Part 5 of “BLESSEDR: A Study of the Beatitudes”
October 18, 2026
Glynwood Baptist Church, Prattville, AL
James Jackson, Pastor
Good morning! Please open your Bibles to Matthew 5.
I know this comes as no shock to you guys, but I have never been much of an athlete. I played church league basketball until everyone else got tall, and had maybe a year or two of church league softball before I realized I had zero talent.
One of the things that led to that realization was that the teams I was on almost never played a complete game. And that was because of the Mercy Rule.
You know the Mercy Rule, right? If one team is up by a ridiculous number of runs after three or four innings, they call the game. So for teams I was on, that usually meant we were done before McDonald’s stopped serving breakfast.
I wasn’t sure if the Mercy Rule existed outside of church league softball, so this week I talked to a couple of guys in our church who coach baseball and softball. And it turns out it does.
But what I didn’t realize is that most coaches don’t even want the score to get that far out of hand. Pop told me that when his boys were up big, he’d have them practice switch-hitting. Ray talked about using that time to let his girls try different positions.
And looking back, I realized that’s what my coach did with me.
He had me selling hot dogs.
Now, not every coach does this. Some will run up the score as much as they can. But most make adjustments before it gets to that point. They pull their starting pitcher. They have their best hitters bunt. They give their less experienced players a chance.
They could be ruthless. They have the power to humiliate the other team.
But they choose not to.
And when you think about it, that’s a lot of what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount.
A couple of weeks ago, when we looked at the third Beatitude, we said that meekness isn’t weakness. Meekness is strength under control. It’s being so secure in your position in Christ that you don’t have to worry about your position in the world.
Well, mercy takes that idea one step further.
Meekness means you don’t have to use your strength against someone. Mercy means you can use your strength for someone.
And that’s where Jesus takes us in the fifth Beatitude:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
Stand with me for the reading of God’s Word: This is Matthew 5:1-12
Matthew 5:1–12 ESV
1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
[Pray]
1. The Character of Mercy: What It Looks Like
As I was studying this week, I learned some fascinating things about the word mercy. In Latin, the word for mercy is misericordia. It’s a mashup of two words: miser—we all know what misery is—and cor, meaning heart. So mercy is literally a heart for misery. Specifically, mercy is having a heart tuned to someone else’s suffering.
But here’s the thing: Mercy doesn’t stop with a heart that feels. Mercy moves us to hands that help.
You can feel sorry for somebody and never do anything about it. You can see someone hurting and think, “Man, that’s terrible,” and then go right on with your day.
But biblical mercy is more than feeling sorry for someone. It sees someone else’s misery and asks, “What can I do about it?”
Jesus illustrated this with one of his most famous parables, the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. A man has been beaten, robbed, and left for dead beside the road. Two religious leaders see him and keep walking. Now, we don’t know what they were thinking. Maybe they felt terrible about his situation. Maybe they even whispered a prayer for him as they passed by.
But whatever they felt, they kept walking.
Then a Samaritan comes along. And Jesus says that when he saw the wounded man, “he had compassion.”
Now, up to this point, there’s no obvious difference betwen the Samaritan and the priest and the Levite who passed by the man. The text never says they didn’t feel sorry for the man.
The difference is in what happens next. The Samaritan came to where the man was. He bandaged his wounds. He put him on his own animal, took him to an inn, and paid for his care.
Don’t miss the punchline. Luke 10:36-37:
And when Jesus asks which of the three men proved to be a neighbor, the answer was not ,”The one who felt compassion for him.” It was The one who showed him mercy.
Mercy doesn’t just stir the heart. It moves the hands.
Turn to Matthew 18. Here, Jesus tells another story about mercy. And this time, the person who needs mercy isn’t lying beside the road. He’s standing before a king, owing a debt he could never possibly repay.
Read with me: Matthew 18:21-35
Matthew 18:23–35 ESV
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
Stop there.
That word pity is the same Greek word Jesus used to describe the Good Samaritan’s compassion in Luke 10. It’s splanchnizomai— and it’s a really fun word in Greek, splanchnon is your gut, your bowels. When we talk about a “gut feeling,” it’s this idea of feeling something deeply.
So in both stories, somebody sees another person in a desperate situation. Their heart is moved by that person’s suffering. And they do something about it.
But there’s an important difference between these two stories.
In the Good Samaritan, the man lying beside the road is suffering because of something someone else did to him. He was beaten, robbed, and left for dead. He was a victim.
But in Matthew 18, the servant isn’t a victim of somebody else’s cruelty. He’s a man who owes a debt he cannot pay.
And that raises an interesting question: Does someone have to deserve our mercy before we’re willing to show it?
Think about the size of this debt. Jesus says the servant owed ten thousand talents. A single talent was worth roughly twenty years of wages for an ordinary laborer. So we’re talking about the equivalent of two hundred thousand years of wages.
This man wasn’t going to pay that debt off. Not in his lifetime. Not in a hundred lifetimes.
And yet he falls on his knees and begs the king, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”
Really? Everything?
He doesn’t need a payment plan. He needs a miracle.
And that’s exactly what the king gives him.
Notice that the servant asks for more time. But the king gives him something far greater.
He forgives the debt entirely.
The servant asks for patience. The king gives him pardon.
That’s mercy.
And notice something else: The king doesn’t forgive the debt because the servant deserves forgiveness. He forgives it because he is merciful.
Mercy isn’t something we earn by deserving it. Mercy is something we receive because someone else chooses to give it.
We’ll get to the rest of the parable in a minute. But I want to pause and acknowledge that mercy isn’t easy. We are conditioned to think about what a person deserves or doesn’t deserve. So let’s talk about the challenge of mercy. What makes it so hard?
2. The Challenge of Mercy: What Makes It So Hard?
Now, if mercy were as simple as recognizing that someone needs help, we’d all be a lot more merciful than we are.
But mercy is hard. And I think there are at least three reasons why.
First, mercy is inconvenient.
Think back to the Good Samaritan.
We tend to focus on what the Samaritan did for the wounded man, but think about everything he had to interrupt in order to do it.
He was on a journey. He had somewhere to be. He had things to do. And whatever his plans were for that day, I can promise you they didn’t include stopping on the side of the road to perform first aid on a stranger.
But he stopped anyway.
It’s costly
He used his own supplies to clean and bandage the man’s wounds. He put the man on his own animal, which presumably meant he had to walk the rest of the way. He took him to an inn and stayed with him. The next morning, he gave the innkeeper two denarii and promised to cover any additional expenses.
Think about that. He gave the man his time, his transportation, his resources, and his money.
And he didn’t even know the man’s name.
That’s the challenge of mercy. It almost always costs us something.
Sometimes it costs money. Sometimes it costs time. Sometimes it costs us the convenience of staying out of somebody else’s problems.
And sometimes the reason we don’t show mercy isn’t because we’re cruel or heartless. It’s because we’re busy.
We see someone struggling, and we genuinely feel bad for them. But we’ve got somewhere to be. We’ve got our own problems. We’ve got a schedule to keep.
And so we do what the priest and the Levite did.
We keep walking.
Remember what we said earlier? Mercy doesn’t just stir the heart. It moves the hands.
But moving our hands means interrupting our plans. And sometimes that’s more than we’re willing to do.
But there’s a third reason mercy is hard. Sometimes it goes against our sense of entitlement.
Let’s go back to Matthew 18.
Remember, the king has just forgiven a servant an impossible debt. Ten thousand talents. Two hundred thousand years of wages.
And then look at what happens next.
Matthew 18:28 ESV
28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’
I’ve heard a lot of preachers make a big mistake when they preach this. They do a good job of talking about how much the servant owed the king, but then they minimize how much the servant was owed by the fellow servant.
You need to realize that a hundred denarii wasn’t pocket change. A denarius is a day’s wage. So a hundred denarii is like three and a half months’ salary.
That’s an engagement ring, according to jewelers.
And here’s what makes this story so uncomfortable.
The first servant had every right to expect repayment.
The second servant really did owe him the money.
He wasn’t making up the debt. He wasn’t falsely accusing the man. He was demanding something he was legitimately owed.
But listen to what happens next:
Matthew 18:28–30 ESV
29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
We read this, and we are outraged. How could someone who had just been forgiven so much be so unwilling to forgive so little?
But how often do we do the same thing?
How many times have I been more focused on what I think I’m owed than on what I’ve been been given?
God has forgiven my sins. But when somebody sins against me, I want them to pay.
God has been patient with my failures. But when somebody else fails me, I want accountability.
It comes down to this: I want grace for myself. But I want justice for them.
It comes down to this: I want grace for myself. But I want justice for them.
You know, there’s a line in the Lord’s Prayer that you’ve probably prayed a million times:
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
It occurs to me that this may be the hardest line in the entire prayer.
Because think about what we’re asking.
We’re asking God to forgive us in the same way we forgive other people.
And just in case we miss that, Jesus comes back to it immediately after the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6:14–15, He says that if we forgive others, our heavenly Father will forgive us. But if we refuse to forgive others, neither will our Father forgive us.
That’s a sobering thought.
And here’s something else to consider.
God’s forgiveness of our trespasses came at an unbelievable cost.
And sometimes forgiving the people who trespass against us can be costly, too.
It may mean giving up our right to get even. It may mean letting go of a debt somebody really does owe us. It may mean absorbing the pain of something that can never be undone.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. Justice matters. Accountability matters. Mercy doesn’t mean pretending that wrong is right or that sin doesn’t have consequences.
But if that’s your understanding of mercy, then you really don’t understand the cross.
3. The Completion of Mercy
The cross is where we see that mercy doesn’t mean justice doesn’t matter.
The cross shows us just how much justice matters.
Think about the two parables we’ve looked at this morning.
In the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan paid for the wounded man’s care. He took money out of his own pocket to meet someone else’s need.
In Matthew 18, the king forgave an enormous debt. But think about what that means. When the king canceled the debt, the money didn’t suddenly appear in the royal treasury. The king absorbed the loss himself.
And that brings us to the cross.
You see, when God forgives our sins, He doesn’t simply pretend they never happened. He doesn’t shrug His shoulders and say, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”
Sin is a big deal. It separates us from God. It damages our relationships with one another. And it deserves judgment.
That’s what Paul means when he says in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death.
There’s a debt we owe that we cannot possibly repay.
Sound familiar?
We’re the servant standing before the king.
And like that servant, we don’t need a payment plan.
We need a miracle.
And that’s what God has given us in Jesus Christ.
Look at the rest of the Romans passage:
Romans 3:25–26 ESV
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Don’t miss that.
God is just. He doesn’t overlook sin.
But God is also the justifier. He makes sinners right with Himself through Jesus Christ.
At the cross, God doesn’t set justice aside in order to show mercy.
At the cross, God satisfies justice so that He can extend mercy.
And here’s what makes that so astonishing.
The Good Samaritan paid for a stranger’s suffering.
The king absorbed the debt of his servant.
But Jesus went to the cross for people who had sinned against Him.
Romans 5:8 says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
While we were still sinners.
That’s mercy.
And now, with the cross in mind, let’s go back to the question the king asks in Matthew 18:33:
“Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”
That’s the question at the heart of this entire Beatitude.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Now, we need to be careful here. Jesus is not saying that we earn God’s mercy by being merciful to other people. If that were true, it wouldn’t be mercy anymore. It would be wages.
We don’t show mercy in order to purchase God’s forgiveness.
We show mercy because we’ve already experienced God’s forgiveness.
The ending of this parable is so disturbing.
The first servant received mercy from the king, but nothing about him changed. He walked out of the king’s presence and immediately began choking someone who owed him money.
He had experienced the king’s generosity, but he hadn’t learned to share the king’s heart.
And as a result, the king reinstated the debt. Matthew 18:34-35
Matthew 18:34–35 ESV
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Those are hard words.
Showing mercy and extending forgiveness isn’t a suggestion for Christians who want to be especially spiritual. It is an expectation for a citizen of His kingdom. You cannot claim God’s limitless mercy for yourself while insisting on placing limits on the mercy you extend to others.
Now, please understand— this is a parable, not a systematic theology of salvation. I do not believe that someone who has been saved can ever lose their salvation.
Jesus is telling us that a heart that persistently refuses to show mercy has reason to question whether it has truly embraced the mercy of God.
Because when you’ve stood at the foot of the cross and realized how much you’ve been forgiven, it changes the way you look at what other people owe you.
It doesn’t mean forgiveness is always easy.
It doesn’t mean reconciliation is always possible.
And it certainly doesn’t mean you have to allow someone to continue hurting you.
But it does mean that God’s mercy toward you becomes the pattern for your mercy toward others.
The question is no longer simply, “What does this person deserve?”
The question becomes, “How has God treated me?”
And when you remember the cross, that changes everything.
Conclusion: Let Mercy Rule
You know, we started this morning talking about the Mercy Rule.
In softball, the Mercy Rule comes into play when one team has such a commanding lead that there’s no point in continuing the game. Somebody steps in and says, “That’s enough.”
And I’ve been thinking about that this week.
What if we learned to apply a mercy rule to the way we treat other people?
When somebody hurts us, and we have the opportunity to hurt them back, what if we said, “That’s enough”?
When somebody owes us an apology, and we have every right to demand it, what if we chose to extend grace instead?
When we see somebody struggling, and we have the ability to help, what if we stopped making excuses and started making a difference?
What if we let mercy rule?
Not because justice doesn’t matter. Not because wrong doesn’t have consequences. And certainly not because people always deserve it.
But because we’ve been shown mercy ourselves.
Think about that servant standing before the king. He walked into the throne room owing more than he could ever repay. And he walked out owing nothing.
He had every reason to be the most merciful man in the kingdom.
Instead, he became one of the most merciless.
And Jesus is warning us not to make the same mistake.
So this morning, I want to ask you two questions.
First, have you received the mercy of God?
Maybe you’ve spent your life trying to earn God’s approval. Trying to be good enough. Trying to make up for the things you’ve done.
But you don’t need a payment plan.
You need a Savior.
And that’s why Jesus went to the cross. He paid the debt we could never pay, so that through faith in Him we could receive forgiveness we could never earn.
If you’ve never trusted Christ, I invite you to receive His mercy today.
And second, who needs mercy from you?
Maybe it’s someone who has hurt you. Someone who has disappointed you. Someone who owes you something.
Or maybe it’s someone who is hurting, and you’ve been too busy to stop and help.
You know who they are.
And perhaps this morning, the Holy Spirit is bringing that person to mind.
What would it look like to let mercy rule in that relationship?
Maybe it means beginning the difficult work of forgiveness. Maybe it means offering practical help. Maybe it means taking the first step toward reconciliation, where that’s possible and safe.
Whatever it looks like, remember what we’ve said this morning:
Mercy doesn’t just stir the heart. It moves the hands.
And those hands ought to look a little more like the hands of Jesus.
So when you leave here today, don’t just remember the Mercy Rule.
Let mercy rule.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Let’s pray.
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