S.O.T.M. Happy are they that mourn [Matthew 5:4]

This morning we come to consider the second beatitude...

Stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 5:4]

The second beatitude, like the first, stands out at once and marks the Christian as being unlike the non-Christian. Indeed the world once again marks this beatitude as ridiculous…happy are they that mourn??? That’s ridiculous. One thing the world tries to do is shun morning. Just think about it, the whole organization of the world is based on the supposition that mourning is something to be avoided.

The philosophy of the world is, forget your troubles, turn you back on them, do everything you can to not face them. Things are bad enough as they are without going to look for trouble…be as happy as you can. The whole organization of worldly life is a pleasure mania, just look at the money, energy, and enthusiasm that is expended just to entertain people.

Entertainment has become the god of our day. One of many thing I have learned about myself through this COVID-19 thing is, I will live if I don’t get to watch sports. The men’s NCAA basketball tournament is my favorite sporting event to watch…I absolutely love that…but it didn’t happen this year, and I was really let down about that…but you know what…I lived through it…in fact I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would. Now don’t get me wrong, I hope that never happens again, but if it does, I know I’ll be fine. We don’t need so much entertainment friends.

The world’s pleasure mania or entertainment frenzy is just an expression of the great aim of the world to avoid this idea of mourning and the spirit of mourning. But the gospel says, “happy are they that mourn.” In fact they are the only truly happy ones. If you look at the parallel passage in Luke 6 you find it put in an even more striking manner, because the negative is employed. “woe to those who laugh now.” our Lord says ‘for you shall mourn and weep.” This condemns the apparent laughter and jubilance of the world by pronouncing woe upon it, but promises blessing and happiness, and joy, and peace to those who mourn.

So what is Jesus saying here? This doesn’t seem to make sense, I thought laughter was good medicine. Well this is our MI [main idea] Mourning in this context is an act of repentance and sorrow over our sin and sinful condition. Once again Jesus turns our thinking on it’s head. In the bible there is nine different words used for mourning or grief. The one used here [pentheo] is the strongest one there is. We understand mourning and grief, in fact you could easily say, mourning is a part of life. That’s evident in the number of words used to describe mourning…there’s several types of mourning. Mourning over the loss of loved ones, mourning over sickness, mourning over losing a job, etc. We get that, but is that what Jesus is talking about here? No.

Remember what the sermon on the mount teaches us…spiritual truths. We can easily miss this when we take peaces of the sermon out of context, like have said throughout this series. We know that when loss comes and mourning follows, there is also a since of comfort trough our mourning…a kind of pressure release through mourning. If you keep all the sorrow in it poisons you…but when you let it out in mourning there is a comfort or a healing process…and that looks different for everyone. But this is not what Jesus is talking about in this beatitude. In this context...

Mourning references a spiritual condition and a spiritual attitude

This is why I have said over and over again, these are spiritual truths that only the regenerate man can comprehend. To the one who is not born again…this makes no since at all. Jesus here commends those who mourn in spirit…Jesus says they are the happy ones. Those who mourn over their sin are happy. Once again we come to a statement that is paradoxical…it does’t make since to us. I will elaborate more on what this means in a moment, first I want to point out what this does not mean.

It does not mean to be happy you must be miserable. Jesus is not telling us to be a true Christian and to really look like a Christian, you’ve got to be this miserable looking person. There are some Christians that have this idea that in order to be a good Christ they have to have a miserable countenance about them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Later in Jesus’ sermon on the mount He addresses this in the area of fasting.

Matthew 6:16-18 Jesus says, “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

i.e. Jesus says don’t put on this act or assumed piousness trying to make your self look righteous by making yourself look miserable…you’re missing the point. Their is nothing attractive about that…the same could be said to the other extreme.

It does not mean to be happy you must always be jubilant. The other extreme is to go the opposite way of misery to utter jubilance all the time. There is this since that to be a good Christian you just got to be bright and sunshiny all the time… there’s an Arab proverb that says, “all sunshine makes a desert.” There is something about this idea of always having a smile, always being just bright that is just superficial, unintelligible, and fake. I think you see this more today than the later, this putting on a fake smile and performing a joy filled worship service. Can I just say, and this may shock some of you, but I don’t always feel like worshipping…I don’t always feel like preaching. If I really honest with you. But I worship and I preach anyway, even if I don’t feel like it and you know what…God always sustains me by His grace.

I do believe that one of the main reasons the church has failed in impacting the life of men and women greatly in the world today is due to the fact of the church being superficial and putting on a fake sense of righteousness…and here’s the result...

A defective doctrine of sin leads to a superficial concept of joy.

If there is not a real sense of conviction of sin there will be only a superficial concept of Christian joy. This is not what we see in the NT, there is no a shallow defective view of sin. Right from the start of the NT John the baptist comes preaching what??? Repentance…Jesus first started preaching what? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is consistent throughout the NT…repent and believe…repent and believe. Turn from your sin towards Christ.

We have to be poor in spirit before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. We learned last week that only those who are truly aware of their spiritual poverty are the ones who are truly happy. Entrance into the kingdom of heaven only comes to those who know they can’t get there on their own. It has to be all of God and all of grace. We can’t be filled until we are emptied, we don’t see conversion prior to conviction. And here again, we see this beatitude flowing from the first.

Real mourning over our sin must come before there can be true joy of salvation. This is the whole essence of the gospel. So many people spend their whole lives seeking to find true Christian joy. They say, “I’d give the whole world to find true joy” or “I’ve give anything to be like this or that person.” I’d suggest that 99 our of 100 cases of this kind of thinking is due to the fact that many have failed to see that there must be true conviction of sin before there can be true experience of joy.

Friends, this is not popular, this is not liked, we don’t want to sit in church and hear the preacher spend the whole time talking about SIN! Give me something positive, uplifting, inspirational that I can go home feeling good about myself pastor. Many want joy apart from conviction…but that is impossible, it can never be obtained. Those who are going to be converted and who wish to be truly happy and blessed are those who first of all mourn. Conviction is an essential preliminary to true conversion. This is not a one time thing, it’s ongoing.

True happiness is impossible apart from mourning over sin. This is important if we are to be growing and mature Christians…look at what the bible teaches us. The bible tells us that we, human beings, were made in the image of God. The NT tells us that Christians are to be conformed more like the image of Christ, sanctification. So if we are made in the image of God and as Christians are to be like Christ…what does that look like??? Well lets look.

What we know about Jesus, the bible tells us he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, the prophet Isaiah tells us that. John tells us that Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He wept over Jerusalem because she rejected him. John 8:57 indicates that Jesus may have looked much older than he really was. While only 30 years old, when he said to the religious leaders, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and they looked at him and said, “you are not yet fifty years old, but you have see Abraham?”

You know what we don’t have record of Jesus ever doing? Laughing…we are told that he suffered, hungered, thirst, mourned, wept…but no record of laughter in his life. Now that doesn’t mean he never did…my point is Jesus knew the great penalty of sin and the great price that must be paid for that penalty, so he was known as a man of sorrows.

Paul, was a man of great ability, but recall Romans 7 and what he says about himself. “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” That tells us something of what is meant by mourning over sin. Here is a man so grief-stricken about himself that he cries out in agony. Paul said, “in me dwelleth no good thing.” He knew there was something wrong in himself. he said “The good that I would do I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Paul was fully aware of the conflict in himself of sin and righteousness.

He was aware of his sinful state yet was also able to say, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ..that there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. While there is a battle in us and sin persists there is also no condemnation in Christ Jesus. “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation” 2 Cor. 7:10 Now the Christian doesn’t just mourn over our own sin but...

Christians also mourn the sins of others

Mourning over sin doesn’t just stop with the individual, the believer mourns the world in it’s lost state. The Christian is concerned about the state of society and the state of the world in it’s lostness. All you have to do is watch the news, look at social media, look at people around you. The world is lost and groaning for a true blessedness or happiness that only Jesus can bring. The believer sees the world in it’s unhealthy unhappy state and mourns.

Jesus wept at Lazarus’ grave because sin brought death to mankind.

Jesus mourned over Jerusalem because she rejected it’s savior. Jesus mourned because of the very nature of sin itself, because sin had entered the world and has lead to terrible results. Sin has lead to death to man, sin is rebellion against God, and God abhors sin. Death and rebellion grieved Jesus, as it should grieve those who have the nature of Jesus in them, the Christian. The Christian’s attitude is different toward sin, because the Christian’s nature is different. We should be grieving over the sin of the world, but I’m afraid we have become indifferent to much of the evil we see around us.

But we can’t stop there, otherwise it would be an incomplete picture of the Christian mourner.

Those who mourn shall be comforted

Here’s the paradox, the man who mourns is really happy says Christ. He becomes happy in a personal sense because…The one who truly mourns over sin is the one who truly repents. The one who truly repents, turns from sin to Christ, does so as a result of the Holy Spirit working in them. The truly repentant person, is a person, who by the Holy Spirit, has seen their utter sinfulness and hopelessness, and looks to Christ as Savior. No one can truly know Jesus as personal savior and redeemer unless they have first of all known their own sinfulness and have mourned over it. It’s only the man who cries “O wretched man that I am, who shall save me…that they can then say…I thank God through Christ Jesus he has delivered me from this body of death!

The one who truly mourns over their sin is the one who sees Jesus as their perfect satisfaction. That’s the astounding thing about the Christian life, your great sorrow over sin leads to a great joy in your savior…that’s a joy that is not superficial. Friends, this is not just a one time thing at the moment of conversion, you don’t repent and believe and you never have to do it again. The Greek gives us the since that there is a constant mourning and a constant comforting. The Christian life is one spent sorrowing over our own sin, the sin of the world, and Christ comforting us. A since of breaking down, to build us up.

There is a future comfort coming to those who mourn called “the blessed hope” [Romans 8:18-39]. Paul addresses this battle of mourning over sin and it’s a constant battle for the believer, but one day there will be a time of no more mourning, no more pain, no more tears…that’s a blessed hope. Paul says it this way, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed.” The Christian looks at this world with a since of burden because of sin, his own and that of the worlds…but one day all we’ll know is the glory of the Lord. That knowledge brings a joy and a happiness that surpasses understand, as Paul put it.

One final thing by way of application...

How do I become a mourner?

I got from John MacArthur and it’s worth passing on.

Remove hindrances. We all have hindrances that keep us from realizing our sin. These hindrances give us a hard heart, and they cause us to resist the Spirit’s leading. So if we want to be faithful followers of Jesus who are truly happy we need to remove these hindrances…the hindrances are...

Love of sin. If you love sin it will harden your heart, your heart will become petrified by the embracing and loving of sin. If you’re holding onto certain sins in your life they are hindrances to your joy in the Lord.

Despair. You know what despair says? God can’t forgive this. Despair undervalues God’s power. It minimizes the blood of Christ. It devalues God’s grace. It is drawing God down from the reality of who he is. Jeremiah 18:12, “They said there is no hope and so we will walk after our own devices and we will give everyone to the imagination of his heart.” In other words, God can’t do anything about us, anyway. We’re beyond hope so let’s go at it. That is the language of despair and despair hides mercy behind ignorance. It hides grace behind doubt. Listen. I don’t care how bad it is. I don’t care how evil you are. God’s grace is able to reach you, change you.

Conceit. conceit says, “Well, I’m not that bad. You don’t know me if you think I should get sad about what I am. I’m all right. In fact, I’m pretty good.” This is a foolish doctor treating a deadly disease as if it was a cold. Listen. If Jesus Christ had to shed his blood and die on a cross for your sin, you’re bad, you’re real bad. So am I. And by the way, if you think you’re not bad, you’re worse than everybody else because that’s the worst sin of all.

Presumption. presumption is cheap grace. Well, you know, I one time said I wanted Jesus in my heart and I went through the deal and went down the aisle and I got baptized. What do I need to worry about? I’m just going to do whatever I want and I’ll be all right I did the thing. I don’t need to confess my sin. God’s grace isn’t a license to sin.

Procrastination. Procrastination says, Well, I’m going to have to get around to doing that. One of these days I’m going to have to get a good look at my sin and really get my act together. You want to know something? It might be too late. James 4:14 says, “Don’t you know that your life is a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away?” so before you start talking about tomorrow, you’d better realize there might not be a tomorrow. Don’t be a fool. Listen. The sooner the disease is dealt with, the sooner the comfort comes, and with it the blessedness. And if you never deal with it in time you’ll spend an eternity without God. Don’t put it off. Repent

Laughter. What do you mean by laughter, I thought that was good. The laughter of the world. I mean there are some people who just don’t want to deal realistically with life and death. They just want to laugh all the time. It’s just one big party and as long as they can keep the party going, they’ll never have to face the issue of sin and death.

So how do I remove these hindrances? If you’re playing around with any of these hindrances…repent and Look to the cross, look at what Christ did, look at the price he paid for your sin.

Study the scriptures, study sin in the scripture and you’ll see how beautiful the cross really is.

Pray for God to reveal your sin to yourself by the Holy Spirit, so you can then see the fullness of our Lord’s sacrifice.

God give us a sense of who we are, so we can begin to get a sense of how wonderful your really are. Break us for your glory.