Jesus and the Upside-Down Kingdom, Part 2
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:51
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· 5 viewsThe kingdom of heaven and comfort of God is available for the spiritually bankrupt and those who bemoan their sin.
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Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Thomas Watson once referred to the beatitudes as the Jacob’s ladder that leads us to heaven.
Last week we covered the first rung of the ladder was spiritual bankruptcy before God.
The first step toward heaven is spiritual bankruptcy.
We must all become children to enter the kingdom of God.
We come in needy spiritual dependance to God.
As people who are spiritually bankrupt, we come to God.
The kingdom of God will be filled with people who spiritually depend upon God.
Down is up.
Up is down.
“Paradox - Truth standing on her head to get attention.” ― G.K. Chesterton
This leads us to our second rung on Jacob’s ladder that leads to heaven.
The path to paradise is through the valley of tears.
The path to paradise is directly through the grieving of one’s sin.
The Comfort of God for those who Mourn.
The Comfort of God for those who Mourn.
(Matthew 5:4)
A Christian is one who is more grieved by their own sin than the “sins” we see in other people.
A Christian is grieved by their own sin.
Mourning is not natural nor widespread.
Mourning is not natural nor widespread.
The world has always despised mourning.
We despise it and try to move beyond it as quick as we possibly can.
Mourning is not a disposition of a person’s personality.
There are not some people who are more disposed to mourning than others.
We see a parallel passage in Luke’s gospel which says,
Luke 6:21 (ESV)
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
He actually goes as far to say,
Luke 6:25 (ESV)
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
Jesus doesn’t have a fleshly mourning in mind here.
He doesn’t have in mind a worldly mourning here.
Ammon who mourned because Tamar couldn’t satisfy him sexually.
And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her.
Ahab because he couldn’t rob Naboth’s vineyard.
And Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food.
The Gospel according to Matthew 2. The Beatitudes, 5:3–12
In their seeking after self-gratification and pleasure they do not grieve over sin or evil. Because they do not grieve over what is wrong in themselves, they do not repent; and because they do not grieve over the wrong they share with others in the communities in which they live, they take few steps to set things right.
Let me give you an example: if a western person goes into the slums of India, they quickly become overwhelmed by mourning.
The unbeliever mourns over the wrong things.
“How unfair that people have to live without homes.”
“How unfair that they have to work so hard for food every day.”
The problem with this type of grieving and mourning still misses the kind of mourning that Jesus describes here.
On the other hand…
Christians walk through the SAME streets of India and are concerned for entirely different reasons.
They grieve over the deep injustices of that society because people made in the image of God are being suppressed.
They grieve over the lack of shelter because they see the real problems behind the problems.
It needs to be acknowledged at this point how upside down the reality Jesus is talking about here.
He is presenting the happy ones as those who mourn.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Mourning over our own sin.
Mourning over our own sin.
Water Trough and the Spiraling of Mourning
Repentance unto Death
Outward Mourning - Repentance Unto Death
Outward Mourning - Repentance Unto Death
Unbelievers feel bad about their sin.
Unbelievers grieve their sin.
But they only grieve the consequences of their sin.
They grieve the effects it has on their life.
Pharaoh repented 7 times in the book of Exodus.
Exodus 10:16–17 (ESV)
“I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.
Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.”
A person can get caught up in mourning the consequences of their sin without mourning their sin itself.
To mourn the consequences of our sins sounds like,
“Sorry God that I keep causing such chaos in my home.”
“I feel so overwhelmed by the way my sin makes me feel.”
Of course it makes us feel bad.
But mourning for sin must go beyond this.
"If I hate sin because of the punishment, I have not repented of sin; I merely regret that God is just." — Charles Spurgeon
Mourning for sin must go to a level that sees our sin correctly in the light of God’s face.
Mourning must go beyond “feel bad” for our sin.
Non-Christian
You haven’t treasured Jesus for salvation.
You haven’t placed your life upon Him.
But may I say, you likely take comfort in the fact that you feel bad for your sin.
I would argue that it’s this “bad feeling” that soothes your guilty conscience.
But mourning takes us somewhere.
Fruitless Mourning - Repentance Unto Death
Fruitless Mourning - Repentance Unto Death
Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 7:8.
He had written what he would call a “severe letter”
A letter that made the Corinthians grieve for their sin.
For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.
So he’s upset, but NOT upset that he made them grieve.
As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.
Paul was pleased to grieve the Corinthians because their grief did something.
Their grief made them repent.
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
It is possible to mourn over your sin but it be a false repentance.
It is possible to weep over our sin but if it does not move us to obedience it is worthless.
It is possible to mourn over our sin but if it does not produce an outward righteousness.
It’s death because it never does anything in us.
Jonathan Edwards Sermons No. 182: Particular Repentance
When a man truly sees the hatefulness of his sins, and mourns for them he will come readily and willingly, without being forced to it, and cast himself down at the feet of God, and lie in the dust.
Example of Two Men Getting Drunk
The first man who got drunk came and confessed his sin to a brother.
The second man tried to cover it up.
When confronted about it became confrontational.
Which of these two men have repented?
We cannot force a person to mourn their sin.
We cannot make them to grieve their iniquity.
No more than you can scoop the water from the swirling trough of muck.
“It must come as water out of a spring, not as fire out of a flint. Tears for sin must be like the myrrh which drops from the tree freely without cutting or forcing.” —Thomas W
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Notice what the result of the grief upon the Corinthians accomplished.
Leads to Obedience - Repentance Unto Life
Leads to Obedience - Repentance Unto Life
David is a great example of this.
He recently committed adultery with Bathsheba
He killed Uriah,
And he covered it all up.
But notice what he says in Psalm 51.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
David does not primarily look at the consequences of his sins to other people.
David primarily sees that his sin is an offense before a HOLY GOD.
His sin is primarily an offense before God before it has anything to do with anyone else.
Jonathan Edwards Sermons No. 182: Particular Repentance
“He that truly hates sin, will hate it most in himself.”
Christian
We don’t sin abstractly.
Therefore our mourning for sin should not be abstract.
Deceitful people desire to mourn for sin in general.
There are specific ways that our sin has made a stench before God.
Therefore our mourning should be over specific sins we have grieved our heavenly Father with.
“Believing tears are precious. When the clouds of sorrow have overcast the soul, some sunshine of faith must break forth…After the greatest rain, faith must appear as the rainbow in the cloud.” —Thomas Watson
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Mourning over the world’s sin.
Mourning over the world’s sin.
Two other scenes from the Lord Jesus in regard to mourning.
The first is at the tomb of Lazarus and the second was over the people of Israel as a whole.
Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus wept.
This picture of Jesus being deeply moved and bothered by the death of His friend is a stirring image.
We know how the story ends so we think,
“He is going to raise Lazarus anyway, why be upset?”
But if we have this perspective we miss something fundamental about what Jesus is doing here.
Jesus is distressed because He is observing sins effects on a person He deeply loved.
The effects of sin in the world.
The effects of sin in the world.
Jesus saw the effects of sin on His friends.
People He really did love and care for.
This bothered Him.
This provoked Him to such deep emotion that He was led to weep over Lazarus.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
John 11:38–39 (ESV)
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
Jesus was deeply moved to mourn for the effects of sin in the world especially those that effected His friend, Lazarus.
After the Christian knows what it is to weep over their own sin.
Then it becomes an obvious necessity to weep over the effects of sin in others.
Christians
Part of what it means to love other people then requires “mourning”
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
This is why we are commanded in other places to “weep with those who weep”.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Some of the most Godly things you can do with other believers is cry.
To mourn with those who are mourning is the Christian response when affected by sin.
The effects of sin on people.
The effects of sin on people.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people rejoiced.
They loved His coming and appearing and yet He sees through their rejoicing.
Jesus is able to look at the rejoicing and know what is behind it.
Jesus sees excitement but knows it does not represent reality.
He hears them cry for “Peace!” but He knows what must happen for true peace to be found.
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,
When we look at people, there is a temptation for us to assume that a person deserves what they have coming.
We will even say things like,
“They deserve what they have coming!”
But this does not do for the Lord Jesus.
The city of Jerusalem would in a few days kill him and yet here He is weeping over them.
saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side
and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Jesus is upset because He knows the coming judgment for them.
In A.D. 70, Jerusalem would be destroyed entirely.
If there has ever been a person who could stand and say, “You had it coming!”, it was Jesus.
But He stood over the people who would eventually kill Him and say,
“Oh that you would have eyes to see my coming to you!”
Church
We need to be grieved by the gross immorality we see around us.
“Not because it’s not like it used to be.”
“Not because we hate seeing it.”
But because people are genuinely perishing.
So when we pray for other churches…
we need to mourn when we hear about church splits.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?
How does God bring comfort to the believer?
The comfort of the Holy Spirit.
The comfort of the Holy Spirit.
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
Jesus’ promise to His disciples is that they will mourn briefly over His departure but will rejoice in His resurrection.
They will be sorrowful but their sorrow will lead to joy.
So is the life of the Christian who mourns over their spiritual estate.
They see their spiritual estate correctly.
How they are utterly ruined in themselves.
They mourn over their evil desires which crop up from within themselves.
They mourn over the great evils they see come from within them.
They mourn for their own spiritual estate.
But as they do so, it leads them to greater joy in Christ.
It leads them to an unshakable, unbreakable, Christ-centered, resurrected joy.
The comfort applied by the Holy Spirit through forgiveness.
The comfort applied by the Holy Spirit through forgiveness.
When Jesus comes on the scene, He quotes from a passage of Scripture in the OT…
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
Forgiveness will be the balm that heals the wounds of sin.
Forgiveness will be the oil of gladness that flow down over the faces of the mourning.
What does all of this lead to though?
For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.
It’s mourning over sin that leads to obedience.
It’s mourning over sin that takes us to life.
You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
Christian, this should bring you enduring confidence.
As you grieve your sin, God keeps track of every tear.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Mourners are blessed because they will be comforted by God.
Mourners are happily approved because they will receive the balm of forgiveness from God.