The Blessing of Spiritual Grief

Blessed Grief

Matthew 5:4

David Brainerd was a young missionary who evangelized the Native Americans in New England during the 1740s. Brainerd died very young. His diary shows us the picture of a man who communed with God. He spent hours in prayer. An outstanding feature of this man's prayer life was his deep sense of sinfulness and neediness. On Oct. 18, 1740 he wrote in his diary…  In my morning devotions my soul was exceedingly melted and bitterly mourned over my exceeding sinfulness and vileness.

I want you to note in this statement two things linked together. First, there is a sense of sinfulness. Brainerd even calls it vileness. This is the quality we discussed last week. Jesus said, "blessed are the poor in spirit." The poor in spirit are those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy. Brainerd exhibited this.

Second, we notice that accompanying this sense of sinfulness is mourning. Brainerd said he not only recognized his sinfulness, he mourned it. When he considered his sinfulness, it brought him to grief.

The seriousness of sin and the mourning which accompanies it is becoming more and more lost on contemporary culture – even in the church. Let me give you an example. When Isaac Watts wrote the hymn Alas and Did My Savior Bleed in 1707, he wrote,

Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die?

Would He devoted that sacred head for such a worm as I?

Later it was changed to “Would He devoted that sacred head for sinners such as I?” Some hymnals have even changed the language of the phrase to “Would He devote that sacred head for such a one as I?”

In a culture which has become enthralled in the secular self-esteem movement, we have a hard time singing “for such a worm as I?” The reason is that we have lost the sense of how terrible and twisting sin really is. And when we lose that sense of the awful wickedness of sin, we lose the broken heart that goes with it.

I submit to you today that this sense of sin and its accompanying grief are the very things the first two beatitudes teach us. Two weeks ago we looked at the concept of spiritual poverty. To be poor in spirit is to realize that we are completely devoid of any spiritual merit. We are spiritually bankrupt and totally dependent on God. The second beatitude is the result of this realization – mourning and brokenness over our sin. Has your soul ever been – to use Brainerd’s language – exceedingly melted because of your exceeding sinfulness and vileness before God?

Jesus tells us that those who see their spiritual poverty and mourn over it are blessed.

I. Blessed are the mourners.

            A. Those who mourn over their sin.

                        1. The mourning Jesus speaks of here is not just any

                            kind of grief.

                                    a. Grief over losing a loved one.

                                    b. Grief over lost opportunities.

                                    c. Grief over pain or persecution.

                        2. The grief Jesus speaks of here is grief over sin.

                                    a. The Bible gives us many examples.

My eyes shed streams of water because they do not keep thy law.

Psalm 119:136

Then Ezra rose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. Although he went there he did not eat bread, nor drink water, for he was mourning the unfaithfulness of the exiles. Ezra 10:6

So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed…(whole chapter is mourning over sin)

Daniel 9:4-5

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death? Romans 7:24

You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead in order that the one who did this might be removed from your midst. 1 Cor. 5:2

Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 2 Cor. 7:9

            3. Mourning over sin includes several facets.

                        a. It is mourning over sin itself and not just it’s con-

                           sequences. It mourns because sin is an insult to the

                           holiness of God Himself.

ILL: David was confronted by Nathan the prophet over his sins of adultery, lying, and murder. David’s psalm of mourning is Psalm 51. In this psalm, David does not mourn the consequences of the sin (the sword not departing from his house) but the sin itself. He grieves over the fact that he had broken God’s law and violated God’s holiness.

The prodigal son in Luke 15 says to himself one day, “I will arise and go to my father and tell him ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you…” He is not so torn by his circumstances of poverty and living among the swine. He is torn by his sin.

Thomas Watson said, “The devil holds the small end of the telescope to sinners.” He wants us to view our sins as small and insignificant. We must not fall prey to this ploy. We need to see all sin for what it is – a violation of God’s law and an assault on His holiness.

                        b. Mourning over sin leads to repentance. There is kind

                            of mourning which is very cosmetic and shallow. It is

                            a grief over being caught or confronted or over the

                            losses that sin brings. But true mourning over sin is a

                            deep and abiding sense of our sin which drives us to

                            repentance. We mourn and turn to God in sorrow.

                            See 2 Cor. 7:8-11.

                        c. Mourning over sin also includes the sins of others. So

                           deep is the brokenness over sin it extends to the sins                            

                           of  the church and the nation. See Paul and Daniel as

                           examples of this.

 APP: Dear people, the Holy Spirit is the One who convicts our hearts and brings a sense of sin to our lives. Let me mention two things that the Spirit uses to drive home to our hearts the seriousness of sin.

• The cross. Thomas Watson said, “Read the greatness of your sin in the deepness of His wounds.” How awful is sin? It is so awful that the holy Son of God left the glory of heaven to take on our flesh, be ridiculed, beaten, and nailed to a rough cross to endure the fury of God’s wrath against sin.
• Hell. How terrible is sin? It is so terrible that divine justice demands that sin be eternally punished in hell.

II. For they shall be comforted.

            A. The mourners will receive comfort.

                        1. Isaiah 61:1-3 speaks of the comfort Messiah will

                            bring to those who mourn.

                        2. The comfort of the mourners may be viewed as both

                            here and in the future.

                                    a. Here the mourners receive the comfort of the

                                        forgiveness of their sins and the assurance of

                                        their acceptance by God in Christ. (Isa. 57:15;

                                        1 John 1:9).

                                    b. In the future, the mourners will receive the

                                        comfort of heaven itself where there will be

                                        no more sorrow or mourning. (Rev. 21:3-4)

APP: Think of how upside down this is to the world in which we live. We amuse ourselves to avoid sadness and mourning. We certainly don’t like to be introspective and think about the things we’ve done wrong. We distract ourselves with all sorts of amusements to keep from thinking about the condition of our souls. We will settle for a shallow, short-lived, happiness to keep from embracing the sadness of sin.

But Jesus says the ones who really look inside, see their spiritual poverty, and deeply mourn over their sin are the very ones who will be happy.

We need to understand that the very thing we are trying so hard to avoid – the real heartbroken mourning over sin – is the requirement for true comfort. If you want to experience true joy and assurance, you must first come to feel the sorrow of your sin.

CONCLUSION:

George Whitefield was one of the best known preachers of the first great awakening which took place colonial America. Before coming to America, he preached extensively in England. He was really the first to begin what we call "open air preaching." He preached outside, in fields, in parks, wherever people could congregate.

At one point in his ministry, he was preaching to coal miners in Bristol, England. When the miners would come out of the mines, he would gather them together and preach to them. He preached for a while with no visible result. Then, according to his journal, Whitefield knew that the Word of God was beginning to have an impact on these rough miners. He said that as he preached, he began to see small white channels appear on their faces as the tears ran down and washed away the coal dust.

Dear friend, is the Holy Spirit piercing your heart today with a sense of your sin? Are you feeling a soul-wrenching sorrow? Are you saddened by the number of times you have ignored God’s law, arrogantly gone your own way, and snubbed His holiness? Are you brought to tears by your sin and compelled to confess them and repent and trust in Jesus Christ?

If so, then you are blessed. God will comfort you. You will have a deep and abiding sense of His forgiveness. God promises to come to those who mourn over sin and comfort them. And God will one day bring them to heaven where all sin and sorrow will be forever eradicated. Dear mourner, be encouraged because God will comfort you.