Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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My junior year of high school, I was in an advanced math class, and I was doing so well that I could almost flunk the final exam and still get an A for the class. In fact, I enjoyed math enough, that during the final exam, I actually calculated that I only needed to get 3 problems right out of 25, and I would still get an A for the class. So I thought about just doing 3 math problems and turning it in. But I didn’t, I did my best on the exam, and got an A on the exam as well.

Because as weird as it may seem, on some level, I actually enjoy math! There’s a part of me that actually enjoys doing my own taxes, because it’s like a big math formula. And although I’m not a math genius or anything, I think I enjoy math because at its basic level, it just makes sense. 1+1=2. That makes sense. And even the more complex formulas, when you boil them down, are just built on the very simple and basic concepts of math that make perfect sense.

Maybe that’s why I like math. You solve the formula, and you get the answer. It makes sense.

So sometimes we try to turn all of life into a math equation. Because sometimes life doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to us, does it? When life isn’t going our way, we look around and try to figure out why. But we can’t figure it out. So we try to do good, but evil is always present. So we wish that life was like an easy-to-follow formula. And sometimes we try to even make life work like an easy-to-follow formula.

When life isn’t going our way, we try to add good works to good works, and force God to give us good gifts because of it. We try to turn our faith into a formula. But do you know what that does? That turns you into a Pharisee! The Pharisees were strict about following all their rules because they thought they could please God just by being good enough. They thought they could force God to save them through their righteousness. They thought they could manipulate God.

But that’s not how God works, is it? First of all, we’ve done enough evil as well, from lying to laziness, and from greed to failing to glorify God, that our good can’t make up for the evil we’ve done. And secondly, we can’t force God to do anything! God gives us good gifts not because we manipulate Him, but out of His grace. More specifically, God shows us mercy through Jesus Christ because God wanted to. And then, through receiving salvation through faith in Christ, God changes our hearts so that we do good.

So we’re going to talk this morning about showing mercy to others, just as God has shown mercy to us.

Read Luke 6:36-38

I attended a church a few times that sang a song during their offertory time that went along with these verses. It went like this, “Give, and it will come back to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and, running over. Give, and it will come back to you. When you give, give to the Lord.” And everyone got into it, and it reminded everyone that you can’t outgive God, which is true. “Give, and it will come back to you.” We like that. That makes sense to us. If I just follow that straight-forward formula, I’ll get everything that I want, right?

In fact, this whole passage seems straight-forward enough, doesn’t it? We pastors like these kinds of passages because they’re easy to preach. There’s a heading, and then the sub-points are clearly laid out for us. The heading is, “Be merciful.” And then the sub-points tell us how to be merciful. Don’t judge. Don’t condemn. Forgive. And give. It’s like an easy-to-follow formula. And we like formulas. They make sense to us.

But this would be a very problematic passage for you if you’re looking for a formula for how to be saved. Because it seems to be saying, “If you want to be saved, you need to do these things.” Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you’ll be forgiven. Give, and God will give to you abundantly more. Be merciful, like God, and God will be merciful to you.

But the problem is, we don’t naturally do these things. We’re not naturally merciful people. “Judge not,” and yet we do judge people.

Now, this isn’t talking about distinguishing between right and wrong. When our culture today says, “Don’t judge,” they mean that we shouldn’t even consider some actions to be immoral, even when those actions are clearly unbiblical. Jesus said in another place, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” In other words, judge according to God’s Word. Judge with wisdom and fairness. And judge with mercy, because that’s how God also judges us.

So when Jesus tells us here to “Judge not,” He’s telling us to not rashly judge people based on our opinions, regarding things that aren’t clear in Scripture, in such a way that we look down on them as inferior to ourselves. And we do that far too often. In a split second, often just from one’s appearance, we decide what kind of person they are, and we judge them.

Chuck Swindoll was preaching a few years back at a conference, and a man came up to him and said how much he looked forward to hearing him preach. Sure enough, when Chuck Swindoll began to preach, he saw the man sitting near the front, but just a few minutes into the message, the man was fast asleep! And each night of the conference, he noticed that the man fell asleep. So, naturally, Chuck Swindoll’s opinion of the man suddenly dropped. But then after the last night of the conference, the man’s wife approached Chuck Swindoll and apologized for her husband, and said that he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he was on heavy medication that made him extremely sleepy. But he always wanted to hear Dr. Swindoll preach, and now he had fulfilled that goal.

Don’t judge people like that. You don’t know their story.

It’s actually very similar to the second command.

“Condemn not,” and yet we also fail at that. We do condemn people. We sometimes make a judgment about others in such a way that we don’t even consider that they could ever come to Christ. And sometimes we even look at Christians and say, “That person can’t really be a Christian, because they curse, or they drink, or they work on Sunday, or they” do whatever it is you think Christians shouldn’t do. But the ironic thing is that we’re not saved by our works, but by God’s grace, so as soon as you make it about works, you’ve misunderstood the gospel. Condemn not!

Instead, Jesus tells us, “Forgive,” and yet often we don’t forgive. We hold grudges. And even when we don’t hold a grudge, it’s difficult to really look at a person the same way again after they’ve offended us. We become guarded around them, and skeptical of them. We don’t trust them anymore. We don’t forgive.

And even more rarely do we give. We’re stingy with what God has blessed us with. Instead of seeing all that we have as from God, to be used for God, we hoard our stuff. And in hoarding our stuff, we steal from God. The Bible never says that we’re to give 10% to the church, and then use 90% for ourselves. We’re to see all of it as God’s resources, and use all of it for Him. So if we look at this passage a formula for how to receive mercy from God, and if only the merciful receive eternal life, then we’re all doomed to Hell!

But thankfully, that’s not what Jesus was saying (v. 36). In other words, since your Father is merciful, be merciful. Here’s the thing, you will only show mercy to others if you recognize that God is your Father. You will only desire to show real mercy to others when you remember how much God has been merciful to you. So showing mercy isn’t a work that you do in order to receive mercy, but something you do because you have been shown God’s mercy.

So judge not, because you won’t be judged. Condemn not, because you won’t be condemned. Forgive, because you’ll be forgiven. Give, because God’s given you so much, out of His abundance, and you’re inheriting the riches of heaven. He’s just going to put salvation in your lap, like a gift.

We tend to think of religion as “do this, and you’ll get this.” Like a formula. We like formulas. But that’s not the gospel. The gospel is, “You can’t do anything, and yet God saves you by His grace.” And then, out of love, you’ll give your life for Him. We love, because He first loved us.

And yet, for many people who say they’ve received Christ, their lives are not changed. Why?

Well, maybe it’s because they haven’t realized just how great the gift was. Or maybe it’s because they thought they earned it in some way. Or maybe it’s because they haven’t yet truly received it. They’re still trying to earn it, by not judging, by not condemning, by forgiving, by giving. These are all great things to do, but we can’t do them perfectly. Being merciful isn’t a formula that you follow, it’s a relationship with Jesus that changes you.

So how can we be merciful? Receive the mercy of God through faith in Jesus, and become His sons and daughters.