Title: The Hope Choice
Text: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4
Thesis: I believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that gives me hope… hope that I can become a better person.
Lenten Series: Life’s Healing Choices (Saddleback Resources)
Introduction
William Barclay stated in his Commentary on Matthew that the word “mourn” as used in our text is the strongest word in the Greek language for mourning. He said that the mourning Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5:4 is the passionate sorrow he have when someone we deeply love has died. This kind of mourning is so intense that it cannot be hidden. It is an unrestrainable sadness.
We can understand this to literally refer to any kind of grief that translates into mourning. I remember when I received the call that my dad had passed away, I went into our bedroom, closed the door and fell onto the bed sobbing out great sounds of grief and loss.
We may also understand mourning to refer the deep sorrow we may feel in the face of the suffering and sadness of the world…
And it is also a deep sadness or mourning we associate with the remorse and regret we may feel over our own sinfulness and failures. The deep regret we feel knowing we have disobeyed God, done damage to others and demeaned ourselves. It is the sorrow we may feel knowing we have blown it again.
Interestingly enough… most of us do not enjoy being sad. We try to not place ourselves in the way of sorrow and suffering. We try to avoid being in a state of mourning. We like the advice of Petulla Clark in her song “Down Town.”
“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown. The lights are much brighter there you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go downtown. Things will be great when you’re downtown.”
And so we find a myriad of ways to escape the sadness of our hurts, hang-ups, habits and the things that haunt us. So we may gamble, self-medicate, over-indulge, go shopping, work more, sleep, have another chocolate or whatever it is we do to comfort ourselves and feel better.
But Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” The person who finds himself or herself in a place of deep sadness and sorrow is also in a place of grace where God can bring comfort to the broken hearted. But there is a problem.
Most people, who find themselves in a state of trouble or sadness or grief do not readily turn to God to comfort. We do what we need to do to take our minds off of whatever it is that is eating us.
Mostly we just do our best to cover it all up… Have you ever seen how they make a three layer cake? You bake three cakes and you take the three cakes out of the cake pans. So then you have three sorry looking cakes in various stages of disrepair. But you lather one up with frosting and then you add the second layer cake and you apply frosting to that cake and then you add the third cake and once again apply a liberal coating of frosting and walla! You’ve made three sorry looking cakes look like one pretty decent cake.
Rather than spend our lives covering up what ails us, perhaps we might see that things do not have to be as they are.
If we really want to be better people and feel better about who we are the place to begin is with God.
I. It is imperative that we see God as God really is.
“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 of our troubles…” II Corinthians 1:3-4
Our images of God…
A. Is God a God of condemnation?
Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741 titled, “Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God.”
The thesis of the sermon is: There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure [good will] of God.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)
Among the points Edwards made in his sermon are:
“God may cast wicked men into hell at any given moment. The wicked, at this very moment, suffer the torments of hell. The wicked must not think, simply, because they are not physically in hell, God is at this very moment as angry with them as he is with those miserable creatures he is now tormenting in hell, who at this very moment feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath.”
Edwards very effectively argued with horrific detail that hell awaited those who reject Christ and if that is all you knew it would be easy to think of God as angry and condemning.
It is true that, the wages of sin is death,” but it is also true that, “ the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23
God does not want anyone to spend eternity in hell. Peter, in writing of the “Day of the Lord” or the “Day of Judgment” wrote, “The Lord is slow in keeping his promise [of said judgment]. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” II Peter 3:9
The writings of the Apostle Paul remind us as well that God is gracious in his intentions toward us.
“If by the trespass of the one man [Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of life through, the one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus Christ] the many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:17-19
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” Romans 8:1
So is God a God of condemnation or is God a God of comfort and hope?
B. Is God a God of comfort and hope?
In Luke 4 there is an account of Jesus going to the temple where he read a prophetic text about himself from Isaiah 61. In that reading he proclaims that, “ The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me… to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61:1-3
You’ve heard old adages warning us against self-defeating behavior like:
• “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”
• “Don’t be your own worst enemy.”
• “Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”
Sometimes we have no one to blame for our own choices. We make choices that do ourselves harm or get us into trouble… those choices are self-defeating.
So before we get too deep into thoughts of God being harsh, judgmental and condemnatory, hear the words of Jesus Christ:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” John 3:16-18
In other words, when we reject Christ as our Savior we essentially shoot ourselves in the foot. God is not the shooter… we are. God is not the condemner, we condemn ourselves.
One of the first verses I learned in my earliest Sunday School days was this: “Cast all your cares on God, for he cares for you.” I Peter 5:7
If your image of God is that of a harsh, angry, condemning God… you need to erase that image from your mind and cultivate an image of God that is gracious and merciful, loving and kind, comforting and caring. You need to see God as a God who brings hope to any and every circumstance in your life.
Once we have a proper perspective of what God is really like, we then need to see ourselves as we really are.
II. It is imperative that we see ourselves as we really are.
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14
We are “dust” people.
I read a amusing piece about how women see themselves. When a woman is getting ready to go somewhere she looks in the mirror…
• Age 8: Looks at herself and sees herself as Cinderella and skips out the door.
• Age 15: Looks at herself in the mirror, sees a “zit” and wails, “Mom, I can’t go out looking like this!”
• Age 20: Looks at herself and sees that she is either too fat or too thin; too short or too tall and her hair is either too straight or too curly - but decides she's going anyway.
• Age 30: Looks at herself in the mirror and decides she doesn’t have time to fix any of it and goes anyway.
• Age 40: Looks at herself and sees she is too fat or too thin, too short or to tall, her hair is too straight or too curly and says, "At least I'm clean" and goes anyway.
• Age 50: Looks at herself and sees that she has earned the right to do whatever she wants to do and go wherever she want to go… and does!
• Age 60: Looks at herself in the mirror and reminds herself that there are a lot of women who can’t even see themselves in the mirror… and goes out to conquer the world.
• Age 70: Looks at herself and sees wisdom, laughter and ability, and goes out and enjoys life.
• Age 80: She doesn't bother to look. Just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun.
We all have something of an image of ourselves… we have something of a perspective of who and what we are… and I am not just talking about how we look but who we are in terms of character. So I ask myself...
A. Am I a perfect person?
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” I John 1:8
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Romans 3:23
So am I a perfect person or am I a flowed person in need of God’s mercy and grace?
B. Am I a flawed person in need of God’s mercy and grace?
God sees us as we are and it is important that we see ourselves as we are.
Jesus spoke a warning to his followers in Luke when he said, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” Luke 12:2
King David said to his son, Solomon, “The Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind our thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you…” I Chronicles 28:9
So in reality there is no hiding who and what we really are…
It is imperative that we see God as God is and it is imperative that we see ourselves as we are… then it is imperative that we see what God can do with who and what we are.
III. It is imperative that we see ourselves as who we may become.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:8-10
This small volume I am holding in my hand is an old copy of the English poet, William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude.” He wrote the first version when he was 28 years old but worked on it over the rest of his long life without publishing it. He never even gave it a title other than referring to it as a poem about the growth of his own mind. His wife, Mary, named it “The Prelude” and published it three months after his death in 1850.
The word for workmanship in Ephesians 2:10 is the Greek word “poiema” which refers to something made or created… and infers the process of making or creating as in the hammering out, word-smithing and polishing of Wordsworth’s “The Prelude.”
So we may ask ourselves:
A. Am I a finished person? Am I settling for who I am today? Or…
B. Am I a work in progress person? Am I open to the process of becoming the person God wants me to be?
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with every increasing glory, which comes for the Lord, who is the Spirit.” II Corinthians 3:18
That verse says that the person who allows God to work in his or her life is in the process of being transformed into the likeness of Christ by degrees or incremental steps…
And as Paul wrote, we may be “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
Conclusion
You may find yourself in a good place today. You may feel like your life is good and you and God and your relationships are all good. You may feel like you are where you need to be and you are faithfully allowing God to do his transforming work in your life.
However, may not feel like that at all and you know God is good and you know you need to get better and you want to believe God can make that happen.
One of the first things I like to do when I go up to the Anderson cabin is tend to the feeders… and I especially want to make sure the Hummingbird feeder is full. I don’t know how they find one little feeder there on that mountain side but they do. One moment the air is still and the next the air is abuzz with Hummingbirds. They are noisy creatures. They arrive and hover noisily as they feed and then they are off with a flurry. They are also mean-spirited. They will sometimes buzz me and they will buzz each other for territorial feeding rights. Hummingbirds are delightful, colorful and energetic birds – but I get chest pains just thinking about how hard they try at life.
Occasionally I will see an eagle… the eagle seems to have a better grip on life. The eagle is never abuzz. The eagle soars and swoops and circles with seeming ease. The eagle lets the wind currents carry him…
Today the message is not so much about trying harder as it is about trusting God more. It is about placing who and what you are and all that makes you sad about yourself and your circumstances into the hands of the God of all comfort and hope.
Isaiah 40 begins with these words…
Isaiah 40 begins with these words, “Comfort, comfort my people…” And it ends with these words, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak… those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They shall soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:25-31
