Tonight we're going to be looking at verse 4, Matthew chapter 5 and at verse 4.
We read through from the beginning of the chapter as far as verse 4.
Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain.
When he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
And so on, Beatitudes as we call them.
These verses in Matthew's Gospel as part of, or the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
Verses which I think if you're my age you probably learned them in school.
As was the practice at the time.
But sadly that's no longer, at least commonly, the practice.
However, the verses are very easy to remember.
But there are verses which, as you very well know, are extremely challenging.
And at first sight, some of them, such as this one, might even seem self-contradictory.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
How can you speak at the same time of someone or people who are mourning, actively mourning,
and at the same time say they are blessed, or even happier, which is part of the meaning of that word blessed.
Not happy in a worldly sense, but happy in a spiritual sense.
And it's as you go on through the Beatitudes that you then really realize that what Jesus was speaking about
were spiritual qualities or spiritual exercises.
He doesn't just speak about the poor.
In verse 3, he says,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And so it's obvious from these few verses themselves, hunger and thirst for righteousness,
that he's talking about spiritual things.
He's talking about spiritual appetite.
Talking about spiritual movements of our hearts.
Our spiritual vision.
Our spiritual mourning.
Our spiritual regard of those who are in need of our assistance.
All of these things really are very much the practicalities of a Christian life,
but they stem from the condition of our heart, the condition of our souls.
And that inner spirit, that inner condition is really emphasized there throughout these Beatitudes then.
And you can take that to this verse, verse 4.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
And as we're saying that this is primarily a spiritual thing,
it doesn't obviously mean that mourning in the usual sense of it is something that never carries any blessing with it.
That's not what we conclude from it.
But this spiritual mourning, which we'll try and bring out in its meaning in a few moments,
this spiritual mourning is something that is assured of comfort.
And not just comfort sometime or other after it,
but very often and almost always comfort along with it or alongside it.
If you actually ask how that is so in the Christian life,
well, we'll hopefully see that as we go through it.
And in fact, it is an indicator of a work of grace in your heart
or a mark of grace in your heart or in our hearts
if we can actually follow these in a spiritual fashion.
If you can have some experience or insight of what it is to mourn spiritually,
then you have an idea as to what it is to hunger and thirst for righteousness
and to be a meek who will inherit the earth and so on.
They're all connected with the reality of sin.
They are all connected in some way or other with the reality and the workings of sin.
Because in this one, blessed are those who mourn,
that reality of sin is behind the spiritual mourning with which we are familiar as Christians.
That the Lord was directing the disciples here to consider their blessedness
when they were able to mourn spiritually
in every way in which that mourning is appropriate
and in which we find a benefit from it.
It's true for the individual, it's true for our society,
it's true for our world, it's true for the church at large.
That when we come to experience these beatitudes working
or worked out through in our lives,
then we know the blessings and the features of the blessedness
that's actually mentioned along with them.
So what is this mourning that Jesus spoke of here?
Blessed are those who mourn.
Well, the first thing to say is that it's the very opposite of worldly thinking.
Worldliness and the ways of the world does not fit mourning into its package of what is necessary,
what it is thought important.
None of that enters into the thinking or the actions of worldliness.
The world and its thinking and the culture around us in its worldliness
actually lives for pleasure.
It lives for self-satisfaction.
It lives for entertainment.
It lives for the workings of sin.
It lives all too often in the seeds of debauchery.
And it lives in such a way as is opposed willingly to holiness
and to the things that God says ought to characterize our lives as human beings.
The world has no place for the doctrine of sin.
No place for teaching on the fallenness of man.
The world will say,
how can you say that I am fallen, that I am degenerate,
that I am actually in some need of being put back together
and lifted up and set on a platform of righteousness?
I'm quite happy the way I am.
I'm a master of my own life.
Why should you seek that I would change from what I want to be
and what I want to continue to be?
You see, there's not even an evidence there of any desire to think otherwise
than in those sinful, worldly, ungodly ways.
So here, this idea of mourning and mourning in respect to sin
and mourning over sin is absolutely foreign to the ways of the world.
And I'm sure you and I will have to say, most of us will have to say,
it was really something that we didn't want to find true of ourselves.
We didn't see where on earth this could fit into any sensible human life or practice,
what benefit it could be to us to think that what we were doing in our sinful lifestyle
was actually wrong.
How was it wrong?
Why should it be wrong?
Who was going to tell me that it was wrong?
Well, here is the Lord.
And remember, it's disciples that he's speaking to.
He's not speaking here to the world.
He's speaking to his disciples.
And so when you take all of these Beatitudes together
and you realize that it really, in a sense,
summarizes most of the most important features of a Christian, of a believing life,
that's when you begin to see how important they are, how foundational they are,
but also how difficult, how impossible they are without the grace of God.
And as the grace of God works in our lives,
so we find that these things actually come to the fore in what we want ourselves to be.
You don't want to go around anymore thinking that mourning over sin has no place in your life.
You don't want to go along with the idea that because you're now a Christian,
mourning over sin is no longer relevant,
as if sin had suddenly disappeared, even though it is now forgiven sin.
Nowhere do you find in the Bible, in Paul's teachings, for example,
nowhere do you find him saying for a moment that being forgiven your sin means
you no longer have to wrestle or fight with sin.
You know, if he had said that, or if the Bible said that,
or if we thought that the Bible meant that,
we would actually be despairing because we find in our lives that sin is very much a feature,
even though it's forgiven, it's still a powerful force.
And that's why you come daily to God to seek his help in overcoming it
and doing what Romans says,
mortifying, put to death the deeds of the body.
And it reminds us that even as the people of the church, as the people of God,
it's very easy to lose sight of those features of the Christian life
that are the most difficult to talk about, the most difficult to preach on,
the most difficult to accept for ourselves, such as,
blessed are those who mourn.
A recent survey in America apparently found that 65% of people who call themselves evangelicals in the USA
did not believe in the doctrine of original sin.
65% of people who say they're evangelical Christians,
they don't believe in the doctrine of original sin.
In other words, they don't believe that we're born sinners.
Now, we actually come into the world already in our hearts twisted against God.
And, of course, the Bible tells us otherwise,
that we are conceived in iniquity and in sin
and come into the world already as sinners in need of forgiveness and cleansing and acceptance with God.
We need a doctrine of sin that fits with the teaching of the Bible.
We need a doctrine of ourselves as human beings
into which we can find and place the doctrine of sin as the Bible does.
Aren't you glad tonight that God has shown you what you're like?
That God has shown you the workings of sin so that you will come to Christ for cleansing?
That you will believe that Christ alone is able to deal with such a person as you are
with your own inward and my own inward corruption?
We need this doctrine of mourning over sin,
the doctrine of sin over which we mourn,
in order that our life, as we'll see, will develop properly.
Because otherwise, if you leave this out of your life,
if you leave this as if it were no longer relevant for a Christian to mourn
in the spiritual sense,
you're going to have a very lopsided view of life.
You're going to have a very lopsided way of living the Christian life.
And there will be some very obvious omissions in your progress as a Christian.
Think of the example of Jesus himself.
Of course, Jesus had no sin of his own.
And it's all the more remarkable that you find him mourning over sin.
That you find him coming at times to be described in the Gospels
as deeply moved in his spirit and even weeping
in circumstances in which he himself found himself faced with the sinfulness,
with the rejection of the world of his offer, of his preaching, of his person.
Think, for example, of John chapter 11 and at verse 33 and verse 38.
We've referred to this at other times in other contexts,
but you remember that's when Jesus came to the grave,
the sepulcher of Lazarus in John chapter 11.
And you see there at verse 33 where Jesus came,
having spoken with his sister
and given that wonderful confession of himself as the resurrection and the life.
And now when Mary came to where he was and saw him,
she fell at his feet and said to him,
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
When Jesus saw her weeping
and the Jews who had come with her also weeping,
he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
And he said, where have you laid him?
They said to him, Lord, come and see.
Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, see how he loved him.
Then Jesus, deeply moved again,
came to the tomb.
What is all that indicating?
It's indicating far more than that Jesus was with these two sisters,
sharing in that grief.
He was.
He was with them.
He was beside them.
He spoke to one of them.
He stood alongside of Mary.
No question of whether or not he was sympathetic,
whether he was filled with a sense of their need
and was there to support them.
That is absolutely true.
But the main thing in these verses that we've read
is that he was moved and deeply agitated in his spirit
over the fact that there was a human being in that sepulcher who was dead.
He was mourning over the wages of sin,
as he saw it in that grave that was holding the body of Lazarus,
which was returning to corruption.
He was mourning over the fact that the human beings
that he had created in the beginning,
let's remember Jesus, the Son of God,
was very much involved in the creation
and in the creation of human beings as well.
And he was seeing that that wonderful creation
and that creature,
that human being that he had created,
is now lying in the throes and in the grip of death.
Why?
Because he became a sinner.
And a sinner who needs to face and pay the wages of sin,
which is death.
That's why Jesus wept.
That's why he was sorrowful.
Because he saw, as nobody else can see,
how awful a thing sin is.
What a tragedy it is for a human being
who's become a sinner,
having created wholly by God.
And you find the same thing,
or similarly in Luke chapter 19,
and verses 41 to 44,
where you find Jesus coming to Jerusalem,
and as he beheld the city,
he wept over it.
Why did he weep over the city?
Because he was clearly aware and seeing
and experiencing their sin of rejecting him.
Their sin of casting him out, as it were.
And refusing to acknowledge him
as in any way relevant to their needs as human beings.
The rejection of him as their saviour.
He was mourning over the nature of sin.
He was mourning over the effects of sin.
And that's where this text takes you and me as well.
That we too have to mourn
as we become familiar with the nature of sin,
the kind of thing that sin is,
the kind of thing that sin has done
and is doing to human lives,
the kind of thing that sees the effects of sin,
even in that world out there,
in this community that we live in.
The effects of sin and the workings of sin
are all too obvious.
When you open your eyes,
I know we can't go beyond our own hearts.
It's there.
That's where we begin.
That's where we start the process of thinking
seriously about what sin is
and what sin has done.
But then as you work out from that
and see the world in which we live,
what does it actually do for us?
What effect does it have on us?
Are we becoming immune to it?
Are we so used to it
that we no longer hear the noise of sinfulness?
It's possible.
It can become used to even such things
as God regards us debauched
and sinful and twisted and wrong.
Just in these very days,
you'll find celebrities
accused of serious wrongdoings.
I'm not going to go into details
as they're very obvious already
in the media reports.
But you look at the number of followers
such people have on social media,
eight million followers
of somebody who lives that debauched sort of life.
What is that saying about our world?
It's saying certainly that our world
is in its nature sinful,
but it's saying here is something to weep over.
Here is something to build into our prayers
and into our weepings as Jesus did with his.
It's not become so familiar with the world out there
that we fail really to give it
the notice that we require to give it.
Because if we do,
then we ourselves
will to some extent
cease to mourn over our own sins
as well as those of the world.
In other words,
what we're saying is
it's actually a mark of godliness
to mourn over sin
in the way in which we're describing
and which the Bible means
mourning in this context,
mourning over sin
and in respect and relation to sin.
It's a mark of godliness.
It's not a mark of
somehow or other being
so
constrained by
something that you just see
as a very negative view of the world.
It's a mark of godliness.
Think of how Jeremiah, for example,
who is known, of course,
in many ways
as the weeping prophet.
Well, when Jeremiah was speaking
or thinking of
the sinfulness of his own age,
you see how he began chapter 9,
for example,
what you have in chapter 9,
my joy is,
chapter 80,
he's saying,
my joy is gone.
Grief is upon me.
My heart is sick within me.
Behold the cry of the daughter of my people.
That's his people.
From the length and breadth of the land.
Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her king not in her?
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their foreign idols?
The harvest is past,
the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.
For the wound of the daughter of my people
is my heart wounded.
I mourn,
and dismay has taken hold of me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
Oh,
that my head were waters,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter of my people.
There's a prayer for you.
There's a man who is mourning
over the state of things in his own day.
He's not holding back and saying,
well,
they're doing that,
that they're going to pay for that someday.
No,
he's taking it to himself,
and he says,
these are my people.
These are the people that I belong to,
and I must mourn for them
if they don't mourn for themselves.
Go back along to chapter 13.
You'll find a similar emphasis there,
verses 16 and 17 in chapter 13,
where you find him addressing the people this way,
hear and give ear.
Be not proud,
for the Lord has spoken.
Give glory to the Lord your God
before he brings darkness,
before your feet stumble
on the twilight mountains.
And while you look for light,
he turns it into gloom
and makes it deep darkness.
But if you will not listen,
my soul will weep in secret
for your pride.
My eyes will weep bitterly
and run down with tears
because the Lord's flock
has been taken captive.
I can't say that I've myself
been in that state of mind recently
where I found profound thinking
on my part of the state of the world,
of the needs of the world,
of the sinfulness of those around us,
or even looking into my own heart
so that like Jeremiah,
I could say,
Lord,
my eyes are shedding tears
when I see the state of things.
Blessed are those
who mourn,
who mourn
as part of their godly.
And of course,
when you go
into the likes of the book of Psalms,
you'll find it all over the book of Psalms,
these references to the psalmist's own
weeping,
to his sorrow,
to his Psalm 102,
for example.
You think he's beginning there
talking about how deeply moved he is,
how bitter he is in his soul,
the wrenchings of his soul,
and you think he's talking there
about his own sinfulness,
surely,
or something like that.
Well, he's not leaving that out of it,
but as the psalm goes on,
you begin to realize
he's talking about Zion
and the state of Zion.
And even though the light of day
and of promise
breaks in upon his soul,
and he says,
you will yet have mercy upon Zion.
You will come to hear
the prayers of the afflicted.
You will rebuild Zion.
That's preceded by his mourning,
by his discomfort,
by his coming to remember his people
as he mourns with them.
And the chapter we read
in 2 Corinthians,
what's that about?
Well, it's about a report
that came to the Apostle Paul
as a report came back
by Titus.
And Titus brought a report
about the Corinthians
that really gladdened
the Apostle's heart.
You see, the Apostle had written
a letter to them
in very, very strong terms.
We don't have that letter.
Some think it was
1 Corinthians,
but I think it was another letter
which doesn't belong
in the Scriptures.
but he says,
this is how I was comforted
in you,
by you,
as he told us
of your longing,
your mourning,
your zeal for me,
so that I rejoice still more.
For even if I made you
grieve with my letter,
I do not regret it,
though I did regret it.
For I see that that letter
grieved you,
though only for a while.
As it is,
I rejoice not because
you are grieved,
but because you are grieved
into repenting.
For you felt a godly grief,
so that you suffered
no loss through us.
And then there's
this wonderful text.
For godly grief
produces a repentance
that leads to salvation
without regret,
whereas worldly grief
produces death.
See, there's the difference
between the Christian,
between the believer
and the person
who has absolutely
no sense of purpose
in grief of any kind.
blessed are those
who mourn,
those who actually come
to mourn either
over their own sins
or the sins of the society
they belong to,
such as Jeremiah was,
such as the apostle was
with that letter.
He was concerned
for a time
after he sent that letter,
before Titus returned
with a report
on how the Corinthians
had received that letter,
he was concerned
somehow perhaps
maybe that that letter
had been counterproductive.
Maybe he had gone too far,
maybe he had used words
that were too strong,
too critical.
Then when Titus came back,
he realized,
no, that's not the case.
Yes, I made you weep,
I made you grieve,
I said some very harsh things,
some very hard things
you needed to know,
but I rejoice
that that led
to your repentance.
And that's what godly sorrow
always does.
Godly sorrow
always leads
leads to something positive,
something to do with life.
Whereas,
as Paul put it,
the sorrow of the world
worketh death.
There is no purpose,
no life about it,
no meaningfulness.
It's just sorrow.
It's just a prelude
to death forever.
So be thankful tonight
that God has shown you
something
of the spiritual mourning
that's so important
in our lives.
And that he says,
for your assurance,
blessed are those
who mourn.
And when you come to
be before God,
and when you pray to God,
and when you lament
before God,
Lord,
why am I still
so conscious
of these sins
that I confessed
to you previously?
Why am I still
so aware
of the fact
they are still with me?
And they're still
grievous to me.
Why can't I get rid
of them?
And the Lord
turns to you
and say,
blessed are those
who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are those
who,
with a sense
of their own sinfulness,
bring things to me
so that I can
comfort them.
And that's the second thing
in the text,
that's the other half of it.
We have to keep it balanced,
of course.
Blessed are those
who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
And here's the strange thing.
Strange,
but not strange
to the Christian.
Strange to the person
who doesn't know the Lord
or has not been converted
and hasn't come
to experience what it is
to live by faith in Christ.
This is a strange thing,
isn't it?
That you find
a person
who is mourning
in this sense
is actually really happy.
I don't mean happiness
with the glibness
or the frivolity
of the world's happiness.
But the happiness
that comes from
the contentment of heart
that knows
in Christ for you
everything is well.
It is well,
it is well
with my soul,
as one N. Wright
had put it,
even though he had lost
most of his family
in a tragedy at sea.
It is well
with my soul.
And the path
to happiness
and the actual experience
of happiness,
and again,
it's a thing which
even we ourselves
as Christians
can't fully understand
at this point,
but it's because
you know
of this mourning
that you appreciate
the happiness
that a Christian life
contains.
If you didn't have
this mourning over sin,
your happiness
would be a different kind.
It would be a worldly happiness.
But because this is
a proper spiritual mourning,
the word blessed
is attached to it.
Jesus is saying,
you're in a very happy place.
You're in a very,
in a very,
a comforting position
when you can say
that the mourning
with which you mourn
over sin seriously
is something
that God calls blessed.
The path to happiness
begins
at the point of mourning.
In other words,
put it in other words,
you cannot experience
the happiness,
the blessedness
of which this verse speaks,
or the blessedness
in any way
in which the Bible speaks it,
if you simply leave aside
the mourning
as no longer relevant.
It just doesn't
fit together,
does it?
But here,
this mourning,
this is promised,
this comfort,
they shall be comforted.
And we don't actually
need to think about
comfort
in when this world
is over,
when you get to heaven,
when you're on the other side,
when you're with the Lord.
Of course that's comfort.
And of course
there is no sorrow
then at all.
There is no mourning
whatsoever.
But the blessedness
and the comfort
doesn't begin then,
it begins here.
It begins in the heart
that knows what it is
to mourn,
but also knows
what it is to rejoice
at the same time
in Christ.
As you mourn
over your sins,
you give thanks to God
that he has forgiven
these sins.
And that his word
assures you
when he has forgiven
your sins,
they are covered.
They will never again
condemn you.
There's something
to be happy
and something
to say that
it belongs
to your blessedness
even though
you're still conscious
of the workings
of sin
that you need
to confess
to God every day.
So what it's saying
is we can only
appreciate our joy
because it's connected
with this godly mourning,
this godly sorrow.
And whatever
modern theology
might tell you,
never actually
give place
to the thought
that says,
mourning over sin,
that's puritanish,
that belongs
to an age
that's past.
That's no relevance
now today
as we understand
things.
We've come such
a long way
in understanding
human psychology,
come such a long way
some theologians
will tell you
in understanding
the Bible,
what lies behind
the letters
and the books
of the Bible.
If they had known
the things
that we know today,
you wouldn't have
a verse like that,
blessed are those
who mourn.
Well, don't give
even the slightest
place to that
thought in your heart.
This is Jesus.
This is 100%
accurate
of the words
of Jesus
as he spoke them.
And they will
last for his people
right through
to the end
of the world
in their meaningfulness.
Blessed are those
who mourn.
and of course,
to finish with,
we can say
that they shall be
comforted
most of all
in heaven.
It's a wonderful
thought.
It's something
I can't quite
make the connection
in my mind with,
but there is a connection.
And it's that
the songs
of heaven
would be
much less sweet
if they weren't
preceded
by the songs
of mourning
in this life.
Again,
it's the principle,
you see,
as you know
mourning over sin,
as you know sorrow
as a Christian
in your life,
as you look forward
to the place
where there is no sorrow,
where there is no death,
where there are no partings,
where there is nothing
at all
to cause our tears
to fall
and weep
in sorrow
and in mourning,
that wonderful
experience of heaven
is made all the more
possible and real
by the fact
that you've known
mourning in this life.
And it is those
who have given place
to this particular
doctrine
and to this great truth
about the Christian life
that are more,
or are better positioned,
if you like,
to look forward
to the wonderful comfort
that heaven brings
to us.
They shall be
comforted.
The Bible is full
of that as well.
Romans again,
chapter 8,
where Paul says
that you are saved
in hope,
hope towards
what is to come.
Revelation 21,
verses 1 to 4,
speaks about the wonders
of that blessedness
of heaven
where there is no sorrow,
where there are no tears,
but they're all preceded
by a life of mourning
and tears
and sorrow before that.
And perhaps the psalm
that we sang together,
as much as any,
really brings into
our view
the prospect
and the reality
of that wonderful
final comforting
of God,
where the psalm,
as you remember,
speaks about,
even though weeping
may last
for a night,
joy comes
with the mourning.
You may find
your whole life
is blighted
by darkness.
You may find
that the whole
of your life
from beginning to end
will need to be described
as a time of mourning,
a time of tears.
I'm not suggesting
that it will be so
all the time.
but God is assuring you
mourning is coming.
And when mourning comes
and the daylight
of eternity
and blessedness
dawns
and scatters
the darkness,
then we will come
to appreciate
this text
more than we can ever
appreciate it
in this life,
when the comfort
of heaven
is a reality
to us.
Blessed
are those
who mourn.
Whatever it is
today or tonight
that's causing
your own heart pain,
bring it into line
with what Jesus
is saying here.
It may not be sorrow
primarily over
your own sin,
though I'm sure
that's part of
your experience
as it is mine.
It may not be sorrow
over the state
of the world,
though there may be
some of that in it.
Maybe it's sorrow
over something
that's happening
at your work
or something
that's ongoing
in your life,
wherever it is
you work from day to day.
Maybe it's a sorrow
over family.
Maybe it's a sorrow
over your concern
for those related to you,
for friends,
for neighbours,
for immediate family.
It doesn't really matter
because it's all
encapsulated
and summarised
in this wonderful text.
Blessed
are those
who mourn,
for they shall.
be comforted.
Let's pray.
Oh Lord,
our God,
our hearts
need your comfort.
Our lives
in this world
need that comfort
that you alone
are able to give.
Lord,
we thank you
for the reality
of that comfort
which you bring us
to taste off
in this life.
We thank you
that there are
many anticipations
of heaven,
just as there are
many anticipations
of hell
in this life.
But we thank you
especially
for that anticipation
of the comforts
of heaven
that you have
already caused
to begin
in the experience
in the hearts
of your people.
And help us,
Lord,
we pray,
as we come
to mourn
over our own sin,
over the state
of our world.
Help us
to draw
our comfort
from your great
assurance
that we will
be comforted
and that your
comfort is like
no other.
So bless to us
your word,
we pray again
this evening.
Help us to go
forth from here
with a greater
resolve to be
contented,
happy,
vibrant Christians.
And enable us
to communicate
and convey
to the world
that ours is a life
that they ought
to envy
and a life
for which we are glad.
blessed and we pray
these words to us
for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
We're going to conclude now.