Hi, I’m Pastor Brent of Faith Alive Family Church in Saskatoon, Canada. Welcome to God Today. I want to talk to you today about being merciful and Matthew 5:7 says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” In the beginning, God created the earth and the heavens and he created certain laws of sowing and reaping and we all know about it and we apply it in many areas of our life. I mean if we plant potato seeds, we’re going to get potatoes. So, if we plant orange seeds, we’re going to get oranges and we all understand that principle. If you give love, you’re going to receive love.
But, one of the things I think that’s overlooked in our lives is that we need to know and understand that we can give mercy and if we want to receive mercy, then we can give mercy. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy and in the Bible, Jesus talked about certain religious people. And He said in Matthew 23:24, He says “blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.” He says “you tithe these little small things” and He says, “but you forget the weightier things of the law.”
So, they were being very particular in their obedience to the little things in life, but neglecting the weightier matters such as justice and mercy and love. And I think that can happen to us too in our lives. Over time, we can forget about the things that matter the most: like showing mercy, like showing love. And so I say we don’t need to be overly sensitive about the small things. It amazes me how often I’ve seen church people get upset about minor things. If someone comes to church and they wear a hat or they’re wearing shorts or they do something that we don’t like and we get all upset about it, not realizing that these are minor things and things that we shouldn’t be majoring on. What would our relationships be like, what would our marriages be like if we could just overlook the minor things and just major on the major things – such as mercy and such as love.
And so we need to realize that if we want our relationships to grow, we want to get stronger and love, then we need to sow mercy. So, I want to encourage you today to sow mercy in our life. So, when we’re out there at our jobs, we’re in the world with our families, we’re at church, we’re with people and they let us down, they fail us, I want to encourage you, instead of being harsh toward them, show mercy. When they disappoint you, show mercy. When someone butts in line at the store, show mercy. When somebody wants to get in line with the car, show mercy. Be like God, act like God and we will ensure future mercy in our lives. Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy and I don’t know about you but I need lots of mercy and so I’m going to show mercy to you so that one day mercy will come back to me.
Let’s pray. Father, I thank you for those watching today, listening on this program and Lord, I want to encourage them. So, Father, I pray that you’ve received wherever they go. Show them that the people around them need mercy desperately, Lord, and mercy is a powerful force as mercy triumphs over judgment. Lord, I’ll pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.