Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Synopsis: The Christian is somebody who is blessed because of the fact that he mourns over his sin and is comforted by a blessed hope.

It’s such a joy to get to open up God’s Word with you all this morning.

Please turn to our passage today in Matthew 5:4.

And yes, that is our one verse that we are discussing today.

Before you go off thinking… man one verse. We’re going to be out of here in no time!

JOKES ON YOU.

This passage that we have today is rich.

Matthew 5:1–4 (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.

I don’t think I would be alone in admitting that as a child or even early Christian, the beatitudes were simply attitudes to be, or put in another way, attitudes to put on in my life as a Christian.

BE-ATTITUDE.

And when you would read some of these, just from a surface level reading think to yourself… well these are just odd sayings.

I just need to BE THESE THINGS I guess.

IF I CAN JUST DO THESE THINGS ON MY OWN… Well, then, I’ll be BLESSED or I’ll be COMFORTED!

THIS OF COURSE IS ONE OF THE WARNINGS THAT Pastor Nathan gave us last week in

warning us against fabricating our own meaning

warning us that this is NOT A MORAL CODE OF ETHICS.

BEATITUDES RATHER, are describing the RESULTS OF God’s presence being in the life of a believer….

THE STATE OF ALREADY BEING.

If you look at Luke 6, you have a of the parallel passage

Luke 6:21 (ESV)

21 … “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

Notice here how in both of these passages you have the negative that runs into the positive.

You have the perspective not solely on the here and now but rather on the later.

It is the focusing on the here and now that has actually helped propel some of the misunderstandings of what it is to be blessed, or to mourn. Much like I already mentioned…

False sense of Mourning and Blessedness

Its RC Sproul who doesn’t wholly enjoy the translation of BLESSED to HAPPY.

It can most definitely be translated this way from the Greek word makarious (μακάριος)(Blessed, happy, fortunate),

But to Sproul’s point, this word (happy) has been so cheapened by our culture today.

He says it lacks the depth dimension that is deeply spiritual, that which is not found in our current word of happy.

Happiness can definitely be included in this meaning, but in no way does it exhaust what Jesus is getting at here.

It is something to consider though, how exactly in our church context we related to this word of BLESSED.

It’s also something to consider in how in church history how we have understood MOURNING.

I think the two could be linked together in their history.

It’s been the misunderstanding of these two words that has given way to this misunderstanding of how the church should act, or portray herself in the midst of a lost culture over the last 200 years or so.

Misunderstanding of those who are pour in spirit or those who mourn.

Now days you may have this thought of mourning as in mourning of someone’s death.

This understanding of somehow if I financially am poor or maybe if I physically can be sorrowful or distraught, mournful, then maybe somehow we will be closer to Christ or make Him love me more than what He already does.

3 year old “pour in spirit”, “mourning”, in hopes that it will lead to blessedness or being comforted. (Hadlee wears her emotions on her sleeves)

Which of course is false: all of these BEATITUDES have a reference to the spiritual condition and a spiritual attitude. It is not a literal sense of being poor or a literal sense of mourning.

This right meaning is something that we have not seen in the church in recent years.

You have this false understanding leading to this “FALSE PURITANISM” as Lloyd Jones puts it.

Which in the last century and the beginning of this one you see evidence of.

It often manifested itself in assumed piety. It was not natural, it did not come from within; but people affected and assumed a pious appearance. It almost gave the impression that to be religious was to be miserable…

In this way, an appearance of a Christian was given that was not only a wrong one, but also not attractive to the outside world.

2. I think you also have had over the years this underling misunderstanding of the word Blessed.

And in part, was also this over reaction or correction from this false Puritanism.

The Church at some point began to think that first off, that blessing was anything and everything exterior of the man.

Instagram Post with pictures of a life of luxury with #BLESSED

And you also had this idea that for us to attract outsiders of the church, then we must put on this appearance of brightness. THIS FAKE SENSE OF HAPPINESS. (Always being cheerful, friendly, in a good mood.BECAUSE I HAVE CHRIST, I HAVE TO LOOK LIKE THIS.)

And so then you have this host of Christians who are trying to put on this happiness RATHER than this blessedness coming from within.

LLoyd Jones states

This is the endeavor to appear to be something and to cut a certain figure, instead of a life arising from within, which controls and determines the whole of our appearance and behavior.

It is this that has spear headed the movement of superficiality within the American church.

This is something that both men and women have had to face and struggle with in the church for years now.

So much so that one Pastor is quoted in saying…

“Many people come to worship services and they are never really present, they are never really there.”

Superficiality is born out of the sin of fear of man,

——> therefore the whole time we are at church, present with other brothers and sisters in Christ, we aren’t worried about the other inner man (the soul of the person), but rather we are worried about putting on this face, this exterior and catering to the other persons own face/exterior.

It turns into this never ending cycle of not truly knowing the inner man of the person we are talking to. (Their Heart)

One theologian said it this way,

“Superficiality is the curse of this age. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”

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Church, it is of no surprise that over the years, throughout revivals, God has drawn the unbeliever to Himself through the church when the church was acting and being as it should be.

The church is it’s most attractive when she acts as the Christian church.

Right poor in spirit

Right mourning

Right understanding of blessedness/joy

And more specifically when the church decides to put itself in the place to have the outer workings of these blessings because of the closeness to the Lord our God.

BECAUSE OF THE PRESENCE OF OUR GOD.

THAT IS WHAT IT TRULY IS TO BE BLESSED.

Sinclair Ferguson simply says then that

This blessing is simply fellowship with God, the experience of his covenant promise: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” It means having a right relationship to God, and enjoying Him as we should.

The church universal needs a reminder of what this sort of RIGHT BLESSEDNESS IS… what it looks like in the midst of our current church culture.

In the midst of suffering. In the midst of everyday life.

One Pastor said it this way…

The ‘new’ element was not that Jesus spoke the Beatitudes. It was that He spoke against the backdrop in which God’s Word had become clouded. People had lost sight of where true blessing was to be found.

AND SO WE MUST ASK OURSELVES THIS SAME QUESTION…

WHERE DO I TRULY THINK THAT REAL BLESSEDNESS IS FOUND? (Compare to Jesus’s Words)

Mourners of Sin

AS WE SEE IN TODAY’S PASSAGE, ONE OF THE WAYS IN WHICH WE RECEIVE THE PRESENCE OF GOD, THE GRACE OF GOD, THE BLESSING OF GOD… IS WHEN WE ARE IN A STATE OF MOURNING BEFORE GOD.

When thinking about the culture, this is a complete countercultural way of thinking.

It’s also a very paradoxical way of thinking.

Which is why I love Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said things like this all the time.

You want to save your life? Got to lose it.

If you lose your life for me, well then, you’ll save it. (Mark 8:35)

You want to be great? Well, then you have to become a servant.

Oh you want to be first you say? Gotta become a slave. (Mark 10:43-44)

Oh! You want to be first?? Well, got to be last then. (Mark 9:35)

HE SAID CRAZY THINGS!

In this case, we are told that those who mourn are Blessed!

What a weird thing to say don’t you think?

You most assuredly would think so if again, you’re looking at this from a non spiritual prospective.

Our culture most assuredly would look at this and think wrongly of it because our culture has done everything they can do to try and avoid mourning.

CULTURE—-> “Forget your troubles, turn your back on them, do everything you can not to face them.”

CULTURE, would look at this statement and think that it’s utterly ridiculous.

OR. Maybe you have even wondered a bit, “What exactly does this mean?”

How then should we understand what it means to really mourn?

In talking about there being a lack of biblical mourning in the church

Lloyd Jones says this…

I sometimes think, however, that the ultimate explanation of it all is something still deeper and still more serious. I cannot help feeling that the final explanation of the state of the church today (superficiality) is a defective sense of sin and defective doctrine of sin. Coupled with that of course is the failure to understand the true nature of Christian joy and happiness which is very different indeed from that we we find in the New Testament. Thus the defective doctrine of sin and the shallow idea of joy working together, of necessity produce a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate kind of Christian life.

So can we church, just briefly, remind ourselves of the seriousness of sin.

And why personally as a Christian and also collectively, should mourn over our sin.

A defective sense of sin

John MacArthur said this of sin in God’s Word…

Of the Bible’s sixty-six books and 1,189 chapters, only two books and four chapters do not mention sin or sinners. Gen 1-2 and Revelation 21-22 stand alone as unique chapters that rehearse the creation before sin and the new heaven and new earth, which will never be infected by sin. The rest of the Bible. from Gen. 3:1 to Revelation 20:15, abounds with the themes of human sin and the need for salvation.

You have a few different Hebrew and Greek words that describe sin. The main Greek word being Hamartia which directly means sin. But that which is closely tied to all of these other verbs that describe sin.

Missing the Mark

To rebel

to trespass

to betray

to transgress or passover

Wandering or straying

Lawlessness.

Sin from the description is clearly wrong in many ways.

And at it central core element, you see pride of the heart, selfishness, and idolatry. Loving oneself more than you love God.

John MacArthur says that

… sin is a violation of the Creator-creature relationship. Man only exist because God made him, and man is in every sense obligated to serve his Creator. Sin causes man to assume the role of God and to assert autonomy for himself apart from the Creator. The most all encompassing view of sin’s mainspring, therefore, is the demand of autonomy.

You see this in both Satan’s fall and Adam’s fall. They are both tied to this autonomous seeking to be like God.

Through a human King satan declared,

Isaiah 14:14 ESV

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

The Satan inspired serpent tells Eve…

Genesis 3:5 ESV

5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

THIS WICKED THOUGHT PATTERN IS REPEATED WITH EVERY SIN. Instead of saying God’s will be done, the sinner says my will be done.

Another writer says that

Sin is any lack of conformity to God’s will in attitude, thought, or action, whether committed actively or passively. The center of all sin is autonomy, which is the replacing of God with self.

SIN ALWAYS DISAPPOINTS… IT NEVER SATISFIES.

Because of sin, Man’s relationship with God is completely severed.

Sin brings the wrath of God’s Judgment — this righteous displeasure toward sin. ——->Sin also invited punishment because God MUST, as a RIGHTEOUS JUDGE PUNISH SIN.

Romans 1:18 ESV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

And sin actually makes us enemies of God. We are alienated from the life of God as unbelievers (Eph. 4:18).

Sin disrupted all human relationships;

tension betwen man and women;

and strife between persons just in society.

We are also told from God that because of sin, creation would work against man and frustrate his efforts.

Because of this… the widespread results of this sin touching every part of the world we live in. And because of God’s righteous act in judgement.

DEATH THEN IS THE PENALTY FOR DISOBEDIENCE.

Spiritual death happened instantly.

Ephesians 2:1 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

This is this state of alienation from God.

And since one man sinned in Adam… all have sinned.

And so all are born into this spiritual death.

(Also renders a person unresponsive to spiritual truth. (Rom. 8:7-8; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4)

Romans 8:7–8 ESV

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

The process of physical death also came from sin.

We see how in the list of Adam’s descendants to Noah Gen. 5 how death had become the end of human life, by repeating after every person listed… “and he died”. And so… physical death now consumes all descendants of Adam.

And finally, we also understand that ETERNAL DEATH awaits those who physically die while being spiritually dead.

Rev. 20 tells us that those who die in unbelief will face the lake of fire forever.

This does not cause people to cease from existence, but it’s still a type of death since it involves everlasting ruin, punishment for sins, and separation from God’s presence.

THIS IS SIN…. This is the tragedy of sin.

This is just a quick dip into the vastness of what sin effects. But I think it’s enough to allow us to understand that sin is nothing to play around with. It is certainly nothing to laugh about… or to take lightly.

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All of this… this right understanding then brings us to a state of being poor in spirit, like Pastor Nathan had said—-> knowing that I literally have nothing to offer God.

And then entering into this state of MOURNING

In speaking of this , one theologian said,

“As I confront God and His holiness, and contemplate the life that I am meant to live, I see myself, my utter helplessness and hopelessness. I discover my quality of spirit and immediately that makes me mourn. I must mourn about the fact that I am like that. But obviously it does not stop there. A man who truly faces himself, examines himself and his life, is a man who must of necessity mourn for his sins also, for the things he does.

We Mourn Sin Individually

And so therefore we mourn for our sin individually.

It is good for a person at the end of the day to think so themselves, and to run quickly over his life asking…

“What have I done?”

“What have I said?”

Thinking of how we have behaved in the midst of others….

thoughts that you have harbored

ideas or feelings that were unworthy.

Ways in which you reacted or didn’t react.

Ways in which we sought after autonomy from God.

As we realize these things… we come to an understanding of our sin… the gull that I have had in trying to be God in certain places. And then there becomes this sense of DEEP GREIF AND SORROW that I was ever capable of such things in my thoughts or actions.

I meditate on this… I contemplate it.

And I go through the process of Rom. 7.

Sinclair Ferguson says this about our response to sin…

Here then is the characteristic of the Christian. He does not excuse his sin, or belittle it, or ignore it. He does not weigh it in the balance with what he regards as his better qualities, or the fruitfulness of his service. Rather he cries out with Paul…

Romans 7:24 ESV

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

We Mourn sin collectively

The person who is truly a Christian also mourns over the sins of others.

He doesn’t just stop at his own sin. He also sees this same sin in his brothers and sisters near him.

And he also sees this sin permeate throughout the entire world.

He reads the news on social media,

he sees the needy and the poor,

and hears of wars and rumors of wars.

He knows friends who have been taken by addiction,

or families forever hurt by divorce.

He knows loved ones who’s lives have been taken either in whole or in bits by some disease or cancer.

He knows of women and children who have been abused.

And people who have been taken advantage of.

And with the Psalmist this man mourns saying…

Psalm 119:136 (ESV)

136 My eyes shed streams of tears…

He mourns because of the state of the world.

He mourns because of the suffering of mankind.

He mourns because of the lost who have yet to come to know Him who saves.

HE KNOWS ALL OF THIS IS BECAUSE OF SIN. AND HE IS GRIEVED BY IT.

Comforted by a Blessed Hope

Blessed Christian… You are the one who at some point in your life already said… Oh what a wretched sinner I am!

You saw what God offered in Jesus dying on the cross and raising three days later in defeating this sin and death to become the atonement for your sins.

And because you realized your sinfulness you took Jesus up on the salvation that He offers you.

The life He gives you.

The restoration that is offered to the God of the universe.

You saw this provision made for us by God the Father and when we take God at His word we are immediately comforted.

YOUR SORROW LEAD YOU TO JOY.

This does not change when you become a Christian.

The Christian… as we are living in this ALREADY BUT NOT YET REALITY that Pastor Nathan mentioned last week.

Continues to find himself guilty of sin.

And it continues to grieve us, to bring us to mourning.

BUT, that in turns drives us back to Christ.

The moment we came back to Christ out of the POVERTY OF THE SPIRIT and MOURNING OF OUR SIN…

we are given piece that only He can give.

We are given this assurance of salvation.

We are given this Blessed Hope.

FELLOW BELIEVER… WE ARE COMFORTED.

Isaiah 61:1–3 (ESV)

1 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; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 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.

The Christian life IS NOT

living this life superficially

always being on a high portraying that I’m a happy person because Jesus loves me… It’s not that.

Imagine the implications. If Matthew 5:4 is true—if Jesus really meets repentance with comfort, not condemnation—

then no longer do you need to fear being exposed.

No longer do you have to present an airbrushed version of yourself to fellow redeemed sinners.

No longer do you need to fear studying your heart and plumbing the depths of your sin filled heart.

A writer said that, “If exploring sin brings you to the deep end of the pool, exploring mercy will take you to the Mariana Trench(deepest trench in the sea). And awaiting you at the bottom of the dive is not a black hole but a solid rock.”

In the Christian life we see…

Mourning and Joy.

Sorrow and happiness.

You always see One that leads to the other.

Have comfort in this Christian.

Imagine awaking on the Fourth of July to a text from a friend: “Meet me for fireworks at 11 a.m.” You’d think it was a typo.

Why? Because fireworks aren’t impressive in the noonday sky.

The darker the sky, in fact, the more stunning the display.

In the same way, the brilliance of grace must be set against the blackness of sin.

As the Puritan Thomas Watson said, “Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”

TO THE UNBELIEVER:

This same life is offered to you freely.

When a Christian mourns over their sin… they are immediately driven to comfort in this blessed hope through Christ. It’s a beautiful life because it’s this life of sanctification… becoming more and more holy as He is Holy. And we are constantly being restored to the Father by nothing we have done, but only by the mercy and grace of the Father.

When your sin drives you into mourning at times or drives you into despair… where are you driven? Where does your mourning take you?

Know this… there is an offer on the table that is freely given. And that offer includes complete forgiveness for past, present and future sins.

It includes freedom from the sin that you are currently enslaved to. And it offers a new master that will never break a promise and will never let you down.

THE BLESSING: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; and give you peace”

**Closing Remarks

Membership interest meeting right after

No service tonight