Good Mourning Series

Good Mourning

lanny smith

Reboot / Repentance; Grief; Comfort / Matthew 5:4

• David’s story of failure.

• Considered Israel’s greatest king - promised a line of succession eternally.

• Sort of our George Washington-Abraham Lincoln-John Wayne-(young) Brad Pitt with a dash of Harry Connick Jr.

• 2 Samuel 11 tells the story of David’s greatest failure: His affair with Bathsheba.

• David sees her, wants her, gets her.

• Kills her husband when he finds out she’s pregnant.

• Marries her.

• In chapter 12, Nathan, God’s prophet, confronts David who is doing everything he can to hide the situation. Finally David confesses:

2 Samuel 12:13 NLT

13 Then David confessed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you, and you won’t die for this sin.

• David went a step further in acknowledging his sin: He proclaimed to all Israel:

Psalm 51:1–4 NLT

1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. 2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. 3 For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. 4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.

• A few verses later, he begs God for forgiveness:

Psalm 51:8–12 NLT

8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me— now let me rejoice. 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.

• David is exhibiting what we used to call “godly sorrow.”

• He started off like most of us do:

• Try your hardest to hide the wrongdoing. (let’s call it what it is: sin.)

• We’re really sorry when we get caught, right?

• Most of us are capable of recognizing that there are consequences to wrongdoing.

• Have you ever caught a child red-handed doing something wrong?

• There’s that shock and surprise of getting caught.

• Then the realization that this isn’t going to go well.

• Then wailing and tears - not because they violated the rules but because they got caught.

• Reboot recap:

• 20022 - it’s time to “reboot” our thinking. If we’re waiting on our circumstances to auto-magically get better, we’re gonna wait an long time.

• What we CAN change is our minds:

Romans 12:1–2 NLT

1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

• We can, by God’s grace, restore our minds to “optimum.”

• This, in turn, changes our values, morals, beliefs, (our hearts).

• Ultimately, resulting in different actions, behaviors.

• The “reboot” settings are found in Jesus’ beatitudes in Matt. 5.

• This week, we look at:

Matthew 5:4 NLT

4 God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

• In these “blessed are” statements, Jesus changes our thinking, feeling and actions to align with Him.

• Last week, we considered what it means to recognize our overwhelming need to rely on God. That we are, indeed, poor in spirit.

• This week, in order to find God’s approval (be blessed), we are instructed to mourn.

Good Mourning

Matthew 5:4 NLT

4 God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

• We usually use “mourn” in the context of sorrow over loss. We mourn the loss of a loved one. We mourn when we have a significant material loss.

• It is, in fact, true that God is there for us when we grieve over death. We have comfort when our circumstances are tragic.

• But here, Jesus is prodding us to look inside for that “reboot.”

• Mourn, here, is godly sorrow like David’s sorrow over his sin with Bathsheba.

• Godly sorrow over what? Brokenness that leads to sin, rebellion.

• Essentially,

God approves of us when we are broken-hearted over brokenness.

• We must mourn over our own brokenness.