Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, if you would please turn with me in your few Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5. We come to the beginning of Jesus' well-known Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5 through 7. We want to consider together particularly verse 4 of chapter 5, but we will read the first 12 verses, the Beatitudes of Jesus. During the last few months at First Chino URC, I've had the opportunity to exhort from this section of God's Word, particularly looking at the first few Beatitudes, taking them one at a time and unearthing what their meaning is for us and what Jesus' teaching is here for us, not only from this passage, but from others, from the Word of God. I'd like to read this section of text, verses 1 through 12, and then we'll turn to another background passage, Isaiah 53, which is known to most of you, I'm sure, the message of the suffering servant, our Lord Jesus Christ. Beginning at verse 1 of chapter 5, this is God's Word. Seeing the crowds, he, that is Jesus, went up on the mountain, and 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. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will 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. Keep your finger there. We'll be looking at verse 4 in particular. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. But turn also to chapter 53 of Isaiah. Again, here we read of an individual, the suffering servant, which comes up in the pages of Scripture at various times in the Old Testament. We understand to be our Lord Jesus Christ, the bearer of our iniquity and of our sorrows. I'll begin at verse 1, read the entire chapter. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. And he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. This is God's Word. As I said, the Isaiah passage forms a kind of background to Matthew 5, verse 4. The beatitude, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. My brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, it will not come as a surprise to you to hear me say that our society as a whole, in general, is preoccupied with the pursuit of personal happiness and comfort. The driving passion for good feelings, comfortable thoughts, It's marketed to us all over the place. TV commercials, billboard ads on the freeway. The outside of food containers. Everything points to this driving desire in our society for personal happiness, security, and comfort. And in some ways, our nation itself is an example of this driving desire. What began in our country as a project to secure the free pursuit of healthy and sound living has become our country's number one idol. And the prevailing question of our day has become, what's in it for me? What's in it for me? What choice, what commitment can I make that's going to make me happy and comfortable, carefree, free from all the trials and the struggles and the tribulations that might trouble other people? but not me. Well, obviously this very worldly disposition, this very worldly attitude, contrasts very starkly the attitude and the disposition, the identity of the Christian who's called to be, at many places in Scripture, called to be a kingdom disciple. And really, in many ways, that's what the Beatitudes are about. That's what Jesus' Beatitudes are describing. In the Beatitudes, our Lord Jesus teaches us that true blessedness, true happiness is only experienced through genuine kingdom discipleship. His purpose is to pronounce blessing upon those disciples, those servants of Christ who display the attitudes, the attributes, the characteristics of the kingdom of God, not of the world. And so all of these characteristics described for us in verses 1 to 12 in Matthew 5, are for all Christians all of the time because they describe something about our identity as those who are in Christ by grace. Jesus invites us essentially here in the Beatitudes to be who you are in Jesus. Live according to your new identity in Christ. One commentator suggests that an easy way to remember what the Beatitudes are about is to think of them as the attitudes that we are to be. They are who we are in Jesus, but we're also to pursue these characteristics, these attributes. They're to define us as the servants of Christ. And if they do, we will be defined as Christians by a very different set of attitudes and allegiances and priorities than the world, won't we? Well, in our passage today, our Lord Jesus does not say, blessed are the happy and the comfortable. He says, blessed are the mourners. How utterly ridiculous, says the prevailing spirit of our age. How utterly ridiculous. The goal of human life is to avoid mourning and discomfort at all costs. But the message of the kingdom of heaven is very different, worlds apart. What we want to see tonight, brothers and sisters, as we look at this passage and others that help illumine what Jesus is teaching here for us, is that only true Christian mourning results in true Christian comfort. I'll say it one more time. Only true Christian mourning results in true Christian comfort. Let's look together, first of all, at the essence of Christian mourning. What kind of mourning is Jesus teaching about here in this second beatitude? Well, in Matthew's account of Jesus' sermon, all that we really learn is that there's a description here of people who are presently experiencing sorrow. As we look at Luke's account of this sermon in chapter 6, we see stronger language there. There we see a list of blessings and curses. Luke says, Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. But woe to you who laugh now, for you will weep. What is Jesus teaching here? Are we to gather from this that the Christian life is to be characterized by depression? Are our faces to be downcast constantly? We are to be those who mourn constantly and have no real joy to sustain us in this life? I came across a report recently that suggests that, or argues, that the most religious states in the U.S. are the biggest poppers of antidepressant pills. I can't verify that report, whether it's true or not, but is that really what Jesus is teaching here? That it's somehow more pious, more blessed and holy to be depressed and downcast all the time? It's not what Jesus is teaching. Nor is Jesus teaching that grief experienced by the loss of a loved one or the loss of some valuable item is the thrust or the greatest emphasis here in Jesus' emphasis on those who mourn. That's not exactly what he's teaching. It's important, brothers and sisters in the Lord, to remember that the characteristics here that Jesus outlines of the blessed man are spiritual characteristics. They're spiritual characteristics. They're attitudes or characteristics worked within us by the Spirit of God. In the first beatitude, Jesus teaches about poverty of spirit, but the poverty of spirit does not have to do mainly with poverty in terms of possessions, those who are not wealthy. By poverty of spirit, Jesus is teaching about those who are poor in spirit, those that recognize their uttered need for God, not only for salvation, but for all of life. Well, in the same way, the mourning that Jesus speaks about here in the second beatitude is not ordinary mourning, but spiritual mourning. So what is the essence, the nature then of spiritual mourning? First of all, spiritual mourning begins with a sincere sorrow because of our own sin. This mourning takes place. It comes because of a sincere sorrow, because of our own sin. Again, referring back to the first beatitude, it addresses the poverty of our souls that causes us to see our lack of internal resources in comparison to the utter holiness and perfection of God. Isaiah 6, verse 5, we see the prophet Isaiah encountering the holiness of God. Because he saw his poverty of spirit, his lack in comparison to the fullness and the perfection of God, he was immediately drawn to mourn over his own sin. He mourned the fact that his lips were unclean, the fountain of the sin welling up deep within him. He mourned that he belonged to a people of unclean lips. And we mourn in the same way as those who recognize and mourn over the sin that is so apparent to us as we look inside of us, as we compare ourselves to the perfect law of God. We see the sin that causes us not only to see our poverty of soul, but to mourn and grieve over it deeply. We also see it in the confession of David in Psalm 32 when he's confronted with his own sin. He desires to experience the forgiveness and the reception of God the Father. He says, when I failed to confess my sin, my bones wasted away. I became nothing. But when I recognized my poverty of spirit and I mourned over my sin and I confessed it in vivid detail, then I knew your forgiveness and your peace and your comfort. That's the blessed man that David knew. The one who mourned, sorrowed over their own sin before the holiness of God and the perfection of his law. But there's something interesting about Isaiah, David, and others on the pages of Scripture that exhibit those who mourned over their sin. We notice that Isaiah was not a rebellious prophet who needed to be converted before God. He was a faithful prophet. King David was a man after God's own heart. He wasn't a wicked king needing to be removed from his position of authority. No, these two individuals, Isaiah and King David, they were diligent servants of God, but they recognized something very important about those who are mourners. They recognize that mourning over sin is something that needs to characterize our entire lives. Our entire lives. Brothers and sisters in the Lord, we don't stop mourning over our sin after we've been made children of God. We continue every single day of our lives to mourn the fact that we are sinners, that our lives don't match up to the perfection of God's law. Spiritual mourning, then, is a daily part of the Christian life. Something, in fact, that increases as we progress in sanctification towards holiness, towards becoming more like Christ. I've often heard from elderly Christians, those more advanced in the Christian life, that they become more aware of their sin the older they get. Not only that, but their sin becomes more distasteful, more disgusting to them. The older they get, the closer to going home with the Lord that they come. And isn't that the way it should be? Isn't that the way it should be? As we grow in our faith, grow in maturity, we become aware of just how offensive our sin is to God, and we lament it, and we mourn over it. We could go so far as to say this kind of mourning is a necessary and an important sign of God's work within us by way of sanctification. Very soon we're going to look at the promise that's attached to this beatitude, that those who mourn will be comforted. But first we have to consider the thrust of this beatitude. One cannot come without the other. If we have a defective doctrine of sin or a shallow understanding of the depth and the offense of our iniquity, we will not desire, nor will we receive, the comfort that is attached to this beatitude. See, the essence of Christian mourning is having a real grasp of sin and a genuine sorrow over it. And that mourning must come before there can be a real sense of joy and salvation and forgiveness in God. We've looked at how Christian mourning, spiritual mourning, gets at the heart of repentance. But just how far does this mourning go for the Christian? Does it stop at the way we sorrow for our own sin? Or does it go even further? Well, I believe it does. I believe the Bible teaches that it does. Our mourning as Christian goes beyond the experience, the sorrow that we experience for our own personal sin and iniquity, and it extends to our sorrowing over the nature of sin itself as it pervades this world and pervades humanity. We sorrow over the fact that sin has disoriented the good creation of God. That it has turned people's hearts and minds against the living God. We see it all around us, don't we? We see it all around us. The evening news, it runs like a series of clips from a violent movie. The newspapers and magazines are constantly recounting uprisings and unrest all over the globe. Jobs are scarce, crime of bones. Government shutdowns, political upheavals and dishonesty are always expected, aren't they, if not a current reality. Disease, the threat of terminal illness, the imminence of death, a constant and very personal threat that touches every single one of our lives, causes us to mourn and to grieve. We see that there's something desperately wrong with the world in which we live. Things are not as they are supposed to be. And so as Christian mourners, we mourn the fact that sin has pervaded not only just our own lives, but the entire creation of God. And as Christian mourners in particular, we see to the heart of the problem. We see that the heart of the problem is not just evil behavior. The fact that humans have rebelled against God and His perfect law. We mourn the fact that people's hearts, their dispositions are turned against God and that's what results in the evil behavior that's all around us. We recognize as those who mourn spiritually that nothing short of a complete overhaul, a change of heart, is necessary before there can be a commitment to a new way of life. We long, like the psalmist, to see lawbreakers turned into law keepers, those who love God's law and were grieved by the utter disregard for God's law that is all around us. Like the psalmist who says, streams of tears flow from my eyes for your law is not obeyed. How we long to see lawbreakers converted. And we mourn, we are sorrowful as we see sin's effects on our world. But there's something very important we need to remind ourselves of here. And that is this, our mourning goes to this extent. Because as Christians, we share in Jesus' lament for the sins of the world. We cannot look at the Beatitudes, or really any passage of Scripture, without looking to our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the perfect model, the perfect blessed man described in the Beatitudes. Really, the description in the Beatitudes only properly or perfectly belongs to Jesus. We see that in a whole variety of ways. Our Lord Jesus exhibited embodied poverty of spirit. While on earth, he completely depended upon his heavenly father. In the same way, he was also among the mourners during his entire ministry on earth. Jesus experienced in full the pain of living in a world in which things are not as they're supposed to be. He suffered rejection in his hometown where hearts that should have been delighted in His coming were turned against Him in hard unbelief, turned against His message and ministry of salvation. And He mourned over it. Jesus mourned over the tragedies that you and I experience in life because of sin and its disorienting effects. Though He was sinless, He lamented. He was sorrowful for the sins of others. At the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus, he wept bitterly with his friends Mary and Martha. He wept because his world was created good, beautiful, perfect, not like this. He wept over the hard hearts in Jerusalem. Though he longed to gather them to himself, they would not come. Jesus mourned more than any other human being who has ever lived. Why was he mourning? Not simply because there was bad behavior in the city, but because he saw the deeper problem of the unbelieving hard heart that kept his people from coming to him in faith. And as his disciples, as those who longed to see sinners turned into saints. We're passionate about the gospel and getting it out to the nations. We share in Jesus' lament and we long for all things to be made right again and for mourning to cease. Jesus knew more than anyone what it was to be among the mourners. But our Lord Jesus, here's the good news. Our Lord Jesus no longer mourns. Our Savior is no longer among the mourners. Do you know where he is? He's enthroned in heaven at the right hand of God, and he is laughing. He's not mourning anymore. He's laughing. Psalm 2 tells us that the plots and the plans of the wicked and their king, the devil, are absolutely futile, destined to fail, and the Son of Man sits enthroned and he laughs and he scoffs because he knows that they can do nothing to interrupt the redeeming plans of God through his Son, Jesus Christ. They can do nothing to get in the way of Christ redeeming a people for himself, a people not of everlasting mourning and sorrow, but a people of great joy and unending comfort. That same Isaiah, the prophet, who foresaw the coming of the man of sorrows, who would take upon himself the iniquity of us all, that same Isaiah saw the aftermath. He saw the consequences, the results of his coming as the redeemer of his people. We see a beautiful picture in Isaiah 35. where everything that is wrong has been made right. No ferocious beast to threaten God's people. No more blind people. No more daftness. All that has gone wrong will be reversed. And a great procession of the redeemed will go to God's dwelling upon Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem. And we read in verse 10, but only the redeemed will walk there and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness, not mourning. Joy, not sorrow, will overtake them. And sorrow and sighing will flee away. Our Lord Jesus, in His train, leads the ransomed who rejoice with unending joy in their Savior, their King. Yes, Jesus was the mourner. He was the perfect mourner, and He had to be. He first had to drink the cup of our suffering before He could return to the Father with our salvation securely in his hand so that he could lead us to everlasting glory, comfort, and peace, and blessing. That's what he did for you and for me. What wonderful good news. In that news, there is great hope for us who mourn right now, even as we know that there is an end to our mourning through our Lord Jesus Christ. There's an end. And that hope, that knowledge, dear saint, directly affects the way we live our lives now, doesn't it? It has a profound impact on how we live our lives right now. We live as those who have hope, so that even as we mourn over the sin that still clings to us, we, in that struggle, know that it is not an everlasting struggle. It will end. Christ will put an end to it. He will put an end to it. So we have no reason to despair unendingly. There's going to be an end. We have the great hope and comfort like this because Jesus has paid the penalty for all of our sins so that when we look at our sins, when we mourn over our sins, we always consider with it the cross of Jesus Christ. For there at the cross, Jesus' death, was designed to pay the penalty for your sin and mine. He was our intercessor. Our intercessor. The righteous suffering servant who bore our iniquities and justified many. That's the content of our comfort. That's the content of our confession. So that when our catechism asks us, what is your only comfort in life and in death? We can answer very genuinely in the words of the catechism or in our own. I have comfort because Jesus Christ has fully paid the penalty for my sins. He took the curse of God's wrath against my sins upon himself. God now accepts his sacrifice on my behalf and he's attributed to me, to my account, the full righteousness of Jesus Christ. And now I'm accepted. I'm regarded as fully accepted in the beloved, as Ephesians 1 verse 6 says. What joy and comfort we have right now because of our Savior, our suffering Redeemer, Jesus Christ. This is a wonderful promise that's attached to this beatitude. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. And that promise provides comfort not only for the present, but also for the future. For the present, it gives us comfort. Because we know that through Christ's victory over sin and death, Jesus delivers us from the ultimate power of sin right now. Sin has no mastery over us. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit who strengthens us to fight against sin, to make real beginnings in holiness and righteousness. And so even as we mourn, we mourn with hope, even though we don't have everything we hope for. But this promise provides great comfort for the future, for there's more to come. Mourning may be part of this present age, dear saint, But we have more to look forward to. When Christ comes, when he brings the new heavens and the new earth, when they will overcome the old, then mourning will cease. There will be no more sorrow. When our faith becomes sight at Christ's return, our mourning for sin will stop because our sin will be no more. The complete removal of our sin, the complete renewal of our bodies will call us to worship with unending joy and perfect gratitude. Perfect gratitude. There's a beautiful picture of what we look forward to in Revelation 21. John has shown a great vision of the new Jerusalem. There's something very special about that. new existence that we look forward to. He says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, God himself will be with them and be their God. What a wonderful promise we read next. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death. There will be no more mourning. No crying or pain. For the old order of things has passed away. on that day we will no longer mourn for the sins of others because on that day we will stand in the glorious courts of the Lord, shoulder to shoulder, with the saints only, with those who have been covered, washed in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, who are willing servants of God. On that glorious day we will no longer mourn because then the fullness of God's elect will have been brought in and that wonderful wedding feast of the Lamb will commence. Dear brother, dear sister in the Lord Jesus, blessed are you who mourn over your own sin. Blessed are you who are sober, serious-minded about your sinful condition. For in Jesus, the penalty of your sin has been paid for and its power over you has been canceled. Blessed are you who mourn now over the sins of a lost humanity and over the sin that pervades our world. You will be comforted. You will be comforted and you will be happy. You will be granted a place in God's kingdom among God's people where sin will no longer trouble you. Blessed are you who mourn over a lost humanity, for you will be comforted and your tears will be removed forever. Forever. You will see, you will enjoy the full multitude of God's people brought into his eternal kingdom, and you will never leave. That's comfort. That's gospel comfort. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are so concerned, frightened, troubled by what we see around us and within us. We see the sin that still clings to us. We see, in even greater measure, the hardness of heart that characterizes those around us, keeps them from coming to you. We see tragedy and trouble and disease and hardship all around us, and we know that this is not the way we in our world were created. But we have a wonderful promise to hold on to, even as we mourn, even as we experience sorrow and grief over the sin that we commit against you and over the sin that is rampant in our society. Yet we have a wonderful promise to hold on to. We thank you for that promise. We thank you that it's a true and lasting promise that can never be taken away, never spoil or fade. And that is that you are coming again. Not only have you rescued us already from the ultimate power of sin, but you are coming again to cleanse sin from this creation and from us and from our bodies. There is a day coming when our mourning will be no more. When sorrow will cease, when no tear will be upon our face. You will wipe them all away and usher us into your glorious presence forever and ever. And so, Lord, just as we are those who mourn because you have made us mourners in Jesus Christ, You have worked in our heart by the Spirit to prick our consciences so that we are caused to mourn over our sin. May we also do so willingly and continually as we repent, as we ask for your forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and know the comfort of salvation in Him. We pray all this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.