03. A Good Mourning Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD

www.mycrossway.org

We come to the second of the Beatitudes in the opening of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Last week we heard the words of Jesus, in Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It is a paradox of the Kingdom of Heaven in stark contrast to the Kingdom of this Word. In these words, Jesus tells us that we come into his kingdom through realizing our spiritual bankruptcy and the need for a Savior, instead of through our own self-righteousness, our own religious zeal, and our own good works.

This week we find ourselves looking at another paradox of the Kingdom that is built on the foundation of our spiritual poverty. In Matthew 5:4 Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” You may be sitting there thinking, what an odd thing to say, that we are blessed in mourning. What does this mean?

There are 9 words in biblical Greek that can be used to express grief or sorrow. Sorrow is something we face routinely. In reality, most grief is good for us. It is a gift from God because is allows us to release the pain that is within us. Weeping, mourning, and healthy grieving is all part of the human nature that God put within us.

Abraham grieved and wept over the death of his wife, Sarah (Genesis 23:1-20).

Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet (Jeremiah 13:17).

The Apostle Paul Wept for his churches and The Apostle John wept when he realized no one could open the scroll (Revelation 5:4).

Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35).

There is quite a bit of sadness in life. Life can go from the mountaintop to the valley very quickly and suddenly. There are any number of things that can bring us grief. The death of a loved one, a diagnosis, marital stress, financial worries, job stresses, changes in our homes, a betrayal by a friend or mentor, a home full of arguments, wayward children, the status of our nation or world, a natural disaster, acts of violence, even holidays can bring grief, sorry and steal our joy. But these are all a symptom of something that should bring to us godly grief and that is sin.

This is the point of Jesus’ beatitude in Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Whether we realize it or not, godly sorry teaches us, strengthens us, and produces something in us that leads us closer to the rivers of life. That is REPENTENCE.

I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to repentance. For you were made to have godly sorrow so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 10 For godly sorrow produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world brings about death. (2 Corinthians 7:9–10 LSB)

When we realize our spiritual poverty and the source of our poverty we come to a place of grief. It is mourning over our spiritual condition. It is the sin in our lives that leads us to repentance and it is genuine repentance over our sin that brings the comfort of God. This is the key characteristic of what some people call revival. This is what Jesus is talking about right here. It is not emotionalism or some kind of self-help attitude. It is the complete surrender of everything in your life over to Jesus and genuine grief over the stain of sin that opens the door for God’s comfort.

This is the tragedy of the modern church which focuses on self-help euphemisms, entertainment, and feel-good messages that never get to the heart of the issue, and in doing so, we are denying those sitting in the pews the life-giving comfort of living water that comes from Jesus through our repentance of sin. As long as we live on this earth as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we should have an overwhelming sense of our spiritual poverty.

Therefore I reject myself, And I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6 LSB)

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)

Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)

Now, the word Jesus uses for mourning is the strongest of all the Greek verbs. It is reserved for mourning the dead with a passionate lament of the loss and the destruction of death. But as I said before, Jesus isn’t talking about mourning over the things that the world mourns over, but the deep grief and sorrow over sin. And as a result, he comes before God with a penitent heart asking God for mercy and receiving the comfort of God’s forgiveness