BBM#2

Northside Christian Church 11/1/2020

Blessed Beyond Measure #2 Jamey Mills

What is happening Northside, my name is Jamey and I am one of the pastors here at Northside Church… been looking forward to hanging out with most of you all week.

So… Church Norris November… Matt and I will be bringing our best Norris joke… or truth, however you see it… every week through the month of November. You can help by texting our office with the name of the one who’s joke you like best each week… for instance today… you should text Jamey to 541-497-7885.

So here is mine for the day… When Chucky Norris decided to move out, he kissed his mother on her bearded cheek and turned to his father and said… well, you're the man of the house now… and then walked out the door. It was hard… but then again… being three is hard on everyone. Alright

That number is 541-497-7885 and you spell my name Jamey… it’s the surprising manly way to spell it.

We are in the second week of our series #blessed beyond measure where we are looking at the very beginning of the best sermon ever preached in the history of the world… In it Jesus was speaking important truth into the perpetual brokenness in us and into the world around us…

Jesus starts off with these 8-9 simple phrases “blessed are those”… and in it Jesus isn't telling us how to simply act better or how to earn God’s blessing… but showing us where a blessed life is truly found.

And in order to pick up what Jesus is laying down here for us… we have to understand what blessed means… we talked about how culturally we see “blessed” revolving around comfort, money or circumstances… right...

But Jesus’ is that the blessings those things bring is superficial… it's counterfeit and could never deliver the sort of comfort or contentment that our soul longs for and will always leave you hungry for more… which… again… I think we have probably all experienced right? It’s often referred to as the upside down kingdom because it rages against what we have bought into as a culture… God or his blessing are not hidden… but sometimes hard to see with the values we embrace.

Jesus uses a word for blessed that many in that day reserved for the Greek gods… it means ”content and joyful”… in ways the gods could only understand… free of the stresses of humanity… death, money, loneliness, disease, hate, sorrow…

And so #Blessed... is A sense of overwhelming peace and contentment that is untouchable by others or circumstance… that is actually impossible to find in and of ourselves... meaning… we can’t produce it or provide it for ourselves.

Last week's Blessed are those who are poor in spirit… for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

And the main point Jesus is making is that those who are willing to fully realize and embrace their deep need for God are the ones who will find Him.

They are the ones that will experience the contentment that comes from truly seeing and knowing Him and His rule and reign in their lives… and in doing so… Finding real life and real freedom.

And that leads us to today… and to help us get there… check this out!

VIDEO… NEED TO GET AWAY

How many of you have had a “need to get a way” moment?

We all have… moments we are proud of, where we feel dumb, of disappointment or failure… times where we have clearly messed up and we know it.

Sometimes it’s light hearted stuff… Tripping in front of others, breaking wind in public… and sometimes our need to get away moments aren’t so light. Times when we say something or do something…. That deeply offends, that injures relationships, that causes real pain in us and in others…

And often, in those moments dropping everything and running away is tempting… sometimes leaving it all behind sounds easier… in the moment it is easier… sort of like a cat we often tend to just cover our stuff… and walk away… but the reality is… it’s still there… and it still stinks.

And I feel like that’s what Jesus is addressing today… this is not what God wants for you and it;s not where you’ll find what it means to be #blessed beyond measure.

The way we handle it… the way we deal with it… matters.

Matthew 5:4 (ESV)

4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

And again we see this… “upside down” kingdom thinking. Who would ever equate blessing and mourning… we never see things like #blessed...life really stinks right now, or #blessed I am completely alone or #blessed… I am deeply troubled. Or #blessed I make bad choices. I'm thinking about making bumper stickers

But Jesus says there is a blessing that is unique to those who mourn… but we need to dig in to understand it.

Mourning is part of the shared human experience right… 10 out of 10 of us have experienced and will experience mourning in our life. In fact mourning is a fairly huge part of life if you think about it… and that's probably why the Bible talks about it so much.

There is a book about it… Lamentations… if you need a good pick me up.

Psalms is about 40% about mourning.

In the NT there are 9 different Greek words that we translate as… “mourn”

Many of those we see in scripture that God used in powerful ways, that had deep faith and walked closely with God… David, Moses, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, John… and even Jesus… we see times of deep godly mourning.

It makes you wonder if there is a connection to the kind of mourning Jesus is talking about… with greater faith, greater closeness, and greater trust in God.

We all mourn… in different ways and over different things.

We mourn loss… Jobs, money, broken relationships, sports, sickness… hardest of all is loved ones.

How incredibly is it that the Bible clearly teaches that our mourning doesn’t go unnoticed by God. He sees, He knows and cares… God mourns with us. In fact, one of the ways we grow to increasingly know God is a name He is given in scripture… “Comforter”. No matter when or where you mourn… you’re not alone,.

There can be sinful aspects of mourning too. Motivated by selfishness or pride… it often looks like coveting or idolatry… longing for things, lusting for things that others have that we don’t…

But Jesus isn’t talking about either of those. Jesus is talking about a godly sorrow that is directly connected to being poor in spirit.

McAurther says it like this… “Spiritual poverty lends itself and leads to godly sorrow”. The poor in spirit become those who mourn”.

Godly sorrow requires seeing our need for Jesus and seeing God correctly in our lives…

Of the 9 words we translate as mourn… Jesus uses the harshest one. It represents the deepest and most heart-felt grief and sorrow.... The word is almost completely reserved for the sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one… It is the word used when the disciples were mourning the death of Jesus before His resurrection.

Jesus is saying that when we understand our need for Jesus… When we see Him the right way and experience His rule and reign in our lives… we begin to understand and react to the offence of sin differently in our lives.

It makes me want to ask this question… Do we treat sin seriously in our life and in our culture? Do we really?

I think for most of us that answer is a resounding no… right… I mean when was the last time you expressed that kind of deep grief over sin… not some manufactured grief, but a real and deep brokenness before the Lord?

Keep in mind that God doesn’t long to see you broken for funzies… to be broken for brokenness sake… But God knows the true blessing that lays on the other side of godly mourning… and desires that with you. Yep… with you.

And I want to let you off the hook a little with this… I’m not entirely sure the church talks about this enough or even does a good job when they do. And that statement probably reflects how I feel about how I have done more than any other.

But, as I studied this week, I was convicted that there is a huge truth about sin that has sort of fallen by the wayside… and without it we will never have the a good view or proper understanding of sin, godly sorrow, repentance, or the blessing Jesus is speaking of… and this missing link to godly sorrow, I think informs and brings clarity to all of those things…

It reminds me of a passage that David wrote in the Psalms, as I read it, write down the word that sticks out to you…

Psalm 139:23–24 (NLT)

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

What word did you get?

I have read and used that passage a lot and I am embarrassed to admit it's the first time the word “offends” jumped off the page and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Why?

Jesus reminds of this crucial truth… a missing link for many of us… when it comes to understanding godly sorrow… and that is…

Sin and it’s consequences are largely relational.

Many of us tend to see sin a primarily more issue… right and wrong… which it is, but when we hyperfocus on that, we tend to make the same mistake the religious leaders of that day did… these were the ones Jesus almost exclusively tangled with… and it was over this issue. They saw sin as primarily a moral issue which led them to believe God cares most about or even loves us because of what we do… it creates a low view of sin and the damage it does… in a sense it’s a selfish view of sin because it doesn’t look beyond ourselves and because of that… We can more easily dismiss it… the real issue is… do better.

The Bible primarily teaches about sin relationally… it’s a relational issue.

Knowing its relational… means dealing with it on a relational level… and to be honest, I am not sure that's a teaching I have ever heard… but that the Bible clearly teaches.

We mourn… in part because of the brokenness sin creates in us and around us… but also… because of the offense it causes before God.

And if that hits you hard… if that's an unpleasant thought… I think you're starting to pick up what Jesus is putting down.

McAurthur says it this way…

It is godly sorrow alone that leads to true repentance and real change.

The sorrow Jesus talks about… is genuine… and deep… and demands real change. That is what repentance actually means.

I’ve used this example with my kids… right… if a friend got into your backpack and stole $5 bucks… and you caught them and they apologized, of course it would hurt, but wouldn’t you forgive them? If they continued to do it a few times a week for a month, and continually came at you with “sorry” would you believe it… and the answer is always no… why? Because that is not a sorrow that realizes the relational offense… only the merit of the act. Godly sorrow… always leads to real change or at least moves in that direction.

That kind of sorrow will never lead to change… it will never lead to dealing with the issues and crap that dwell within us. It continues to dwell just beneath the surface… You can stop putting money there… but the relational issue will continue unless you deal with it at the relational level.

It leads to continual brokenness in us and in our relationships… This baggage… that we were never intended to carry… we begin to ignore it… pretend like it isn’t there… and eventually we just learn to live with it… and in time… I have found it leads to hard heartedness before the Lord.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (NLT)

10 For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

Godly sorrow changes things… godly mourning changes things… and I think we know it to be true actually.

McAurther says it like this… “Mourning is not just a psychological or emotional experience that makes us feel better. It is communing… (deeply relational word) with the living God who responds to the mourner with His objective reality... His divine intervention of forgiveness and grace”.

There is a healing that happens here… the laying down of a burden… a transparency that happens through godly mourning… and the word I would use is relief.

There is something therapeutic… sort of cleansing about godly sorrow.

I don’t know if it’s possible to experience godly sorrow apart from being poor in spirit…

Jesus is saying… in seeing our deep need for God and

In a way, Jesus is saying… Those who see their need for God will see God more clearly and experience His rule and reign in their lives…

AND… they will come to this place of godly sorrow… over the offense their sin causes before the Lord… It’s a deep sorrow that leads to real change… and real comfort.

Jesus uses the word comfort… it comes from the same root word as Paraklete… which is the word we translate… Holy Spirit. It makes me wonder if part of the comfort Jesus is speaking of… is… a deeper sense of the presence of God in our lives. A greater awareness of His nearness… that God joins us in our mourning… and that is significant…

The word for comfort is the same root word used for Holy Spirit.

It reminds us that relational issues… require relational solutions… which is what Jesus provides… its like He is saying in your sorrow there is searching… in your searching there is finding… and I will meet you there. We do not mourn alone.

I was talking to Pastor Matt some this week… He’s also a counselor and has done a lot of work down this line. The neuroscience behind how our bodies actually work support what Jesus is saying… when we mourn together… there is a bonding and binding that happens… a closeness that develops… a literally healing within the brokenness that sin creates in our lives. It is incredibly restorative…

Something happens within mourning that I don’t think happens anywhere else… and we often try to avoid it…mourning is hard… it’s not fun…but mourning is a huge and healthy part of life… the alternative is to allow those things that cause damage in us and within our relationships (even with God) to continue to exist in us, just under the surface…Or dealing with them in what Paul calls a worldly way that leads to death…

Jesus says… godly sorrow is a part of what it means to be blessed beyond measure…

When was the last time you experienced that sort of deep grief over the offense our sin is to God. You cannot get there without being poor in spirit… without realizing your need for God…

Relational issues require relational solutions and that is the blessing Jesus promises; the comfort of God’s presence, forgiveness, and grace in a way that leads to real change (we call it repentance).

And in that light I think the best things we can do are…

Make room in our lives to deal with it… with God.

Be transparent… before God about sin and what’s going on in you. But, if it’s relational, this is part of addressing it the right way.

Apologize for the offense it causes…

Ask for the strength and wisdom to truly change.

Celebrate the God who mourns with you… and that bond that happens in us through it.

Relational issues… require relational solutions…. It involves humility… honesty… mourning… gratitude… and change. There is a blessing… that is ONLY found there… A deeper trust, a closeness… a comfort… only found in the midst of and other side of godly mourning.

I want to invite you to participate in communion, it's something we do every week. This comfort that Jesus talks about… the only reason it’s even available is because of the cross. Our sin… this offense before a holy God… that causes relational issues… is what Jesus took care of the cross. Because of that… our mourning is not in vain. We actually take the bread and the cup remembering Jesus death on the cross and resurrection that brings real hope… and real comfort.

It’s on the back table and over the next couple of songs, feel free to go and get it… and take it whenever you're ready.

Lets pray.