Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Last week we started a new series entitled, “An Upside Down Kingdom”.

We are looking at the Beatitudes which is the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Last week we introduced the beatitudes with the first on which was, “Blessed are the Poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

We talked about how poor in spirit means to be destitute of self.

It means we lay our pride down and say God I have nothing and am nothing. I need you!

If you missed last week I encourage you to go back and watch on our Facebook page, App, website, or YouTube channel.

My plan for the last four weeks of the series was to talk about two beatitudes each week but I realized I don’t think I can do that.

There are some like this week that I just can’t get through everything I want to with only spending 10 or 15 minutes on it.

So I’m going to take it week by week and I may double up on a week or two but I’m going to play it by ear.

That means I’ll be taking this into the farm but that’s ok!

So if you have your bibles we are going to be reading out of Matthew 5.

Matthew 5:4 NIV “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Again this seems odd to us.

A little upside down.

Jesus is saying that you will be blessed if you mourn.

Like it’s a good thing.

That word mourn means, to be sad or to grieve.

I’m sure most people here know what that feeling is like.

And what I want to talk about this morning is a couple different things that I believe Jesus is talking about when He makes this statement.

Because most scholars will tell you that when Jesus says, “blessed are those who mourn”, He’s not necessarily talking about mourning a tragedy in your life.

However, I do believe that this does apply to that scenario but I want to hit on this other idea that scholars talk about as well.

You see many people believe that when you look at the first beatitude it progresses into the second.

So the first one was, “blessed are the poor in spirit”.

Like I said we talked about last week means we acknowledge we are spiritually bankrupt and desperately need God in our lives and are committed to following Him.

So when Jesus goes on to say, “blessed are those who mourn” what He’s saying we should mourn over is our sin.

We’ve humbled ourselves and realized we can’t go through life without Him and when you truly surrender your heart to God you become aware of your sin.

And your heart breaks for the things you’ve done.

It’s a sensitivity to sin.

Maybe some of you have experienced this.

You’ve been at some kind of service where the Pastor preaches a message about sin.

And God gets a hold of your heart and you realize you’ve been living in sin or doing something that you know is against God’s will.

You then get this overwhelming emotion and start weeping.

You have a moment of realization.

And when you have that moment your heart breaks.

You feel like, “how could I have been living like this”.

And you weep because you feel remorse for what you’ve done.

You see mourning your sin is a good thing because what that does is lead to repentance.

When you have that sensitivity to sin and you feel that overwhelming feeling of emotions and you start weeping you are in a vulnerable state that causes you to cry out to God and say, “God forgive me”.

And anytime you cry out to God for forgiveness, that’s a good thing.

And that’s why Jesus says, “for they will be comforted”.

Because the comfort comes in knowing that God forgives your sin.

That it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past when you cry out to God and ask for forgiveness, He forgives every time.

1 John 1:9 NIV “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

The comfort comes from knowing that we don’t have to live in guilt and condemnation for our past sins.

Psalms talks about how He cast our sin as far as the east is from the west.

When God forgives you it’s over, it’s done.

We need to move on and quit living in guilt.

Yes we mourned and came to God but once we’ve been forgiven it’s time to move on toward what God has in store for us.

Romans 8:1 NIV “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,”

You’ve mourned, you’ve weeped, you’ve been forgiven.

NOW MOVE ON!

The devil wants you to continue to stay in that season of mourning and continue to feel guilty.

Because he knows if he can keep you in that place you won’t be effective for the kingdom.

So many Christians aren’t effective for God because even though God has forgiven them they can’t forgive themselves.

But it’s vital that we forgive ourselves and accept God’s amazing grace and forgiveness because that’s how we defeat the enemy.

Revelation 12:11a NIV “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…”

Your testimony of what God has forgiven you for is one of the most powerful weapons you have against the enemy.

Because your story gives hope to others who are going through the same things you did.

We’ve seen stories of people in this church being delivered from drugs and alcohol.

And now they’re making an impact for the kingdom of God because of their ability to forgive themselves and now use their story to reach others.

They can look at a drug addict and say, “I’ve been where you are and because of Jesus I got through it and delivered from it.”

People's story of what God has brought them out of can many times be way more powerful than a sermon a Pastor preaches.

That’s why when I would have big events for youth where I knew we would have a lot of visitors I would have someone share their testimony instead of preach a message.

Because I knew a young person who doesn’t go to church would probably drown me out as soon as I start talking about God but listening to someone share their story that has been through real life hurt and pain connects with people in a different way.

So we need to be sensitive to sin.

Grieve and recognize our sin.

Repent and RECEIVE God’s forgiveness.

And then go tell the world our story and win people for Jesus!

That’s what many scholars will say the main thing Jesus is talking about when He says, “blessed are those who mourn” but I also think it applies to believers who mourn tragedy.

And I think that because I believe a lot of Christians don’t know how to mourn.

They’re confused.

They hear people talk about how Christians should be full of joy and happiness all the time.

So when tragedy strikes we do our best to put on our happy Christian face and pretend like we’re fine when we’re dying inside.

We think it’s not Godly to mourn or be sad.

Sadness is an emotion that God gave us.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad.

When you’re in the middle of a difficult season or tragedy has struck your life, the worst thing you can do is hide your true feelings and act like you need to put a fake smile on your face.

God knows your pain and He grieves with you.

I also think that this goes along with the first beatitude.

Pride can keep us from humbling ourselves before God and pride can also keep us from mourning.

That’s one reason why I believe Jesus says, “blessed are those who mourn” because it’s a humbling experience to mourn and weep and put yourself in that vulnerable state.

But I believe when our heart is broken it breaks God’s heart as well.

I’ll prove it to you.

In John 11 Jesus gets word that his good friend Lazarus is very sick.

Jesus doesn’t go rush to him to heal him.

He waits a couple days before he even starts to travel to where Lazarus is.

He then gets word that Lazarus has died and by the time He reaches him he’s been dead for 4 days.

As He’s getting closer Mary and Martha who were Lazarus’ sisters went running out to Jesus.

First Martha and then Mary.

Both them told Jesus if He would have been there sooner He could’ve saved him.

And look at what it says after Mary says this to Jesus.

John 11:33-35 NIV “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept.”

But here’s the crazy thing.

Jesus had told a few people by this time that Lazarus was going to wake up.

Jesus knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

So if I was Jesus and Mary was weeping in front of me I would comfort her like He did with Martha and tell her that He’s going to save Lazarus.

Or I would at least stand there with a little smirk on my face thinking, “just wait til she sees what I’m about to do!”

But even though he knew what the outcome was going to be He still wept.

WHY?

Because Jesus has empathy for His people.

And even though He knew what was going to happen He felt the pain that Mary and Martha were feeling from losing their brother.

So He wept!

If the Son of God can take time to weep don’t you think it’s ok for us too.

And when we weep we can have confidence that God is there with us to comfort us.

You see I believe we can mourn and still have peace.

That peace is what gives us comfort.

Knowing that God will get you through this time and heal your wounds is what gives us comfort.

We need to hold on to what the Bible says.

Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

If you are hurting today know that God is here to comfort you.

To give you the strength to go on.

Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Some of you are just barely hanging on right now and God is crying out to you today saying, don’t be afraid.

Lean on me and let me hold you up until we get through to the other side!

We need to let ourselves mourn.

Because sin entered this world we have to go through life and deal with the realities of death and tragedy.

And what we have to be careful of is that we don’t STAY in that season of mourning.

I believe God wants us to mourn and share our feelings with one another so we can help each other.

But we also have to learn to lean on the power of God and continue on with our life and what God has for us.

Again, the enemy wants you to be stuck in your sadness so you become ineffective for the kingdom.

He wants your mourning to lead to your destruction.

And if we stay in that season for too long it very well could.

Because it’s in that moment of vulnerability that the enemy starts to speak lies to us.

Tell us things like, “what’s the point of living anymore?”

“Just do yourself a favor and end this pain now and take your life.”

And when we don’t turn our focus to God and allow him to comfort us and help us through our difficult times, we can easily listen to that lie.

I’ve been pretty fortunate in my life up to this point where I haven’t had to deal with too much tragedy.

But there was one moment that was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve had to deal with in my life.

A couple years ago when I had been at Rockford for almost a year I received a phone call from my former Senior Pastor in Holland.

He proceeded to tell me that a girl that was in my youth group named Emily who we were very close with, she babysat my kids, she was in our student leadership and heavily involved in youth group, had committed suicide.

And it was like a ton of bricks just hit me.

I remember just bawling on the phone talking to my Pastor.

I remember Tim and Marcy and Pastor Duane came into the office when I was sitting at my desk on the phone.

Obviously, they came in and saw me bawling on the phone and knew something was terribly wrong.

I just couldn’t believe it.

I went home and told my wife and she just about instantly crumbled to the floor when I told her.

It was devastating.

A 16 year old girl who apparently was hurting.

And in a moment of weakness in the middle of the night listened to the lies of the enemy and took her life.

The family asked me to do the funeral and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in ministry.

And I think to myself how many people are in the same boat as Emily was.

Maybe life is hard right now.

Something has happened that is causing pain.

And the enemy is trying to convince you that it’s better to just end it now.

God has brought you here today or caused you to watch this online because He wants to let you know that He loves you and He’s here to comfort you.

Trust in Him.

Lean on His strength.

Allow yourself to mourn but don’t let the enemy get to you.

God has a plan for you and you are going to be another testimony to His power and His ability to get people through even the darkest of times.

So if you are in a season of mourning there’s a couple things you need to do.

TELL SOMEONE

That’s what the church is here for.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

You need to tell someone so they can help encourage you and lift you up.

Speak scripture over your life

Whatever you’re struggling with, find verses that will encourage you and speak to your situation.

1 Peter 5:7 NKJV “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

Ephesians 2:10 NLT “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

John 10:10 NIV “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Whatever it is but speak the life of the Word of God over you and your situation.

When you do that I believe you will find the peace that surpasses all understanding.

So I want to encourage you this morning church.

For some of you I’m going to encourage you to truly mourn.

Maybe you’ve had a tragedy strike recently but you haven’t truly mourned because you thought you had to put your happy Christian face on.

MOURN

And know that when you weep God is weeping with you!

Mourn and press into God.

It’s in those dark times that you have the choice to run to God or run away from God.

I encourage you to run to Him!

Allow Him to wrap you in his arms and comfort you.

And I encourage you to rebuke every lie of the enemy that is trying to tear you down.

God sees you, God loves you, God’s got you!

Trust in Him!

I’ll end with this scripture.

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Find rest in Jesus this morning!

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