We'll do turn to Matthew 5.
I was driving this week and I heard the advert for Vitality Insurance. I don't know if you've seen it.
! It's not what do you want for your children? It's a really interesting question.
What do you want for your children?
And there were different responses, but it boiled down to health, happiness and security.
Three things that you can't guarantee, nobody can guarantee that they can give to your children apart from Vitality Insurance.
But it's really interesting, isn't it, that that is happiness still, the pursuit of happiness.
It's still such a big thing.
You want to be happy.
And our world is searching for happiness. It shows itself in different ways, doesn't it?
But happiness, according to the Lord Jesus, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, is found in the kingdom of God.
And that's not escapism.
You know the thought at the moment is that, look, holidays, people thinking holidays is what will make me happy.
Two weeks in the sun, that's what will make me happy.
According to Jesus, happiness is found in the kingdom of God.
I just need to get away from it all.
Christianity is not getting away from it.
By Christianity, one of the things I love about it is utterly realistic.
So look at verse 10.
Jesus says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
They're not people who are escaping reality, they.
These are people who are facing up to the pressures of life and suffering as a result of it.
Look at verse 4.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
What I'm trying to do in these series of sermons on the Beatitudes is really try and unpack the Christian life
in the way that Jesus speaks about what true happiness is and what true blessedness is.
That's where we are tonight.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Tears are a part of life.
It's an Arab proverb and it says this.
All sunshine makes a desert.
To live means there has to be tears and sorrow.
And no one can live going through life without tears.
You can exist, but you can't live without tears.
And I'm not suggesting for one moment that if you come to Jesus Christ, all your troubles go away.
I hope you don't think that.
We don't believe it.
The Bible doesn't teach it.
Jesus does not promise you immunity or exemption in this life from any of life's disappointments
or frustrations or sorrows that are common to everyone.
And yet having said that, even at the natural level, I'm going to argue it pays to be a Christian.
Paul in 1 Thessalonians is dealing with the problem of bereavement in church.
People who are mourning the loss of loved ones.
And in verse 13 of chapter 4, he says,
I don't want you to be uninformed.
I don't want you to be ignorant about those who are asleep.
That you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
And so there are people out there in that church in Thessalonica
who are going through probably the most life-shattering experiences.
The loss of a loved one.
Bereavement.
And Paul doesn't say to them, oh, you mustn't sorrow.
He doesn't say, oh, you're letting the side down as a Christian by mourning.
He doesn't say, put a smile on your face.
No, he says to them this, you are going to sorrow,
but you are not going to sorrow as others do who have no hope.
And so even at the natural level, it pays to be a Christian.
We who are Christians are not immune to bereavement
or other life-shattering experiences that people go through.
We mourn, yes.
But not as those who have no hope.
And so these words, they make sense for the Christian,
even on the natural level.
They don't make sense for the non-Christian.
I've taken a number of funerals quite recently,
and over all the years I've been taking funerals,
it is very, very difficult to speak to those
who've lost a loved one who is evidently not a Christian.
I've met people who are inconsolable,
and it's been impossible to comfort them.
And so these words are not true generally,
but they are true.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,
even on the natural level for the Christian.
Now it seems to me that Jesus is not primarily
or even remotely talking about this kind of thing,
but I thought I needed to deal with it.
That's not his intention.
We need to understand the logic in these verses.
There's a logic in these Beatitudes.
I hope you can see it.
Look at verse 3.
That's where we start.
That's the soil out of which all the other Beatitudes grow.
That's where you begin,
and to be a Christian.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
That's where we start.
We start there,
with an awareness and an acknowledgement
that we are spiritually bankrupt.
And unless you've been brought there,
you haven't begun as a Christian.
That's where you begin,
and then it will lead on to a mourning
and to a sorrow,
a bewailing of your spiritual poverty.
It's not enough just to be aware of it.
It's not enough to acknowledge it,
as it were theoretically.
If the Spirit of God is at work in your life,
you'll be prepared to admit it
and acknowledge it before God,
and it will shatter you.
It will disturb you.
Literally, the word that Jesus uses here
is the word shatter.
See, if I picked up this glass
and I threw it against this wall,
it would shatter, wouldn't it?
It would splinter everywhere.
And that's exactly what Jesus uses here.
He says,
Blessed are those who are shattered to pieces,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed is that person who is shattered
because of spiritual poverty.
That's the logic.
That's the progression here.
Blessed are those who are deeply,
inwardly concerned
about their spiritual poverty before God.
Robbie Burns, you know the Scotsman.
He has a poem.
I can't read it in Scotch.
But let me read it to you.
It says this.
Oh, would some power,
the gift to give us,
to see ourselves as others see us.
It would from many a blunder free us
and foolish notion.
Would some power,
the gift to give us,
to see ourselves as others see us.
It can be quite a shattering experience,
can't it?
To see yourself as others see us.
It's like that when I have to listen
to my own sermons.
Occasionally I do that.
It's so painful, isn't it?
You think, do I really sound like that?
You know, you watch a video of yourself
and you're talking in the background
and immediately,
on the video,
as you hear your voice,
you think,
do I really sound like that?
When we see ourselves as others see us,
we're shocked, don't we?
Some of us are at that stage of life,
isn't it,
where we look in the mirror,
we see our father.
So I really look like that.
I showed you when I,
at the time when I was 19,
I was in university,
and we thought we'd play a prank
on this girl,
Sarah Street,
and my friend said,
leave you hide behind the sofa
and when she comes in,
I'll ask you what she thinks of you.
And I hid behind the sofa,
no one knew,
and he asked her
and literally for 20 minutes,
she just let rip about me.
I didn't have the heart to jump up.
It was so,
I didn't,
I let her go out
and then I kind of crawled out.
It was awful.
What she said was true.
What must it be like
to see ourselves
as God sees us?
It's a shattering experience.
It happened to Isaiah.
The preacher Isaiah,
chapter 6,
he sees the Lord
high and mighty
and he says,
woe is me,
I'm undone,
I'm taken apart,
I'm in pieces.
I'm shattered,
literally,
my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts,
and I'm a man of unclean lips
and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips.
Why does he talk like that?
Well,
he's seen himself.
He's seen himself,
not as others see him,
others thought that actually
Isaiah was a very good preacher,
it's very acceptable.
He'd been preaching for many years,
he'd been used by God,
but for the first time
in Isaiah 6,
it seems,
he's in the presence of God
and he sees him
as God sees him
and he says,
I'm a man of unclean lips.
Why does he use that phrase?
He uses that phrase
because he's a preacher,
his lips are the tools
of his trade.
And the lips of Isaiah
represented the very best
of what Isaiah had to offer.
His most consecrated
and devoted service to God
and he thought he was doing
really well as a prophet,
as God's spokesman,
and suddenly he comes
into the very presence of God
and he sees himself
as God sees him
and he realises
the very best part of him
is filthy.
And the best that he's got
to offer
is shot through
with pride
and self-righteousness
and he says,
I'm a man of unclean lips
and I've been found out.
I'm undone,
I'm shattered.
It was Peter's experience.
Do you remember,
Peter really thought
he was quite someone,
didn't he?
He compared himself
with all the other disciples,
we're really prone
to do that,
and he says to Jesus,
even if they all forsake you,
I will never forsake you.
I'll die for you
if necessary.
And you have that passage,
don't you,
where Jesus is arrested
and Peter is confronted
by the servant girl
and by another girl
and then somebody else
and he denies the Lord Jesus
with oaths,
with swear words.
I don't know that,
I don't know the so-and-so.
And with foul oaths,
he curses and he swears
and he denies
he knew anything at all
about Jesus Christ
and he denied his Lord.
Do you know what Luke tells us?
In Luke 22, verse 60,
Peter said,
man,
I do not know
what you're talking about
and immediately
while he was still speaking,
the rooster crowed
and the Lord turned
and looked at Peter.
Matthew doesn't tell us that.
But Luke tells us
that as the rooster crowed,
the Lord turned
and looked at Peter
and Peter remembered
the saying of the Lord
how he'd said to him
before the rooster crows,
today you will deny me
three times
and Peter went out
and wept bitterly.
See, what happened there?
It wasn't that Peter
had just been caught
in the act.
That makes us blush,
doesn't it?
That makes us kind of bluster
when we're caught
in the act of something
but it's more than that.
He caught sight of himself
in the eyes of Jesus Christ.
He saw himself reflected
in the look of Jesus Christ.
He saw himself
through the eyes of Christ
and he goes out
and he weeps bitterly.
And Jesus says to us tonight,
he says,
blessed are those who do that.
Blessed are those
who realize the truth
about themselves.
Blessed are those
who've seen themselves
as God sees them.
Not as they'd like
to think of themselves.
Not as they'd like
others to think of them.
Blessed are those
who are poor in spirit
and shattered as a result
who are deeply concerned
about their spiritual poverty
and bankruptcy.
Blessed are those
who mourn.
And I imagine
that there may be
some here tonight
and you think,
Paul, you're overstating this.
I'm not perfect.
I know that
but I can't say
that I'm shattered
about that.
I'm irritated
by my shortcomings.
I'm depressed sometimes
when I can't live up
to my own ideals
but shattered.
I wouldn't say
I'm shattered.
I wouldn't say
that I'm broken
hearted
about it.
Life has to go on,
doesn't it?
And I need to say
to you tonight,
if you've seen your sin
for what it is,
you would be shattered.
If you knew
what sin really was,
you'd be broken hearted.
And the reason
that you've not mourned
for your sin
is because you've not
realised what it is.
If I am tonight
on YouTube,
live on the internet,
called you out
as a criminal,
called your name
and called you a criminal,
you could go to Solicitor
tomorrow,
can you?
You could take out
a writ against me.
You could sue me
for libel.
But if I call you
a sinner,
it's no big deal,
is it?
After all,
we're all sinners,
aren't we?
No one's perfect.
Crime
is against society.
Sin
is against God.
sin
is infinitely
more serious
than crime.
Sin,
somebody has written,
sin can take
the loveliest life
and smash it
on a cross.
That's what sin
did, of course,
isn't it?
Sin took the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ
and mocked it
and nailed it
to a cross.
And that is what
sin has done.
My sin
and your sin,
it has crucified
the Lord of glory.
And Jesus
went to the cross
for the sins
of his people.
Christ Jesus
came into this world
to save sinners.
There's a great deal
of truth,
isn't there,
in the Negro spiritual.
Were you there
when they crucified
my Lord?
There's a real sense
in which you were there
and I was there.
It was my sin
that brought Jesus
to that cross.
He died for our sins.
It's the whole gospel
in that phrase.
He died for our sins.
What does that mean?
I might say to you,
if you're sitting here
with a streaming cold,
do you remember
before COVID
people got colds?
I saw a sign
on a protest
the other day
saying,
make influenza great again.
Let's say
you can remember
what a cold is,
all right?
Pre-COVID.
And you say to me
after the service,
I keep my distance,
but I say to you,
are you taking something
for that cold of yours?
You'd understand
what I mean,
wouldn't you?
What do I mean
when I say,
I hope you're taking
something for that cold?
That is,
I hope you're taking
some kind of medicine
or you're taking
something that will
take the cold away.
I'm asking,
are you taking
something against
that cold?
Are you taking
something for yourself
against the cold?
I see you next week,
I say,
how are you?
You say,
oh my cold is better now.
We don't mean that,
do we?
We mean the opposite.
We mean,
I'm better,
my cold is gone.
And when the Bible
tells us that Jesus
died for our sins,
that is the way
that we're to understand it.
He died for us
against our sins.
You and I are down,
not with a cold,
but according to the Bible,
down with sin.
From the moment
we come from our
mother's womb,
we're down with sin.
From the moment
we begin to exist,
from the point of conception,
where sin is by nature,
and we come into this world
down with sin.
And Jesus died on the cross
for our sins.
He died to make our sin better,
to make it go away.
He died as the remedy,
God's remedy for sin.
You've heard the story,
I'm sure,
but the firemen
arrive on a farm.
It's a country farm,
and everything is burnt out.
The barn is burnt to a cinder.
They finish putting out
the blaze,
and the firemen
wander around
inspecting the damage
on the kind of
charred ground.
And one of the firemen
comes,
and a hen
has been burnt to death
on the floor
of one of the buildings.
The firemen
pokes it with a stick
and moves it.
And underneath
that burnt hen,
they find little chicks.
Little chicks,
alive,
clucking around,
chirping around.
Jesus said,
he was coming down
from the Mount of Olives,
and he saw the
city of Jerusalem
spread out before him.
And he says,
O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem,
how often would I
have gathered you
as a hen
gathers her chicks
under her wings,
but you would not.
And Jesus wept
of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was destroyed
in the most terrible way.
Why?
Because they did not know
the things that belonged
to their peace
according to Jesus.
Jerusalem didn't realize
that God had come
into their midst.
They didn't know
that the Savior
walked their streets.
And even as he carried
his cross
to the place of execution
to Calvary,
the crowds line the route,
don't they?
The people of Jerusalem,
and Jesus sees
some women
who are weeping,
and he says to them,
don't weep for me,
weep for yourself.
They were saying,
such a waste,
such a tragedy,
a young man
in the prime of life,
so kind,
going to the gallows.
And they were weeping.
But they weren't
weeping for themselves.
And they didn't understand
what was happening,
you see.
They didn't realize
that Jesus going to the cross
wasn't some tragic
accident of history,
but that this was
the Son of God
who came to die
for their sins.
They didn't understand that.
They didn't understand
that it was their sins
that had brought them
to this point in history.
They didn't understand that.
And so Jesus says to them,
weep for yourselves
and your children.
Because unless you're
brought to that point
where you are desperately
concerned about the problem
of your sin,
the judgment of God
will hem down upon you.
And so Jesus says to you
tonight,
he says,
how often
would I have gathered you?
how often
would I have gathered you
but you wouldn't?
You wouldn't acknowledge
your need.
You were too proud.
You wouldn't acknowledge
your need of me.
So I want to tell you tonight,
you too will die
in your sin
under the judgment of God
unless you come to Jesus
and unless you shelter
beneath his
atoning sacrifice
underneath his propitiation
like we looked at this morning
for your sins.
That's what Jesus means.
What he's talking about here
in this little phrase.
He says,
blessed are those who mourn
for they shall be comforted.
Spurgeon put it
like this.
He says,
repentance.
That's what Jesus
is talking about here.
When Paul talks
about repentance
in 2 Corinthians 7
he calls it godly sorrow.
Spurgeon says
repentance is the tear
in the eye of faith.
That's what it is.
Repentance is the tear
in the eye of faith.
You cannot look
at a crucified saviour
dry eyed.
Blessed are they
that mourn
because
they are concerned
that the fact
of their sin
that is against God
and their sin
has crucified
the Lord of glory.
Blessed are they
that are disturbed
who care about that.
They will be comforted.
They shall be comforted.
Somebody has said
if you want to know
someone's character
you find out
what makes them laugh
and you find out
what makes them cry.
What makes you laugh?
What makes you cry?
There's a line in a hymn
Peter will remind me
what it is
but
the line of the hymn
is this
the pleasures lost
I sadly mourned
!
But never wept
for thee!
Till grace
the sightless eyes
received
thy loveliness
to see!
I mourned
the pleasures lost
but I never mourned
for him
the Lord Jesus.
Somebody's rightly
described the Beatitudes
as the birthmarks
of the child of God.
I think that's
a fair description.
A child comes
out of the womb
naked
and helpless
totally dependent
upon its mother.
So the Christian
is born again
poor in spirit
nothing
he has nothing
he is nothing
totally dependent
upon God
to save him.
What's one of the
first marks of life
in a newborn baby?
What do you
look for
when a baby is born?
It's the happiest
sound in the world
isn't it?
It's the sound
of a newborn baby
crying.
Although it's chosen
that
the midwife
holds him up
by the legs
and smacks him
on the bottom
and you hear
the sound
of a newborn baby
crying.
It's one of the
happiest sounds
in the world.
The sound
of a newborn baby
crying
as it comes
into the world.
Jesus
blessed are those
who mourn
blessed are those
who mourn
for they shall
be comforted.
And so can you
mourn over your
sins tonight?
Is that what makes
you cry?
Your sin?
I am not arguing
please don't
please don't think
that I'm asking you
to mourn over
your sins
helplessly
hopelessly
and desperate
but I am asking
you to mourn
over them
desperately.
We look at the
table don't we
gratefully
to Jesus Christ
because he has
borne our sin
and we look to him
the eyes of faith
with tears in our eyes
there's this paradox
isn't there
the great paradox
can you see it?
The person who mourns
and yet at the same
time is happy
I think it's so helpful
and so tonight
for those of us
who are in Christ
we're alive
we're not
we're not going
around as a
miserable sinner
going around
bewailing
and bemoaning
the fact
that you are
a miserable sinner
all the time
no no
that's not
what we want
God wants you
to mourn
he wants you
to be sorry
about your sin
all your
Christian life
but at the same
time
he wants you
to have this
deep profound
inward joy
of knowing
that those sins
are forgiven
knowing that those
sins are
cleansed
and put away
it's not either
or
don't fall
for that
the Christian
life is both
and it's
always repenting
always forgiven
and so
Jesus says
the Christian
life is a
life of
the happy
mourner
the happy
weeper
do you
recognise
yourself
a child
is overdue
Noah is
overdue
I think
for about
two weeks
and
when you're
overdue
time drags
it drags
doesn't it
a week
overdue
is nothing
some babies
have three
weeks overdue
and they say
well we'll
induce you
because if it
goes on longer
than that
it can get
dangerous
there are
people that
sit in churches
that are not
a week overdue
or three weeks
overdue
they're years
and decades
overdue
and if it
goes on any
longer
it'll be
dangerous
because you
must be
born again
and Jesus
said you
can't see
the kingdom
let alone
get into
it unless
you're born
from above
so don't
go on
any longer
and you
look tonight
to Jesus
with the eye
of faith
not dry
eyed
what I mean
by that is
you don't
think well I
am a sinner
Jesus died
for sinners
hey presto
that's okay
isn't it
we look to
him not dry
eyed
we look to
him with
tears
moaning
over our
sin
with a
broken
heart
and maybe
tonight
it's a stage
before that
isn't it
you need
to look
to him
for a
broken
heart
maybe
your
heart
is too
heavy
and it's
too hard
and you
look to
him because
he will
break it
and he
will melt
it
and here
is the
wonderful
thing
that the
Lord
Jesus
he breaks
your heart
but at the
same time
he heals
it
it's the
same look
the same
sight
the same
sight of a
crucified
saviour
breaks your
heart
and comforts
it
and heals
it
blessed
are those
who mourn
for they
shall be
comforted
let's pray