Well, we're continuing today our study in the Beatitudes. We started last week, found on page 962 in the Bibles that are in front of you, Matthew chapter 5. I'll be reading the first 11 verses. Our text this morning is verse 4, verse 4. Let's give our attention this morning to the reading of God's Word. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he had 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, our text, who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. There we'll end the reading of God's word this morning. Well, we continue today our sermon series in the Beatitudes. And I want to, one of the challenges of being a preacher is after you leave the pulpit the previous week, you always say, I should have said this, or I should have said this. And I go through this endlessly as a pastor. And this is one of those cases where I did a lot of that. So I want to begin by making sure some things are clarified. It had nothing to do with any of you coming up and pressing me on something. This is purely my own, you know, struggle to communicate. Trusting that the Holy Spirit uses a very weak vessel to do this. The blessings here referred to in these pronouncements by our Lord are confusing to us because our sinful nature, in our sinful nature, we tend to look at things with worldly eyes and we find it very difficult to appreciate the nature of the kingdom of God, the servants of the kingdom of God. Everything about God's wisdom is foolishness to the world. So that's what we run up against when we come up to these beatitudes. God's ways are not our thoughts, our thoughts, his ways are not our ways. So what that means is whatever we would evaluate in life as we think the way it should go and what constitutes a truly happy life as we say we're blessed will not be what you naturally think. That's what I went through last time. What do you think blessing is? Is it just having lots of good things? Is that what you're talking about? What do you think blessing is? When we tell people we are blessed, what do we mean by that? And what are we truly saying to people? And do we understand it? Well, that's why these Beatitudes help us this morning. What I'm about to consider with you are the very things that Christianity is mocked for, attacked about. Meekness in the world is considered weakness. Being poor and sick, poor in spirit, is equated with being miserable. Being a peacemaker is often associated with being compromised. Being persecuted is understood as one of the worst woes in this life. And Jesus is saying, this is what constitutes blessing. Not what you tend to think constitutes blessing. Now that's where I said, okay, maybe I need to make something very clear here. I trust you can appreciate the challenge of this. You could have all kind of misunderstanding here that Jesus is just after giving us a life that's miserable. Is that what he's doing? Is he wanting to make life hard on us? Is that what he's describing in these Beatitudes? That we are never to advance and we are never to work hard towards success and that we are never to pursue happiness, that we are always to pursue poverty and that we are always to weep? And is that what the Christian life is meant to be? I mean, that's a fair question. well that's not what this series is attempting to accomplish we sang from psalm 103 that's why emphasized it in the first song he decked you with health and with all kinds of good gifts he's helped and stayed you that's generally true in life that's generally true good health good gifts goodness of family and so on all these are are good blessings from god but pagans can receive all these. Pagans have all these. Paul spoke of food and blessing being given to pagans. So what do we mean when we say blessed? I'm blessed. What are we talking about? Is it just that we have a lot? Is it just that our cup is full? Is that what that really means? What Jesus is doing here and the difference, I think, when we say, well, how is the blessing of some of these common things that we enjoy different from that of non-believers? There's a vast difference in your response. You thank the Lord. You acknowledge the Lord. You give praise to the Lord. You glorify the Lord for these things. This is what prayer is an expression of in these common blessings of life. That will mark us as different from the pagans in just saying, yeah, I'm blessed. I've got lots of money. I've got a big family. I've got all this, this, and this. The difference is how you glorify the Lord with those things. That's something we talk about a lot. Glorify God in whatever you do in light of all of life being a blessing. Well, we're looking at something a little different here. Jesus is turning everything upside down in those characteristics that mark those who have specifically entered the kingdom and how they are set apart from the world. These blessings are not specifically given to all. They are given to you. He has blessed you peculiarly with these things. That you would enjoy a happiness that is truly lasting. Because as you know, no amount of money ever makes anyone truly happy. This is true happiness. And that's the upside down nature of this whole thing. And that's why it's important, for there are characteristics and qualities that God has blessed his people with as salt and light in the earth. There's no mistake here that right after he gave the Beatitudes, he said, you're salt and light. He had just defined what that looks like in the world. We don't have to figure that out. It's what the Beatitudes are describing, what it means to be salt and light in the earth. How we flavor the world with things that are surprising about the kingdom of God. and that's what we're addressing in these in this series these beatitudes are meant to encourage us as to who are truly the children of the lord in this life who are truly the kingdom servants in this life who is he blessed to enter his kingdom again they're not entrance requirements into the kingdom as they've often been been explained they are god's blessings that mark and identify if we want to talk about identity this is where you go they mark and identify who we are so that we're not confused. So that we're not confused when these things happen to us. These qualities that are despised and hated by the world, these backward things, these upside down things actually that happen to us that confuse us and discourage us that seem to indicate no blessing. We can see that they are precisely the marks and the character traits of God's blessing of those who've entered the kingdom of God already. That's why they're special. That's why they help to explain life. And the beatitude that we're considering this morning is blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. We're considering this morning, we're looking at what it means, this confusion of mourning in the Christian life, the consequence of it, and the comfort of it. So we'll look briefly through this. Now, this beatitude is closely related to the one that comes before. It probably should be taken together, but I think this concept is so important, I thought a separate sermon on it is warranted. Where he talked about being poor in spirit. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. There's a contrast there we looked at with being rich in spirit. It's not condemning rich people, for all that we have is given to us by God. Everything. The clothes that we wear, the hearts that we have, the air that we breathe, everything is given by God. Jesus is speaking of two kinds of people in this life. By nature, we love to do what? Show ourselves as independent and great. Together. We love to show ourselves as rich. We love to show ourselves as strong, as perfect. Perfect. That's what we want everyone to think about us. We've got a perfect life and our perfect marriage and we've got perfect children. And none of you think that's really true, do you? Well, this is what he's addressing here. That many in this life live to showcase themselves. In whatever strength they have in life. Look at me. Look at my progress. Look at my health. Look at my strength. Look at my wealth. This is our dog-eat-dog world. This is the way it goes. It's the pride of life. Narcissism drives the human heart. We all want attention on us. We all want to show ourselves as successful and great. But a servant? As the bad beatitude goes, the person is blessed who has truly come to see what they are. Because the greatest fight in Christian ministry is convincing people that they're what? Needy. In every way. Your health is upheld by God. your money, everything, but we don't treat him that way. So that the blessing here is that when we willingly humble ourselves and we see that in us nothing good dwells and that poverty of spirit extends to every part of life, our material lives, our physical lives, our spiritual lives, There is no basis in these things for our confidence before God. Then God has trained us. This is the blessing. God has trained us and disciplined us and blessed us to make us lowly. To the end that we live in confidence that to ours belongs the kingdom of heaven. Now, I went through that last time. You can go back and listen to it. Now comes the little more challenging one. That one's pretty challenging, isn't it? Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. See, the connection here, if you're going to bless poverty of spirit, if you're going to bless people in being poverty of spirit, then God doesn't expect us just to be blocks without emotions. We have feelings. And the Lord speaks of, in following this, poverty and humbling of the blessedness of those who mourn. That may be the most confusing beatitude for us. Why do I say that? Blessed are those who mourn? I mean, that's not how we characterize much of life at all, is it? Blessing? You know, just take worship. What are we always saying about worship today? What do people expect? You know the lingo. We need to take this up to the next level, guys. We need to up our game. We need to rise to the occasion. We need this to be bigger, better, stronger. I mean, that's our whole motto in America. Everything's to the next level. Who's the killjoy that says, you better take it down a notch? That's Jesus. This is the one thing we all avoid in life, really. Think of the confusion. A great example is just how the Psalter itself captures it. It doesn't provide just praise songs. By, you know, an extensive portion of the Psalter are laments, cries. I sang Psalm 22, and that's never the song you would ever pick to enter into worship. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from my groaning, my crying? That's a tough sell today in a culture that tells us in our Declaration of Independence that all of life is about the pursuit of happiness. Is it? Well, again, you have to qualify things, don't you? You see the challenge with this. It's not condemning a happy life. I want a happy life. You want a happy life. But it challenges us as to what constitutes a truly happy life. Jesus attaches blessedness to mourning first. You see, if we never mourn, what would you call someone who never is dealing with reality? If we never mourn, the happiness we're trying to achieve is nothing but a facade. It's artificial. It's not true life. And something greatly is lost in our honesty and our witness. and there's something wrong when we never mourn when a loved one dies there's something wrong with that we weep with hope but we weep because death is horrible it's all over the scripture but what are we talking about here what are we really talking about mourning well I guess we can think of it in a few different ways John Stott once told the story of how he asked his congregation, what made them become Christians? What if I ask that question today? What made you become a believer? When did you become a believer and what was that process and what happened in your life? He said the single greatest factor of people becoming believers genuinely was first a sense of personal desperation in their lives. a sense of despair, of being at the end of their resources and their mourning. This is what we see in Acts. Maybe that's why in a hedonistic culture where earthly happiness is the pursuit of church life today, we have seen little response to the gospel because we've told everyone, if you're mourning, something's wrong. Something's wrong with you. People don't mourn. our culture has taught us not to mourn. We don't even know how to mourn anymore. It was James Boyce that said, it's mourning and sorrow that gives spice to the Christian life. Well, the unbeliever certainly mourns at times, sure. What's different? They suffer the same losses, they suffer the same pains, but behind it all is a denial of what's truly wrong. and denial often wins the day. When the Christian mourns, I think Calvin is again so helpful here. I think he's got this absolutely right. Here's what he said. He said, we must learn what we must learn to do in the Christian life is to weep before God. That's the desperation of mourning that Jesus is talking about, learning to weep before God. Here's the reality of the Christian life. At times, beloved, you're going to be very sad. You're going to face all kinds of things that happen to you that make you mourn. You will face want, you will face loss, you will face pain, you will face sorrow, you will face suffering, you will face serious grief. God and his providence will at times send dark providences upon you. Mourning comes in many different ways, from the sudden loss of life to the evils that happen in this world. Mourning is the reality of life under the sun before we've come to glory. You can't miss it in the Scriptures. Let me give you a few examples just to show how practically Paul used it. Remember in Corinth there was a man sinning in the church? Close family ties. Paul comes after the situation, and Paul says, you all are proud. Shouldn't you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who's been doing this thing? Did you catch that, the happy pride? The happy pride was they acted like sin didn't matter. When they should have been in mourning. To the point that led them to discipline. The natural response is to do what? Tuck it away, smile, act like it's all good. That's not, that's fake. That's one way. Ezekiel once said the characteristic of those who are marked by God in this life as a sign on their foreheads that they're marked by God. He said, go through the cities and mark those who mourn over the abominations in the land. How can we not mourn as infants are slaughtered? How can we not mourn over all the injustices in this life? How could we not mourn? What's the most important today? Mourning over sin. Mourning over sin is the heart, is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. You know, we have sanitized in American Christianity, we've sanitized really two things. We've sanitized death, and we've sanitized the idea that there is ever going to be a judgment from God over sin. Those two things are out. Well, if you sanitize that and you've gotten rid of that, there's not going to be any mourning. You know when Jesus mourned? Twice in the Gospels. Jesus mourned. You know the one. He wept over death when Lazarus died. Broke out. Everyone saw him break out into mourning over his loved one. And then he mourned, second one, don't show hands. He mourned over Jerusalem that they wouldn't repent over their sin. Well, I think we're no greater than our Lord. We should be mourning over sin and we should be mourning over death. They're terrible things. When we see what our sins deserve and how careless we are and how little we take them, how could it not produce tears in our lives? Do you ever tear up over your sins? See, what Jesus is describing, and this is why the word is so important, is the blessedness of the reality of life. See how upside down this all is again? Would you ever say today, I mean, would we say, you know, there really is no reason to sorrow, but there is in this life. What Jesus is saying is, he is blessing you with, and this is the crucial importance here, the kind of sorrow that leads somewhere. Where does it lead us? to repentance. It's godly sorrow that produces true repentance. It's a good and right thing, beloved, at times in life when something is wrong to sorrow. It's okay. It's proper when you do it before God. It's okay at times to be sad. Listen to me. It's okay at times to be downcast. It's okay at times to be in the doldrums. The issue is where your tears, as opposed to the world, lead you. Are we learning to hide our sorrow before everything else, and especially before the Lord? Listen to this altar. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Hear my voice. Psalm 130. Psalm 6. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, O Lord? How long? Psalm 38. All my longings lie open before you. Lord, my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart pounds. My strength fails me. My light has gone out from my eyes. Your heart beating your chest over anxiety and fear and sorrow? It's the experience of the psalmist. Deep calls unto deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your waves and breakers have swept over me. Why are you downcast, oh my soul? He's downcast. That's the best place to be sometimes. When we do that, we experience something very special, a blessing. Lord, said David, you have put my tears in a bottle, just like precious perfume. What Jesus is saying is a way of blessedness comes to us when we have genuine sorrow before God. He assures us of this. He is not letting one of those tears ever fall to the ground. He puts them in a bottle, all your tears. Isn't that wonderful? And that's where the promise of this beatitude is so beautiful. He doesn't just say, blessed are those who mourn and leave it there. What does he say? Blessed are those who mourn, who take life and realities of sin and hardship seriously and mourn before him. And where does it lead them? Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The world says you should never sorrow. Bury your head in the sand. Turn up your music. Go buy something. Distract yourself with this and that. In and out. Grab a bottle. The Lord says, Sorrow before me, and you're blessed. Because I promise that I'll comfort you. Now what's that worth? Nothing can take this blessedness away from you. There is blessing in godly sorrow for him. What does God do for you? Pick your sorrow. Sorrow may come in the night. Joy is promised in the morning. How often does he light our afflictions? How often does he help us when we pray? How much comfort has his word given to you? Even right now in the deepest moments of despair that he sends his servant and his word comforts you and helps you when all of a sudden we have not been able to think or to process and his word comes fresh to us and comforts us in ways that we never expected and had never looked at the passage like that before. How many tears have overwhelmed us? Do the words of something like Isaiah 40 mean anything to us? Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for. And what does he do for you? He gives strength to the weary. He increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary. And young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They'll soar on wings like eagles. They'll run and not grow weary. They'll walk and not be faint. Yes, the Lord comforts his sheep. You see, it's through the experiences of sorrow that the Lord replaces those tears with joy. You know, that revelation says one of the greatest blessings on the last day is that he's going to take his giant hand and wipe away every tear forever. You know he's doing that now. That's not just for then. This is a promise in the present. This is a blessing in the present you enjoy in this life of peace. When Jesus rose victorious over the grave, you know, think of the psalm. You've turned my mourning into dancing. You've taken my sackcloth and clothed me with joy that my soul may sing praise to you and not be silent. O Lord, I'll give you thanks forever. This is Jesus' cry. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then he bursts out of the tomb to tell his brothers the news of the resurrection, the first words to say, I give you peace and I give you joy. Some of you have suffered very hard things, loss and pain. And the Lord wants you to know those tears as you cry to Him are not meaningless. They're very real to Him. He cares about them. Don't hide them from Him. When you see the blessing intended in this, if He can say, Blessed are the poor in spirit, and blessed are those who mourn. Take these two beatitudes together. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and they shall be comforted. Yes, the Lord comforts his affliction, his afflicted. And he puts your tears in a bottle. And he cares for you. These are the promises. This is the promise of this particular beatitude. And the blessing he gives you. So may you look at all the difficulties of life, whatever they are, as opportunities to draw near to the Lord and to bear your hearts before Him. And He promises He will comfort you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for helping us with the realities of life. We've lived so long in denial in a picture-perfect America, which isn't picture-perfect. We confess, O Lord, that mourning is a very real emotion and that when you bless us to mourn before you and to receive consolation from you, that is an extraordinary blessing where your hand is reaching doubt and helping your sheep. I pray today that you would, Lord, bless and comfort all those who mourn. May it be in our lives that we take this seriously, life seriously, for we know that though sorrow may come in the night, soon the resurrection will come and joy will come in the morning. Thank you for blessing us with this word in Jesus' name. Amen.