Pastor Ralph Douglas West - "Rebound" | Matthew 5:7 - The Church Without Walls

0:04 This is the day the Lord has made and we rejoice and we are glad in it. Thank you, choir, for blessing us and reminding us that the Lord's mercy endures forever and ever and ever. What a joy. On all three campuses today, we're beginning a series of messages under the caption, Cries of Mercy, to focus our attention on the Lord's mercy. In the world we live in, today is a good time to talk about mercy. Matthew chapter 5 verse 7, one of the beatitudes of our God to us from the Sermon on the Mount.

1:13 While you're going to that, D-Ray, are you here this morning? The Everett family, are you here? All right. Want to make sure one of my classmates told me he was going to be in town, but I'm glad to see my niece here. Courtney, good to see you. She's here every Sunday, but she wasn't here for Father's Day.

1:47 She and the girls left Ben. That's my nephew. Left him. Boy, you need to hear this sermon on mercy today. I'm so good to see you. She called, she Facebooked and said, I heard I got Jewel London today. God, I tell you, it's getting rough in this church. Matthew 5, verse 7. You might want to read it with me.

2:25 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. This is the word of God. You may be seated. Rebound. rebound. That's what I want to tag this text this morning, rebound. What you send out comes back to you. If the Beatitudes were the material to construct the building, the fifth Beatitude, be merciful, would be the martyr to hold the bricks together. It is by far, for many, the most memorable of the Beatitudes. In some ways, it's situated right in the middle.

3:22 Beatitude. You begin by noticing that the previous Beatitudes to be happy statements that Jesus makes to his disciples in this Sermon on the Mount. Beatitude, one, needs some explanation.

3:43 Beatitude, on the other hand, two, is veiled and shrouded in a kind of mystery in which you need to raise the veil to see what Jesus has beneath it. In the third beatitude, that's the one that's probably the most confusing when people make the determination between meekness and weakness. The one with the most passion probably is beatitude for blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. One of the ways to unlock the mystery of the beatitudes is to sign a set of words that you might find helpful the next time you read them. If you're taking notes, here they are. The word recognize, react, submission, and desire. When you look at these Beatitudes, these be happy statements, I'll come back to that in just a moment.

4:50 you notice that there is a recognition in beatitude one blessed are the poor but there is always the identification of some spiritual and moral bankruptcy there's a reaction on the second beatitude blessed are they who mourn because of that one you see that it's been veiled and often the veil needs to be raised for you to really react to. What is Jesus getting to when he says, blessed are they who mourn and then submission? Would be the third word for that beatitude that says meekness. You hear people say meekness is not weakness. And though that's a clever way of saying it, by definition, meekness is power under control.

5:48 Those of you that ride horseback, you don't need much explanation of how a steed as powerful as a horse can be controlled by bit and bridle. And then you come to the beatitude, blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. This whole idea of desire to crave for something that satisfies the soul beyond just materiality. Staying there for just one statement longer. You probably picked up and said, while you were going through those first Beatitudes, I noticed that they seem to have an inward focus, a focus on interiority. And you're so right about that. I shared with the eight o'clock service, you know they didn't get it, but at eight o'clock I told them.

6:44 that one of my favorite things to do when invited to talk about worship in different settings is to talk about silence in worship. Some of you have been following the spiritual health, the devotional guide, and each day begins with two minutes of silence. How are you doing with that? because two minutes of silence is nerve-wracking. If you don't believe me, try it in church sometimes. You say, shall we pray silently? And then somebody strikes up a key on the organ. And then you say, shh. And then somebody on the front row say, yes, sir. Say, shh. And then somebody way back there, thank you, Jesus. Shh, silence.

7:38 Silence makes us uneasy It makes me uneasy Most people get uneasy when it's just silent Silence And here we come to this particular passage That now moves us from interiority to exteriority From moving in to out Blessed are the merciful and Jesus uses this word blessed. It's the word where we get happy from, happy, happenstance and people want to be happy. Why is it when you come to church and the pastor says something like that, people want to be happy, you're just bracing yourself that I'm getting ready to come after you about something. No, I want to be happy, don't you?

8:31 I do, I want to be happy. I know you do, You just learn to lie in church a lot That's all I do. I want to be happy. If it were left to me, I would have no cloudy days, no rainy seasons. And yet that's not the way life is constructed. Life brings in its clouds of disappointment. It brings the heat of sorrow. It brings sometimes the rain of despair. and yet I want to be happy. I know we want to be happy because one of the billion dollar industries in America happens at 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock to 5.30. It's called Happy Hour.

9:20 You know, the one that you go to. I've seen you there. And people go to Happy Hour. Nobody goes to sad hour. We go to happy hour. And we go to happy hour because typically when we're there, we're sharing in teas and other things. And so people are looking for happiness.

9:59 Jesus now is raising this to a higher, holier level. He's not speaking merely of the mundane material level. He says anybody can do that. I'm speaking now of moving you away from just being an individual in the kingdom to highlighting your birthmarks of what it means to be a Christian. What does it mean to be a Christian? And one of the characteristics of a Christian is to be merciful.

10:32 Blessed are the merciful. I want to be a person of mercy primarily because God has been merciful to me. And one of the ways that mercy keeps staring at my face is that you see the residue of mercy peppered throughout a city like ours.

10:57 By the way, mercy by definition means active pity. And we see this, active pity. Don't miss that. That's important. You can remember that. Active pity. you know what it is, you've seen it, some of you have experienced it.

11:17 Hospitals are institutions of active pity. Somebody is sick, injured, they may have to be rushed to the hospital. There's a nurse, there are doctors, there are other people involved, and they're all catering to the need of someone that is out of sorts. and they are demonstrating mercy. Some of you have had bad experiences Because you've gone to these institutions That's supposed to show mercy And you say, where is the mercy? and that's what Jesus was getting to he's not throwing out something so high in the spiritual realm that you can't reach up and bring it down he said no I'm on your street I'm on Queenston I'm on Little Yard I'm on your street and he said blessed blessed are the merciful with that said let me answer at least two questions this morning and then just end with a statement of punctuation.

12:30 The first question is the reach of memory. You know, what is the reach of mercy? What is the reach of it? You come into a room like this and this is the reach of mercy. In fact, it's easy to be merciful in a room like this. I take no effort to be merciful in a space like this. I'm comfortable. It's cushioned. It's air conditioned. And that's in Houston. That's a sign of mercy.

13:07 Oh, yes, it is. You don't think a young preacher called me just last week and he said, I wanted to invite you to our church. but we're still having air conditioner issues. And I thought about how miserable the atmosphere was for you and your members last year, and y'all still came to our church. And while we were planning our year, we said we cannot invite our friends back into our space in an uncomfortable condition as that. Let me tell you something, in Houston is hot. Our condition is mercy. You didn't get that. Mercy, active pity.

14:00 But anyway, it's easy to be merciful in a room like this. Things change when you have to be merciful outside of this room. When you have to really convey mercy. See, it's easy. I mean, we're dressed up. We come here. We know what we're here for. But to be merciful towards some disruptive, agitating nuisance that's in your way? here's the downside of hearing a sermon like this. I'll make you a promise. This week, somebody is going to need mercy that you don't want to give to. You're not going to give it.

14:52 And the Lord said, you missed that sermon. It never fails. I really don't like preaching sermons like this. Because it never fails. The Lord always puts that person in your way. It's the same way when you say, my pockets are closed. No more generosity for me. And then the Lord blesses you, say, I'm using this for me and then the Lord put a need in your situation and say what you gonna do with it now? And then you already know God sends blessings to whom he can send blessings through. Mercy functions the same way. God gives you mercy in order that you can give mercy to somebody else.

15:51 Preach Pastor West. Oh, you're preaching. I know it. And when mercy gets a hold to you, active pity, you can't keep it to yourself. George Truitt passed it, the long-tenured pastor of First Baptist of Dallas in the early middle 20th century. And he couldn't keep a top coat on during the winter. Whenever he would walk up to his church, there would be homeless men and women on the side of the road, and he would always take his coat off and give it away. First Baptist was wealthy then, is wealthy now, and the coats that he was giving away were not secondhand, thirdhand, pass me down. They were the best cash me of money could buy, and he would give them away.

16:47 In fact, when you read his biography, there's a whole section, a paragraph of the coats that he gave away to people who were in the cold. Which led to a big problem in that church because they wanted to give him the title deeds to the house. But they were afraid to give it to him because they thought if he met somebody who was homeless, he would give his house away. I know it's not a shouting thing for you because you're like, I ain't giving nobody my house. But be careful what you say because if mercy gets a hold of you, mercy has a way of turning you into quite a generous kind of person. What's the reach?

17:39 The reach is always those within the church. We become merciful to them. we learn, we better learn how to be merciful to one another. Because the lack of mercy can make you petty. Michelangelo could be petty. He was a great artist, but he could be petty.

18:01 The Pope has a person then called the master of ceremonies. This is the person who's like a maitre d' to the Pope. and Michelangelo had painted a fresco that was displeasing to the master ceremonies and Michelangelo didn't like the way that the master ceremonies downed his fresco.

18:33 And so while he was painting his second fresco and it would be the image of the devil and the next time you're in Rome and you go into the 16th chapel, they'll be glad to point it out. And they'll say, you see that face? That's not the face of the devil. That's the face of the master ceremonies who served the Pope in the years of Michelangelo. The way that Michelangelo got him back, he painted his face as the face of the devil. I guess Michelangelo got the last word. Well, if you're not careful, you can be doing the king's work in the Lord's house, the king's business, and turn around and still be petty if you don't recognize that you are the recipient of God's mercy.

19:30 I can't speak for you, but I can for myself that I'm grateful for the mercy of God. Listen how mercy goes, because my time is running out. Where Proverbs talks about in Proverbs 14, it speaks to us to have mercy upon the poor. In Psalm 41, it goes on to talk about giving to the poor is like giving to the Lord. And then in Luke 6, mercy is described this way. Love your enemies. Well, I got hard enough time loving people I like. By the way, you would be a better Christian if you learned to tell the truth.

20:30 Now I am as serious as I can be. Nothing irks me like Christians who full of pretense. You would be a happier person is love your enemy. You know what an enemy is? They ain't your friend. And the Lord says love them. and then to add to the and do good to them that's Luke chapter 6 it gets worse should I say it gets worse then it says lend to them without looking for anything in return the exaggeration of the images are to remind us that in the same way we find it difficult to love forgive and give god demonstrated that kind of love taught us when we didn't have a heart or sense enough to say lord thank you for being so good to me please ralph west That's the reach of it.

21:56 I got to move on. Time is up. Let me move now to the reason for it. The reason for it. So the linchpin between the reach, not just to those inside God's house, but outside, and the reason for it, you see it in Matthew chapter 25, the great passage where Jesus says, I'm going to judge you on how you responded to me. And then we'll say, well, Lord, I came to church. and I sat there. I endured Pastor Wes but I was there and Jesus is going to say, well, but you weren't there for me.

22:49 He said, yeah, we were. He said, no. I mean, you know, then you're going to say and I'm going to say, Lord, when were we not there for you? He's going to say, I'm glad you asked me that. He says, you remember when I was sick and you didn't visit me in the hospital?

23:13 Well, I visit my relatives. Yeah, yeah, but you belong to a world bigger than your relatives. When I was in prison, and you didn't come see about me? when I was hungry, you didn't feed me. When I was thirsty, you didn't give me a drink. Lord, when was that you? He says, what you've done to the least of these people, you've done this also unto me. And I'm not off the hook and you're not off the hook either. This gets gooder than that. Reach Reason Matthew chapter 18 I said that earlier today I was relying on my memory I wanted to make sure That I had it right Yeah, Matthew 18 I'm not going to read it to you But Matthew 18 Beginning at verse 21 Is the unjust steward They call it Now it's been upgraded It's called The unmerciful servant Now lean in and let me give you this story In just a matter of three settings You ready?

24:36 There's this businessman Who has an outstanding debt Obed to him by one of the people Who's a vice regent in his company He says, Where's James? That's James right there James comes in And he says And the owner says You know why you're here today right? Say yes Now get the number I want you to hear this If you missed this Whoever's next to you Tell them to be quiet Because I'm trying to help you right now They're one of them stories you don't want to miss. Now listen to the amount of money owed to the boss.

25:32 $12 million. Now remember now, this is written a long time ago. $12 million is big buck now. I know for you big ballers it ain't, but $12 million is a lot of cash, right? The man breaks down and asks his master, his Lord, his king, however you want to describe him. Please, here's the word, have mercy on me. Because in 10 lifetimes, I can't pay it away. At the amount of money that this man made, he would need 60 million weeks in order to satisfy the dead. He didn't have 60 million minutes to satisfy the dead.

26:32 And you know what the man did? Forgave the dead. I mean, that's just enough to turn a flip right there. 12 million satisfied on one word, have mercy on me. Act 2. You know what he did? He found the guy that owed him $17. Now these are the equivalent amounts if you would break them down in U.S. currency.

27:10 $17. Now Jesus is a master storyteller. He already knows that when you're sitting in the church without walls and you hear this, you're going to say this don't make no sense. $12,017,000. Jesus is a master storyteller. He knows exactly what he's doing. And you know what the man did? When the guy, when he finds his debtor who owes him $17, The man says, have mercy on me. And the one who had been forgiven $12 million, grabbed him in the neck, started choking him, strangling him. And the servants of the master's house saw it. That is before you got these phones.

28:06 They capture everything. They go back and they said, you're not going to believe what we just saw. You know that guy. James that you forgave his debt when he said have mercy on me? I said yeah. He went down the street and found a guy owed him $17 and almost rang his neck off. what are you serious yeah wait a minute after I gave him mercy after I cancel this death Bring him here.

29:13 Act 3. I heard what you did. So what I'm going to do, I'm throwing you in debtor's prison where you can't work it off. You'll work and work and work until you can work no more and you will make no progress forward because there's no remuneration where you're going. And at the end of the story, Jesus says, now the rest of y'all, whom the Lord has shown mercy to, you get up and act like somebody that the Lord has shown mercy to. This morning, it may be a mother or a father, it may be an uncle or auntie or a friend who has been merciful to you.

30:19 Maybe not to have had to forgive a sin or wrong, but you know what mercy is in your life and you haven't had an opportunity to say thank you or, You may have said, well, I told them thank you one time. Let me tell you something. When you have been a debtor, you never get out of the debt of gratitude to thank somebody for what they have done in your life to make your life what it is right now. More people would be happier if they learned to say thank you. More people would find more joy in life if they said thank you. And every now and then I have a friend. who had been so good to me that periodically I would call him up and say, man, I was just in my time of prayer and I wanted to thank you for being so generous and so gracious unto me.

31:17 He said, Pastor, you don't have to say that. I said, I know I don't have to, but you are sorry somebody when you don't do it because I'm grateful for what the Lord had done. That's how I am with Jesus. He didn't have to wake me up, but he did. I'm almost done now. This will be a great time. I mean this. For you to write a note or send a card to somebody that you know have given mercy to you. Mercy. Mercy. I mean the great sin in the world. If you say, Pastor, what is the sin? of sins in the world.

32:12 I would say it's the sin of ingratitude. It's actually what got Adam in trouble in the Garden of Eden. If he could have remembered that he was not the manufacturer of any of the good that he was experiencing in the Garden, when the Satan came to him, glistening and glowing and shining and offering to him that which that person had never created, he would have walked away remembering that had it not been for the gracious one, the generous one, God Yahweh, if he could have remembered that everything that he enjoyed, God had given to him, he would have at that moment walked away. All of what we got is a result of the goodness and the grace and the grandeur of God.

33:13 Preach Pastor West. Let me sit down. I have four minutes. Now. The reason And the reach Finds its impetus in one word And that's the reward Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown Shown mercy There's a reward attached to this Now when you don't give mercy You get back what you don't give When you read military history, you think about how Rome dominated the world and they conquered and how they mercilessly and brutally captured different countries. But when those little countries were strong enough to rise up, they were merciless toward Rome.

34:12 You think about Germany's role in World War II. And then you think when the Treaty of Versailles had been signed and reparations had to be replayed, the amount of extolled pressure that was put on Germany to pay back for all the evil that it had committed. It doesn't just happen in nations. It happens in individuals. That if you're not careful, you're careless and callous toward other people, what comes back to you? you rebound that stuff it comes back to you what you send out comes back to you I am today standing I know on the shoulder in life of a lot of people that I do not know the good that has come my way has because of the mercy of somebody else do you ever feel that way?

35:07 I do, I really do and so in this And so in this, we see that there's a reward attached to it. That when you give mercy, mercy comes back to you. Some of you may be graduates of East Texas Baptist College, I don't know. But if you are, you have worshipped in that Scarborough Chapel, R. Lee Scarborough Chapel. and I've been there and they're always, they, that is the chaplain or historians are quick to tell you of the story of how the Scarborough family have bequeathed so much to that college and university. R.D. Scarborough had a brother that was a rancher there. I hear this. And on a hunting expedition with his son, he had put his 12-gauge shotgun in the back of the open bed truck they did not dislodge their 12 gauge or their double barrel they just laid them in the back and the 20 gauge had within it a shell on that bumpy road coming back to the farmhouse that 20 gauge dislodged blew through the window and many of the pellets tore it to the back of the head of young Scarborough the son Bleeding profusely and not having access to the doctor.

36:42 Word had already circulated in that little town to the First Baptist Church. Pastor Bruce had come by. He saw Scarborough, the brother, there and the son bleeding and trying to crank out information for the doctor to get there as fast as he could to keep that boy alive. he did the only thing that was humanly possible to do. He made a syringe, took the needle and put it at the one end of a tube and at the other end of the tube and plummet that needle in the arm of that boy and into his father, Mr. Scarborough. and the blood from the father flowed to the son to keep that boy alive. That story is so dramatic, it almost sounds unbelievable, but go on over to East Baptist College and they'll be glad to sit down and tell you the story.

37:42 It's a story that they passed down to every student that come there, that because of the blood of the father, the son kept on living. You and I are here this morning because of the blood of the Son from the Father came to us. And you and I have inherited the mercy that only God can give to us. You look at people around here and they're not super spiritual. They don't walk on water. but what they are are men and women who have experienced the mercy and the grace and the goodness of a glorious God. And so when the music strikes and when the prayers are prayed and when people stand up, they're not standing up just to stand up. It is their way of expressing their testimony.

38:39 Had it not been for the mercy of God, I don't know where I would be. And I'm going to tell you, you've had mercy too. You've been on your way home sometimes. And not knowing whether you were going to get there. So sleepy, you couldn't keep your eyes open. And then you make it to where you're going. And once you get there, you have to ask, I don't know how I got here. except for the mercy and the glory of God. Some of you have had children away from home that have gotten into all kinds of stuff and yet God in his mercy has kept them and sheltered them and protected them. That's why I get excited. I rejoice because of the mercy of a loving God. Yeah, yeah.

39:35 Mercy will suit your case Mercy walks with you No wonder David said Surely goodness and mercy Shall follow me all the days of my life And I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever Mercy Mercy Mercy Mercy Mercy I told them at 8 o'clock I don't know Any other family on On my father's side But what I do know Somebody had to pray for me that's the only thing I'm going to get when I get to heaven is to ask the Lord point out to me what grandparent prayed for me and some of y'all here and you know exactly what I'm talking about that whatever good has come your way you know you didn't do it you know it wasn't the right choice you made but it was because somebody have prayed God's mercy, have prayed God's mercy for you.

41:05 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Mercy. mercy our father we thank you for your mercy. and your grace.

41:34 And had it not been for Jesus Christ demonstrating his love taught us while we were sinners, we wouldn't know what in the world mercy was all about. But we thank you today for your mercy. Thank you for what you have done and thank you for what you are continuing to do in our life, in our midst, for your mercy. Now, Lord, there are people who are here today, whether they admit it or not, they need your mercy. they need the mercy of your fellowship the mercy of one another the encouragement that comes through that kind of mercy when the door of the church is open could you keep them from grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching him but to open their heart to say it's me, it's me oh Lord standing in the need of mercy and so we thank you for what you have done and we thank you for what you're getting ready to continue to do as an expression of your mercy.

42:47 In the strong name of Jesus Christ, our rock and redeemer, we pray. All God's people say amen. Come on today, church. Give God praise.