Blessed Are Those Who Mourn Series

Sermon on the Mount

The Beatitudes #2

Matthew 5:4

“Blessed are those who mourn”

According to Wikipedia: no less than 1,354,664 died for America in war.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-facts

Memorial Day is a day of mourning:

Ask a soilder and they will tell you Memorial Day isn’t about them

They are here, they came home alive,

THIS DAY IS ABOUT THE ONES THAT DID NOT COME HOME...

On Memorial Day we will mourn:

Lives that ended too soon

Children who will grow up without their parent

Tears that seem to have no cure

Unexplainable pain

Despair and gloom fill the heart and mind

Many here have lived in graveyard of buried hopes…

The loss of your sweetheart

A crushed dream

A past that haunts you today

Pain that won’t go away….

Stick with me because Jesus has a blessing for you today:

We are in week 2 of the Sermon on the Mount

Last week looked at how the poor in spirit are blessed

Today in Matthew 5:4 Jesus says the mourner will be blessed:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” Matthew 5:4

At first look that doesn’t make sense:

Mourning and cursed seem to fit better than mourning and Blessed

But God’s way is not man’s way

Let’s review some key words….

Blessed

A BLESSING is something God gives:

That you can’t get anywhere else.

It means: Fortunate, Happy, Rich,

Eugene Peterson translates Matthew 5:4 this way in the Message...

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

What does it mean to Mourn?

Mourning is how grief is expressed…

Synonyms for mourn: Ache, agonize, cry, grieve, lament, regret, weep

In Matthew 5:4 -mourning is best understood to be as mourning over sin

“those here promised comfort are not primarily those who mourn the loss of a loved one, but those who mourn the loss of their innocence, their righteousness, their self-respect. It is not the sorrow of bereavement to which Christ refers, but the sorrow of repentance.”

John Stott

COMFORT:

You could translate this second beatitude ‘Happy are the unhappy

The verb comfort can have the meaning “encourage”:

There is no greater comfort than knowing you are right with God

You are near to God

God has shown you His love…

Many have come to God mourning and been comforted

God deliberately engages with the brokenhearted….

God hears the cry of His children

God listens to the afflicted and suffering

He waits for people to turn their HEARTS toward HIM

I hope to write a book someday called “The sin hangover”:

I do not drink, and I’ve never been drunk

But I’ve seen people on TV with a hangover, so I’m sort of an expert

There bodies are dehydrated, the senses are misfiring, they can barely function

They are a mess of pain and disorientation

Those are the same spiritual symptoms of Sin:

faith is weak, fears are heightened, we can barely function.

we get angry at the world and sad at the same time.

It’s in those times we need to get on our knees and repent.

what I call the “sin hangover”, it feels horrible,

Un checked sin will separate us from God’s BLESSING

Sin is serious business, with real consequences

AND YET THERE WOULD BE A MAJOR PROBLEM:

If a Christian could sin and not suffer

Sin should bring a sting

It should bring us to SORROW and REPENTANCE

Our SIN ought to overwhelm us with sorrow

Sorrow and mourning come before forgiveness and restoration

Sorrow should drive us to admit our GUILT

we KNEW what God wanted,

But we DID what we wanted.

We bring the sorrow and God brings the Comfort

Some won’t mourn their SIN:

This person has no blessing, there is no comfort

They will not humble themself before the LORD

They will take NO RESPONSIBILITY for their sin

They DEFY God’s LAW, and THINK they will NEVER BE ACCOUNTABLE...

“...For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” Romans 14:10b-12

To often we look for “COMFORT” in all the wrong place:

In success, in sex outside of marriage, in entertainment, in sports, in pleasure, in gluttony and in materialism

2 Corinthians opens this way….

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Cor. 1:2-4)