Scripture: Matthew 5:4
Sermon Series: Vote! King Jesus – Sermon 02
Who comes to mind when you think of the worst sinner imaginable? Did you think of Kim Jong-un (picture)? How about Adam Lanza (picture), the Sandy Hook killer? Ted Bundy (picture) or Dennis Rader/BTK (picture)? Was it Yahya Sinwar (picture), head of Hamas and mastermind of the October 7th massacre? Their acts so heinous, eyes so hateful, that when you see their picture, your skin crawls. Christians, of all people, should never be surprised at the evil that infects every human being, even the most ordinary.
A dramatic illustration of this truth took place sixty years ago, when Israeli agents captured Adolph Eichmann (picture), one of the masterminds of the Nazi holocaust. They brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes. Among the witnesses called to testify against Eichmann was a small, haggard man named Yehiel Dinur (picture). Dinur survived brutal torture at Auschwitz. He entered the courtroom and just stared at the man who’d presided over the slaughter of millions, including many of his own friends. As the eyes of the victim met those of the mass murderer, the courtroom fell silent. Then, suddenly, Dinur collapsed to the floor, sobbing violently.
Was he overcome by hatred? By memories of the horrible evil Eichmann had committed? No. As Dinur explained later in a riveting interview on “60 Minutes,” what struck him was that Eichmann did not look like an evil monster at all; he looked like an ordinary person…just like anyone else. In that moment, Dinur said, I realized that evil is endemic to the human condition—that any one of us could commit the same atrocities. In a remarkable conclusion, Dinur said: Eichmann is in all of us.
In our no one is responsible, therapeutic culture, people cringe when they hear words like evil or sin. We prefer to talk about people as victims of dysfunctional backgrounds. There are times when it becomes obvious that those categories are simply insufficient when the evil in the human heart breaks through the veneer of polite society and shows us its monstrous face.
We’re in the 2nd week of our series, Vote! King Jesus, working through the eight statements Jesus gave called the Beatitudes. They’re the first part of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. We’re talking about the second one, Matthew 5:4, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
How can there be Good Grief? This is much more than that Charlie Brown (picture) expression. Grief is a “cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow.” How can that be good even for Charlie Brown?
When we read this second Beatitude apart from its context, it doesn’t make sense. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. It’s of course a paradox. It’s meant to grab us. It’s an upside-down world.
E. Stanley Jones (picture), the famous Methodist missionary to India spoke at Emory University to a Systematic Theology class. Someone asked him what he thought of the Beatitudes. This is his answer: At first sight, you felt they turned everything upside down. At second sight, you understand that they turn everything right side up. The first time you read them they are impossible. The second time you read them, nothing else is possible.
The connection of this second Beatitude with the first is powerful and obvious. Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) is primarily intellectual. Those who understand that they’re spiritual beggars are blessed. The second, Blessed are those who mourn, is its emotional counterpart. It follows that when we see ourselves for what we are, when we see our sinful hearts, our emotions are moved to mourning.
The Beatitudes are not the gospel in that they don’t explain explicitly Christ’s atoning death and resurrection and how one must personally receive Him. But they’re preparatory for the gospel. So, what’s Jesus saying here? If you’re taking notes…
1. It doesn’t mean grumpy, cheerless Christians
Before we get into what this perplexing verse means, let’s look at what it doesn’t mean. Jesus isn’t saying, “Blessed are grim, grumpy Christians.” This is important because unfortunately some believers have apparently interpreted it this way.
Charles Spurgeon (picture) remarked that some preachers he knew appeared to have their neckties twisted around their souls. Robert Louis Stevenson (picture) must have known some churches and preachers like that because he once said, I’ve been to church today and am not depressed. Jesus is not talking about pessimistic, sour grape believers here.
2. Mourning is a difficult subject
Many of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 5 are the opposite of the way most people think. Mourning means tears, grief, loss. We think of funeral homes, cemeteries, empty places at the table, shattered dreams. It’s obvious that if “poor in spirit” is the last thing people want to be, “mourning” is the last thing they want to do.
Apparently, when Jesus talked about the blessedness of mourning, someone in the crowd sitting on that hillside laughed out loud. They assumed He was joking. In Luke’s reporting of this part of Jesus’ message, he gives what seems to be Jesus’ response to the laughter of this man. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep (Luke 6:25). When Jesus said that everyone, beginning with this individual who now realized he’d put his foot in his mouth, knew Jesus wasn’t kidding. They’d heard Him right.
When Jesus described someone poor in spirit, He was describing someone who realized they were absolutely destitute in a spiritual sense—hopelessly bankrupt before God. There are nine different Greek words in the New Testament for mourning. Jesus uses the strongest one. In the first century, it was used to describe the most heart-felt grief an individual could experience—a deep sorrow that caused the soul to ache. It was deep inner agony that expressed itself in uncontrollable sobbing, weeping and wailing.
The word used in the Septuagint describes Jacob’s grief when he was told his son Joseph was dead (Genesis 37:34). Mark 16 uses it to describe the pain of Jesus’ followers after His crucifixion, Those who had been with Jesus were mourning and weeping. The Message renders it: You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.
Jesus is saying that there is a blessedness of deep mourning. His point is that if we’re going to enter His Kingdom, we must not only be “poor-in-spirit,” we must also have broken hearts over our sin. Sorrow is a better teacher than happiness. As one poet put it:
I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow, and ne’er a word said she,
But, oh, the things I learned from her, when Sorrow walked with me.
Mourning is discouraged in our culture. D. A. Carson (picture) observed, The world does not like mourners; mourners are wet blankets. Now we also need to say that humor and laughter are vital for Christ-followers. Solomon said a merry heart acts as a good medicine (Proverbs 17:22). Abraham Lincoln (picture) shared, If I did not laugh, I would die.
Laughter is essential but this world despises sorrow. They laugh when there’s no reason to or even when it’s just wrong. It’s why I discourage an open mike at a funeral. Many people have poor boundaries. I’ve watched as a family is embarrassed because someone told a story that they thought was “funny,” but it was crude or would be better shared at the funeral dinner.
In much of the world parents raise their children with the mind set to be successful, work hard and achieve. They’re taught the value of studying diligently to prepare for the future. American culture is so different. More than anything we want our children to avoid hardship and be happy.
How many times have kids asked their parents what they should do with their lives, and the parents respond, Do whatever makes you happy! Our culture has made the pursuit of happiness the chief goal of life. We’re pleasure-addicted. We run from difficulties. Sorrow is bad; happy is good.
Neil Postman (picture) wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death which is an apt description of our society’s mad chase after fleeting happiness. It’s a critique of our media culture. Amuse is the opposite of muse which means “to think or be absorbed in thought.” Amuse means “not to think.” Our culture prefers amusement because it’s a diversion that can be caused by deep thought.
Mourning reveals our values. We’re not surprised when a child is sad when they drop a piece of candy or their balloon pops but there are many adults like that too. In 1 Kings 21 King Ahab pouted when Naboth wouldn’t sell him his vineyard. He plotted to have Naboth executed so he could have it. What do we get sad about? What does it say about our values?
This week I read about a terrible train accident in Great Britain that killed a number of passengers several years ago. In one of the cars there was a mother with a little child in her arms. The mother was dead, but the child was unharmed. When the rescuers took the child away from the dead mother, the child laughed and played; but when they took away her candy, she broke into a tantrum of weeping and screaming. The fact her mother was dead didn’t bother the child because she knew nothing about death—she wasn’t old enough. But she did know about candy. The things we mourn indicate our values. What do you mourn about? Do you mourn over important things?
3. There are times when mourning is appropriate
In Jewish culture mourning was expressed in varied ways. When a tragedy occurred, people would weep loudly, shave or cover their heads, tear their clothes, wrap themselves in sackcloth and put ashes on their forehead.
Anyone who expects life to be one unbroken happiness after another is naïve. The Arabs have a proverb that says, All sunshine makes a desert. Everyone enjoys the sun, but if the sun always shines everything will dry up and die. There are certain things which only the rains will produce. There are certain experiences which only sorrow can bring about. Mourning and grief will come into your life, and if you’re going to grow, they must come.
Mourning is appropriate with the losses of life. There is natural sorrow. It comes to everybody from the rich to the poor. It’s part of life.
God gave us the ability to cry and weep. When someone we love dies, mourning is an expression of that love. Death is like an amputation. The closer we are in life, the harder it is in death. Tears are a gift from God and part of the healing process.
Some of you have gone through or are now going through some serious health issues that make you afraid of the future. Some of you have experienced relational ruptures with a friend or a spouse. Many of us have lost family members or friends to death or fear we will in the near future.
All of us know what it is to mourn over the inevitable losses of life. We can relate to Psalm 6:6, I am worn out from groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.
Grief like this is therapeutic. Tears release a healing process that enables us to accept pain, work our way through it, and adjust to life again. When we don’t mourn and hold it in, we poison our system.
The heroes of the faith didn’t make that mistake. Abraham wept when his wife died. David wept when Absalom, his son, was killed. Paul wept when he said farewell to his friends from Ephesus, and they wept along with him.
Ecclesiastes 3 says, To everything under Heaven there is a season, a time to be born, and a time to diem a time to weep and a time to laugh. Mourning is a great teacher. Through it we learn things we wouldn’t learn otherwise. Ironically, sorrow increases our appreciation of joy.
When we go through sorrowful times, we learn how kind people can be. The darker times reveal how wonderful, good times really are. Mourning makes us grateful for the blessings of life. When things go well, it’s possible for us to live on the surface. When sorrow comes, we begin to truly value the important things. Pain teaches us truths we’d never learn from pleasure.
Mourning is appropriate with the condition of our world. 1 John 5:19 says, We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. This world has Satan’s graffiti all over it. Everywhere we look we see signs of Satan’s power and sin’s pollution. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. Like Jesus, the condition of our world should grieve us.
Do we weep for the suffering people of our world? Does the endless stream of headlines about acts of terrorism affect you with grief? Does your heart break for the millions who eat less food than our dog? How do you react when you hear that more are enslaved today than ever before, including young women taken by human traffickers?
For the first time in our history, neither presidential candidate will take a pro-life position. A new book was released by, Melania Trump, Melania (picture). She writes about abortion saying women should have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government. How heartbreaking!
Christianity requires caring for people. We must nurture our social conscience. Jesus is saying that insensitivity to the plight of others is sin. It’s wrong for us to not grieve over evil and the suffering it brings. Do we grieve over those who ignore God’s law and suffer the consequences of their sin?
We’re good at taking aim at those who sin differently than we do. We speak up and sometimes shout, but how many times do we cry? How often do we mourn for the condition of those who ignore God’s loving law and suffer the consequences? We must mourn as the Psalmist did, Streams of tears flow from my eyes oh God, for Your law is not obeyed. (Psalm 119:136).
Scottish Reformer, John Knox (picture) carried the burden of the lost people in Scotland. Night after night, he prayed on the wooden floor of his house. When his wife pleaded with him to get some sleep, he answered, How can I sleep when my land is not saved? He also would repeatedly pray, “Lord, give me Scotland or I die!” What about us? When’s the last time you cried for this world and its suffering? We’re easily desensitized. Sadly, I know that I am.
Mourning is the right response for the condition of our own hearts. Donald Whitney (picture) in his book, 10 Questions To Diagnose Your Spiritual Health writes, the fact that there is a struggle with sin, and a sense of grief because of sin, is good. Unbelievers have no such struggles or griefs. Jesus’ main emphasis is that we should be sorrowful for our own sins. Remember what we learned about in the statement Jesus made prior to this one? Jesus says those who know they are spiritually bankrupt are blessed. They know that they’re absolutely dependent on the grace of God.
Jesus says that the person who understands how lost they are is blessed. Now He continues that thought with, Blessed is the man who not only recognizes his sinful state but is also desperately sorry for it! Blessed is the man who grieves over his own sin and unworthiness. This kind of mourning brings the blessed comfort of our salvation. Grieving over our sin pushes us to God. We realize we’re desperate without Him; we mourn over that fact, then turn to Him for forgiveness. And when we do, He gives it.
2 Corinthians 7:10, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation. Sorrow over sin leads us to repent and cry out to God for forgiveness. Yet mourning over our sin shouldn’t stop once we become Christians. Though we’re forgiven, we don’t stop sinning. We should grieve when we disobey God. James 4:8-10, Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep—let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom.
We don’t like the word sin. We’ll say we made a mistake but won’t admit we sinned. A mistake is a goof-up or an error. We regret mistakes. We apologize for a mistake. We might even try to make amends for a mistake, but we don’t mourn a mistake. What we must mourn is sin: a fundamental flaw in our character that compels us to think or say or do the wrong thing.
For example, we were made to be generous, but we tend toward greed. We were designed to treasure our sexuality, instead we trash it. We were wired to worship God, instead we worship cars or sports or nature or ourselves. We’re not just ‘mistakers,’ we’re ‘sinners.’ To mourn is to face the truth about ourselves. We’re messed-up people living on a messed-up planet. When we realize that, when we admit we’re “sinners” and not just “mistakers,” all we can do is put our head in our hands and weep.
Tim Keller (picture) writes, to mourn means to go beyond the first beatitude and to say, ‘I have problems, but I see now my problems are not just philosophical. They’re not just sociological. They’re not just psychological. They are spiritual in nature. My problem is sin.’ Until you’re willing to call your neuroses, or your lack of self-esteem, or your bitterness, or your resentment, or your sensitivity…Until you’re willing to call your problems, or to see, at the bottom, what they are is sin…you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
4. Jesus is talking about spiritual mourning over our own sin
This past week something very sad happened down the block from us. One day a big dumpster appeared in front of an apartment and everything the family owned was thrown into it as they were evicted. I don’t know them, but it was so sad.
Spiritual bankruptcy must break our hearts. Being poor in spirit must result in mourning over our sin. We tend to treat sin like it’s a common cold, when it’s like terminal cancer. Spiritual mourning is necessary for salvation. Jesus is saying that anyone who is a Christ-follower has mourned over his or her sin. You can’t be forgiven if you’re not sorry for your sin. The saddest thing in life is a heart incapable of grief over sin, for it is without grace.
Without poverty of spirit no one enters the kingdom of God. There must be grief over sin to receive God’s comfort of forgiveness and salvation. Jesus didn’t hang on the cross for sin in general but for sin in particular with names, dates and faces. At such a cost, how can we not mourn over our sin?
Imagine awaking on the Fourth of July to a text from a friend: “Meet me for fireworks at 11 a.m.” You’d think it was a typo. Why? Fireworks aren’t impressive in the noonday sky. The darker the sky, the more stunning the display. In the same way, the brilliance of grace must be set against the blackness of our sin. Puritan Thomas Watson (picture) said, Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. For the world, grieving sin is regressive and constricting; for the Christian, it is the pathway to comfort and joy.
The prodigal son experienced godly sorrow. When he finally looked at how he was living, he regretted leaving his father. He felt guilty as he tried to eat pig slop. When he recognized he’d sinned against both his heavenly Father and his earthly one, he repented and went home. He was met with love and grace even before he could make it up the driveway. That’s God!
5. The blessing of spiritual mourning is God’s comfort
Musician Michael Card (picture) reflected on the two English homophones – words that sound alike but with different spellings – morning and mourning. He wrote: Perhaps what links the two words together is the fact that they both represent moments when we ‘wake up.’ Clearly morning is the time when we open our eyes to the hope of a new day; but in another, deeper sense, a time of mourning can also be an occasion when we ‘come to our senses’ and with new, tear-cleansed eyes see the world as we have never seen it before.
Christ-followers have been made new. We see with new eyes. Those eyes should often be filled with tears. But we don’t stop there, for they shall be comforted. We have hope! Psalm 30:5, Weeping (our mourning) may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
We’ll be “comforted” in both sin and suffering. We have this hope of salvation for our sin. We take our sins to Jesus and experience the forgiveness found in Him. We’re pronounced righteous in His sight because of His sacrifice for us. We’re forgiven of sins, past, present, and future. With Him we experience His welcome and His comfort.
We also experience comfort in our suffering. We have the Holy Spirit within us. The presence of Jesus will never leave us. Whatever we go through, His comfort is promised to us. That brings such hope!
This is also a comfort that lies in the future. It says, They shall be comforted. One day sin will be no more. All suffering will cease. We’ll be in a new heaven and a new earth with perfect peace. Revelation 7:17, God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Revelation 21 goes on with, Death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. That’s in our future, if we’re His – full, forever, comfort. Shall be communicates that it’s absolutely certain. Ultimately, our comfort is anchored in the reality that Jesus doesn’t just mourn sin; He conquers it. He invites us into His upside-down kingdom. He died in our place so we can enter into His Kingdom.
Conclusion
Fred Smith told of a couple who took in a messed up young girl. She lived with them for a year going through all kinds of problems. Every evening after supper they did something that ultimately made a difference in her life. They had her repeat, God does not love me because I am good. He loves me because I am precious, and I am precious because Christ died for me. When that really dawns on us, that God doesn’t love us because we’re good but because we’re precious, and we’re precious because He died for us. We’ll have the poverty of spirit that allows us into His kingdom. Repentance is a recognition of our need. When that clicks, we’ll cast ourselves with reckless abandon at His feet. His grace meets our need.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs, and only theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn over their sin; they shall be comforted. In being comforted they’re blessed because they know God accepts them.
Please let this Beatitude drive you to Jesus, to the One who knows what it means to mourn and offers deep, lasting comfort. Those heartbroken over sin experience the fullness of His favor. They have the hope and promise of the consoling embrace of God. Mourning over sin is necessary and gives way to rejoicing. Those who mourn will be comforted. Do you know you’re spiritually bankrupt? Have you mourned over your sin? If you do, Jesus will comfort you with a comfort only He can give. If you come to Him, to His cross, you will be part of His Kingdom forever!