness and mercy and compassion for others you could give them half the planet but whoever had the other half they'd wish they were dead and it's something there that so often when this happens you know not only that if we're not merciful to others the next thing you know is we find ourselves so often you know getting angry bitter and upset you know it other people's lives it's interesting Jesus in Matthew chapter 18 when she Peter came up to him and he told me says Lord how many times we forgive three times seven times you know what in Jesus said hey 70 times seven Peter without number here though you know he Jesus then goes on and he gives a you know a parable there of a man there the king that had a couple fellas that owed him a lot one owed him a you know a great amount actually and and there in this parable pardon me there was one fellow owed him a lot of is a great amount and he came there and he said all right you owe me and he said I can't pay and he says well you can throw in prison I'm taking everything you got and the guy fell before the king he says please have mercy upon me humbled himself and he weeps he says I'm sorry please well the king was so moved with compassion so moved with mercy he looked at him he hurt and he says forget it just forget it but then that fella after it's all forgiven all forgotten he goes out and somebody owes him a few bucks he tells that guy pay me you owe me you guys said no I mean he pays I don't care and he had him thrown in prison well the other servants heard about this and then they go back and they tell the king about the guy that wouldn't forgive who he had forgiven so much and then he came in and it's interesting there it says there that that his Lord was wroth and he delivered him under the tormentors till he should pay all that was due to him here Jesus said you know and I said that man who cannot forgive be forgiven they cannot have mercy cannot love it has these things towards other people and goes home with them and brings them into their home and their marriage and their children or their relationships they will be tormented and they will be delivered to their tormentors that you deliver yourself to your tormentors if you're not merciful and what a devastating thing you know we live in a world today something happens you know and we look at you know at a world he said I don't get mad I get even that's bitterness there's somebody comes up to us you know and then and we look he go ahead make my day I've just been looking for I've got so much hostility in me I'm just looking for somebody to kill and if you'd like to apply for the job make my day you know or something that's that's the way the worldly man thinks I'll be back you know sort of a thing and all of this sort of stuff rather than having something there to where we find in our own heart but Jesus said you know they are actually Paul taught in Romans 7 12 17 he says recompense to no man evil for evil provide things honest in the sight of all men and if it be possible as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men dearly dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give but rather give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay sayeth the Lord therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head now I know to us think hey let's do it burn him up but I'm sure you know what that means I mean back in the times there in the Bible and when you would have somebody over your home and you'd have an evening together and you had your fire going and you had a nice evening but they were going home and late at night to a cold house and they you know couldn't they had to go trying to start a start a fire and get the whole thing going to try to warm up their house you would always send them home with coals of fire and they carried water and all these different containers upon their head so that now do you see you take to do you coals out of your fire you know you'd put them in a container for them and say here go home and start your fire warm your house you know with the warmth that we've enjoyed here so you don't have to go through all this to start warming your house up take it and Jesus said when somebody does something to you that it hurts and it's wrong or it's evil and they are nicer gracious instead of having to come back and say you you you me you know or whatever else we're gonna do Jesus said there he says you be kind Paul there he teaches in a sense there he says feed him give him drink care for him when that guy goes home and obviously anybody that lives that'll they go home to a cold life in a cold home in an empty house so often they push everybody else out of their life and now they're just pushing you out because that's all they know to do he says but when your enemy does something to you send him home with some coals on his head and he gets home and all of a sudden he's got a fire and his house is warm and he's sitting there and realizing that person he was nasty to that he sinned against trespassed against did iniquity to treated terribly had something happened within their stomach that looked there and said you must be hurting you must be hurting you must be cold you must be so hard inside I know how it is to be that way that's where God met me that's where his spirit met me and he filled me and now he has put that within me here go be warm and then when he sends him home and the guy sits there and he begins to look around and his life is warming up and he knows that the very person that he hurt loved him had mercy upon him gave grace to him Jesus said that's the person that's going to have the friends that's the person that's going to build the relationships and when we find ourselves you know so often instead of just getting even telling them what that we think they need to hear being angry or hostile or rude and then it just you know we return in kind you know whatever they gave will give it back but instead we say God give to me a merciful heart Jesus said there's a man that's going to be happy there is a person that when they have this heart within them that you don't have to go home and get even with anybody vengeance is mine saith the Lord I'll repay God says I'll take care of all this stuff yours is to go be merciful mine is to take care take care of the books you just go be merciful maybe some of you you know you need to in your own homes be merciful who knows maybe some of you husbands might come home tomorrow night and there'll be this unbelievable dinner and this unbelievable meal and you realize oh she must be really mad she's trying to get even in me for something here and by being merciful but you want to melt the heart and you want to have a great joy when you are merciful and you in your heart when somebody steals your food and you prepare food for him when they hurt you and you love them when they attack you and you have something so wonderful within you that turns and says I want to love maybe some of you your mother-in-law you need to go take her out and have dinner with her and take her over to your estate and whatever that's what we need to do with whatever God's blessed us with to say he's given me everything I've got and cheers to father we thank you for your love Lord I thank you that you want us to be truly happy not even not just but happy you look at us and say you know if you had my heart within you and you would let yourself see people see me you meet me at the cross you realize how much I've forgiven you of no one will ever sin against you like you sinned against me but I forgave you no one will ever hurt you like you hurt me no one will ever reject you and mock you no one will ever do these things that you have done that I've forgiven them all and blotted them out remove them as far as the east or the west I buried them in the depths of the sea I've hidden them behind my back and I've said behold I'll remember them no more my love empowers me to do that my love does that Lord may you give to us a merciful heart may you give to us a graceful heart a heart that really reaches out and wonderfully loves father do this we ask it that we may know great joy we ask it in Jesus name amen one other thing is I remember one time I was kind of the rebel in our home and when the Lord had done a work in my heart one time I came home and I realized kind of what I had put my parents through and I came and I asked them you know I said I will you forgive me and so often we're growing up and parents are you know their parents and you're just supposed to be in trouble with them because that's their job you know or whatever else and or something and I was constantly on the always on the fringes in you know and beyond them and I constantly the one that needed a lot of correction and I put him through a lot and after I came to the Lord I realized what I had done I'll never forget one night I came home and it hit me and I just asked him I said will you forgive me I am so sorry for what I put you through and my mom that she sat there and I'm sure she's but she says she's sitting here but she says you know something all I remember is the good times I looked over my dad and I said oh dad she's lost it the poor woman she can't doesn't remember much you know or him but that's what mercy does that's what it ought to be and we ought to be ones that we can look there and when somebody fails to say all I want to do is remember the wonderful things that God's doing God bless you