A man placed some flowers on the grave of his dearly departed mother and started back toward his car when his attention was diverted to another man kneeling at a grave. The man seemed to be praying with profound intensity and kept repeating, "Why did you have to die? Why did you have to die?"
The first man approached him and said, "Sir, I don't wish to interfere with your private grief, but this demonstration of pain is more than I've ever seen before. For whom do you mourn so deeply? A child? A parent?"
The mourner took a moment to collect himself, then replied, “My wife’s first husband.”
Mourning is something we are all familiar with. Today we will take a closer look at it. Last week we started a new series for the year. We are taking a look at the beatitudes that Jesus gave in His Sermon on the Mount. We call them the Be-attitudes because these are the attitudes that are supposed to be in our life as a child of God. Last week we looked at being poor in spirit. Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit for they will inherit the kingdom of God. If you remember we said that being poor in spirit is really about recognizing your need for God. It’s a recognition that you can’t save yourself. You are spiritually bankrupt without God. We said that it is the most important of the beatitudes because without you realizing that you can’t save yourself and you need God then you can’t ever really be saved. Those who are poor in spirit are people who are humble in spirit; they do not look down on others or think they are better than other people. The thing about being poor in spirit, it is those who are humble in spirit that see the power of God unleashed in their life. God will not use the proud to show His power through. All throughout scripture God shows He unleashes His power through those who are poor in spirit. Remember being poor in spirit has nothing to do with depression or finances.
Today’s Be-attitude builds on to this one. Like I said earlier, they all build upon one another. Once again it has an odd sound to it when you first hear it. Let’s turn to Matthew to read it.
Matthew 5:4
Once again Jesus’ statement here says something contrary to what the world has said to us. The world would say you are crazy to say that you would be blessed to mourn. If you remember the Greek word that blessed is being translated from means happy. Happy are those who mourn. It just doesn’t sound right does it? So why is mourning a good thing? I want to look at three areas where mourning is a good thing. First of all, it is good to mourn our own sins and shortcomings. You know how we talked about how all the beatitudes build on one another. Last week again being poor in spirit is coming to a realization that you can’t save yourself. You need God to save you. But in order to really get it, to have repentance which is necessary for salvation, you really have to be sorrowful over your sins and just what your sin cost God. Of course we know that in order to experience forgiveness for sins there has to be genuine repentance. You see there is a difference between confession and repentance. There are people that walk in to a Catholic Church and confess to a priest their sins for the week. But with some, in their heart there is no real sorrow. They know that there is a good chance that they will be back confessing the same sin again soon. Come in confess and start all over again. To repent is to confess and change direction. It’s having enough sorrow that you go in the complete opposite direction. I’m not saying that is true with every Catholic confession, but you get the point. Of course we don’t need to confess to a priest because we can go to God directly. But there are believers who have some sins in their life and they don’t mourn their sins enough. They confess when they mess up and there may be some sorrow there, but it doesn’t grieve them enough that they go out and go in a different direction so they don’t repeat the same mistakes. Because of that they end up going back to God to confess the same sin over and over again. If your sin really grieves you, if you really mourn your sin, you will be willing to make big changes. Now let me make something clear, we don’t have the power to overcome sin on our own, it will only be through the power of His Holy Spirit that we can overcome the sins in our life. But if your love for God is strong, you realize that your sin brings hurt to God and you want to do everything you can to avoid that. That is why your sin makes you grieve because it grieves God. You also realize that sin isn’t some small thing, it cost God having to send His Son into the world and watching Him die on the cross. Sin is costly and not something that we should be so flippant about. David has been described by God in the scriptures as “a man after my own heart.” Now we all know that David made a very big mistake in his life when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then conspired to have her husband killed. Yet God still described David in that way. I think part of the reason was David was a person who mourned his sin. When David realized that he sinned against God it brought anguish to his heart. Psalm 51 is written by David in his grief and sorrow for what he had done with Bathsheba and her husband. I don’t want to read the whole chapter. But listen to Psalm 51: 1-4. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.” David realized that when he sinned it was against God. So if you love God how can you do something against Him without it hurting? Listen to what David goes on to write in verses 10-12. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” You hear the genuine sorrow and repentance in this Psalm. David wanted God to change his heart. David longed to be in the presence of God and have the joy of his salvation. But he knew sin could be costly. Let me ask you this morning: When you slip, when you sin how much does it really bother you? Does it grieve you? If your sin doesn’t grieve you, if you aren’t bothered by it, then how can you genuinely repent? Yes, mourning our own sin and shortcomings is a good thing.
Now when you typically think of mourning you think of someone passing away. You mourn the loss of a love one. Sometimes people try to be strong and they never really deal with the loss of that love one. They have this notion that they have to strong. I can’t let people see me cry. I can’t let them know how much I am really hurting. I have to be strong for the kids. I have to be strong for the rest of the family. But the truth is it is good to mourn our losses. Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes deals with the fact that there is a time for everything. Listen to what it says in Ecclesiastes 3:4. “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” It makes it clear that there is a time to mourn. When you have had a significant loss in your life, when you have lost someone that you love dearly it is okay to mourn. We see in the scriptures what a strong man and a great leader that Joseph was. But when he lost his dad to death after finally getting to be with him again it was a terribly hard loss. Genesis 50:1-3 tells us that “Joseph threw himself upon his father and wept over him and kissed him. Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him for seventy days.” Wow now that is a time for mourning, seventy days. We had a lot of fun talking about that on Wednesday night Bible study a while back. But you get the picture here. Joseph was torn up over his father. He threw himself on him and wept. They took a long period of time to mourn his death. It’s a good thing to take the time to mourn someone when you lose someone. Matter of fact it is a healthy thing. Studies have shown and doctors will tell you that you that you need mourning after a significant loss to really return to your normal healthy self. If you fail to deal with your feelings of loss it can lead to other problems. Now can you mourn too long? Sure if it reaches a point where it stops you from doing what you need to do. The scripture says that there is a time to mourn, but there is also a time when you have to get back to living your life normal again. But the great thing about mourning is that we are assured of being comforted. God ministers to our hearts through His Holy Spirit when we are grieving the loss of a loved one or no matter what we may be grieving in our life. We might be grieving the loss of a relationship, or the loss of a job. The Holy Spirit has been given the name “The Comforter” for a reason. It’s healthy to mourn, it’s good to mourn. It is good also so that we can receive comfort from God.
Not only is it good to mourn our own sins and our losses, but there is something else that I believe the scriptures show. It is good to mourn with those around us. We are surrounded with people who are hurting, whether it is here at church or when you are in the community. People all around us are just like us, they have had losses and hurts and they need the support of others. So the one way that we mourn with those around us is mourning for their loses. Most of us are familiar with the shortest verse in the Bible. John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” Jesus had just come into Bethany where his good friend Lazarus had passed away. Now Jesus already knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Earlier statements that He had made to the disciples made that clear. So why did Jesus weep knowing He was going to bring him back from the grave? When Jesus arrived there He was surrounded by other people who were mourning and crying because of the loss of Lazarus. I think that Jesus was full of compassion for them and felt their hurt and cried with them. He was mourning their loss with them. Paul in the book of Romans talks about the love that we are supposed to have for one another and he makes it clear that included in the love that we are to have for one another is mourning with one another. Listen to what he writes in Romans 12:15. “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” That is what people who love each other do. When you have something worth celebrating you celebrate and rejoice together. When one of you has something that happens, a death in the family or some other loss you mourn that loss together. That is the kind of love that we are to have for each other in the church. But imagine when you show that same kind of love to the people at your work place. If you would take the time to mourn their loss that they are going through or that you would celebrate the good things that have just happened to them as well, they will know you care. When people know you care it sets up an opportunity for you to be able to minister. Mourning with others shows that we have a heart of compassion like Christ. We have been called to live with that same compassion.
But there is another way that we can mourn for others that is important. Earlier we talked about mourning our sins and shortcomings. We have to be really bothered when we have sin in our life, but we also need to be bothered by the sin of those around. We should be mourning for their sins. What I am saying is that we live where we are surrounded by people who aren’t saved, who don’t know Jesus personally. Their life is full of sin and that should bother us. One of the things that stop the church from reaching the community around them is the church is full of people who really don’t mourn the sins of the people around them. O sure, if you asked them if it bothered them that there were so many sinners in the community, so many people who don’t know Jesus, they would tell you that it is a terrible thing and it bothers them. It’s just it doesn’t seem to bother them enough to call them to action. The sins of the people around us should break our hearts to the point where we want to make an impact on their life. We want to have the opportunity to point them to Jesus. Jesus had that kind of mourning over His people in Jerusalem. Their sin and stubbornness toward God broke His heart. In Luke 13:34 Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Jesus was mourning for the stubbornness and disobedience in the life of His people. Jesus was mourning for them because they were living in sin and refused to do anything about it. When was the last time that you truly mourned for all of the lost people of Englewood or whatever town you may live in? I’m telling you right now, when this church truly mourns for the sins of the people of this town then we will make a difference! But as long as we allow ourselves to be unaffected by the fact that so many people in Englewood and the surrounding area don’t know Jesus then we will continue not making a significant impact.
Let me ask you this morning, is there sin in your life that you know is there. When we mourn for that sin God will bring us comfort. Because when our hearts are truly broken by our sin we show repentance and that is what God wants to see. Maybe some of you haven’t allowed yourself to truly mourn something that you have lost in your life. It is okay it’s good to mourn your losses. Let me ask you one more thing: How are you at mourning for other people? Do you have the compassion of Christ that hurts when other people hurts? Do you mourn the sins of the people you are surrounded with in the community and at your work? Let’s pray.
