Mercy: Loving those in Need

Living in Tune with the Mercy of Christ the King

Matthew 25:31 - 46

Mercy comes from mercy. Our mercy to each other comes from God's mercy to us. The key to becoming a merciful person is to become a broken person. You get the power to show mercy from the real feeling in your heart that you owe everything you are and have to sheer divine mercy. – John Piper

If we want to become people marked by mercy, we must first become people who see clearly. This means cultivating the kind of awareness that recognizes every part of our lives — our joy, our growth, even our distress — is sustained by the free and undeserved mercy of God.

Mercy does not begin with strength or resolve. It grows out of a heart that knows it has received everything as a gift. Only when we learn to see ourselves truthfully before God — dependent, forgiven, upheld — can mercy begin to take shape in us.

Encountering the king

It might be difficult to imagine, but consider this: as you were walking down the street this week, you saw Jesus. Perhaps He was sitting on a park bench, feeding the birds or reading a newspaper. You’re not sure how you knew — but somehow, without a doubt, you recognized the man before you as Jesus, the Son of God.

I don’t know exactly how we would respond, but I suspect we wouldn’t be too busy to notice Him. We wouldn’t pass by pretending not to see. And surely, we wouldn’t look down on Him or decide He wasn’t worth our time or attention. If it were truly Jesus before us, we would do whatever we could to show Him our love, respect, and devotion. We would stop. We would sit with Him. We wouldn’t care what others thought — because the only opinion that mattered would be His.

Now imagine discovering something even more unsettling: that Jesus needed a place to sleep that night, or that He was hungry, or sick, or in need of care. However unlikely, I think most of us would respond without hesitation. We would consider it a joy and an honor to serve our King — to show Him how deeply thankful we are for all He has done for us.

And yet, in a strange and deeply uncomfortable way, this is exactly what Jesus is speaking about in Matthew 25.

The Return of Jesus

Just days before His crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples asked Him what would happen at the end of the age. In response, He gave them a sweeping vision of His return — a vision that concludes with His final parable, the story of the sheep and the goats.

When the Son of Man returns, it will be glorious. He will come in His glory and sit on His throne. His kingdom will be fully and finally established, and the King will take His rightful place to rule the nations.

But this return will also bring judgment. It will be a day of reckoning and justice — a moment when everything is brought into the light and the true shape of our lives is revealed. Jesus says He will separate the people as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.

Those on His right will be called blessed by my Father and invited to inherit the kingdom prepared for them since the very creation of the world. Why? Because their lives bore the marks of mercy. Again and again, they had responded to the King when He was hungry or thirsty, when He was a stranger, when He needed clothing, care, or presence. Their righteousness was not just belief; it was a way of life, embodied in mercy and love.

Then Christ will turn to those on His left. These, too, will be surprised — not with joy, but with grief. The Son of Man will call them cursed by God. While the sheep enter the kingdom, the goats are sent away — to receive what was never meant for them but for the devil and his angels. They, too, had encountered the King in need — and turned away. Their unrighteousness was not only inaction, but indifference, a refusal to serve the King.

These two groups had one thing in common: they were both given many opportunities to serve the King. What separated them was how they chose to respond.

The Great Surprise

The story takes a turn we never would have expected. Both groups — the righteous and the unrighteous — respond with the same question: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison?”

They search their memories for something that surely would have been unforgettable: seeing the King of kings and Lord of lords in need. But they cannot remember it. None of them realized that in those moments of hunger, sickness, and imprisonment, they were encountering Him. And so they ask again, “When, Lord?

Then the King responds with the words that change everything: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

This is the great surprise at the heart of the parable. The King of Heaven so identifies Himself with the poor, the hungry, the stranger, and the forgotten that service given to them is received by Him as service given to Himself — and neglect shown to them is received as a personal rejection.

What we never would have imagined — unless Jesus Himself told us — is this: The King of Heaven identifies Himself with the outcast.

He does not merely secure justice for the poor or uphold the cause of the needy. He so closely associates Himself with them that He receives what is done to them as if it were done to Him. The hungry, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned — those the world often overlooks — are not forgotten by the King. He sees them. He remembers them. He chooses to identify with them.

This is not new to the story of Scripture. From beginning to end, God reveals Himself as One who draws near to the weak and the vulnerable. He is the God who “secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.” He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He does not stand at a distance from suffering but moves toward it.

If we truly believe what Jesus is saying, then it changes how we see the world around us. Our encounters with the poor and the needy are no longer interruptions to avoid or problems to tolerate. Jesus redefines them as holy moments — opportunities to encounter and serve Him. We are invited to walk through our days with open eyes and attentive hearts, no longer passing by with cold indifference or blind familiarity.

Jesus is not distant from our ordinary lives. He is coming to our churches and walking through our neighborhoods. He is the one asking for spare change, the one needing a place to sleep, the one who has been forgotten in prison.

In light of this, to serve Him faithfully is not abstract. He tells us how — by caring for those in need. Since we would never ignore Jesus Himself, neither should we turn away from those He chooses to identify with.

Because in serving the least among us, we serve our King.

Living in tune with Jesus

I love music. When I was in high school, I played bass guitar in a jazz band with some of my friends. Once, I forgot to tune my instrument before a concert. The moment we began playing, I knew something was wrong — nothing sounded right. Eventually, I had to stop, step off the stage, and tune the bass before I could rejoin the group. Until then, I

had been disrupting the entire song.

I once heard a pastor describe righteousness as living in tune with the heart of God. That phrase has stayed with me. A righteous life resonates with God’s character and purposes — caring about what He cares about, aligning our values with His, and learning to live in step with His grace. When we live like that, our lives begin to sound more and more like Jesus.

To live out of tune with God is to resist His rhythm and clash with His melody. But the tune of God’s heart is clear: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” From beginning to end, the story of Scripture is a story of mercy. God delights to show compassion. He does not treat us as our sins deserve.

And the clearest expression of that mercy is the cross. There, Jesus did not merely help from a distance. He entered fully into our weakness and suffering. He took our place. He bore our sin. He gave Himself for those who had nothing to offer Him in return.

The proper response to that kindness and grace is to become people of mercy. When that mercy shapes us, our lives begin to take on the same tone. We become people marked by mercy — forgiving those who have hurt us, sharing with those in need, welcoming those on the margins, and loving those the world overlooks. This is why the sheep in Jesus’ parable were commended. They had received God’s lavish mercy and responded by extending mercy to others.

This is righteousness.

This is the sound of a life in tune with the heart of God.

Mercy is not a task we perform to earn God’s favor, but the life that naturally flows from seeing and receiving the mercy of Jesus our King.

See the full chapter here.