Matthew 5:1-5
You might remember from last week that I started a series on the beatitudes, so what was beatitude?
Beatitude comes from the Latin word for blessed – or beatus.
So what Jesus starts, what would be the greatest sermon, the most history changing sermon ever preached with was blessing, The blessed’s!
The people of Jesus time were a fairly gnarly bunch, these people lived in a country that was a provided by God’s provision, as part of a covenant that had been made with their ancestor Abraham, but due to their neglecting their relationship with God collectively, they often got into the odd spot of bother. At Jesus time, the people were under Roman rule, and adhered to strict religious law. Add to that control of Jewish kings that gave homage to Rome, times were tense, taxes hard. When King Herod the Great died the nation was left completely broke.
Jewish girls could be married from the age of twelve and a half, though their fathers still had control of them. They could even be sold by their fathers to into slavery to another Jew for a period of seven years. “Marriages were arranged. The woman had to obey her husband, mill the grain, cook, wash, make the meals, nurse the infants, work the wool, and, in some cases, wash the face and feet of her husband.”(Everyday life in the time of Jesus: FR F Manns) It wasn’t all tough for the ladies, there was perfume, mirrors, jewelry and sewing needles.
“Certain professions were looked on with contempt. The Mishna (Qidushin 4:14) gave a list: the donkey driver, the camel driver, the sailor, the coachman, the shepherd, the shopkeeper, the doctor and the butcher. The rebukes given to the doctors were because they gave preferential treatment to the rich and neglected the poor. ”(Everyday life in the time of Jesus: FR F Manns) A man could divorce his wife if he couldn’t support her; among a large number of other reasons and men if you contracted leprosy she could do likewise, for better or worse? So toss in the Roman oppression of the Jews who lived under very strict religious law and it only got worse.
What happened when Jesus came on the scene?
Life was tough, into this hard life came this Rabbi with a different way of looking at things, this teacher who spoke words that took people from this reality to a place where, he opened his mouth and spoke words that got everyone’s attention.” “Blessed”, to those hearing this it meant divine joy and perfect happiness, the word was not used for humans; it described the kind of joy experienced only by the (heavenly beings) or the dead. “Blessed” implied an inner satisfaction and sufficiency that did not depend on outward circumstances for happiness. This is what the Lord offers those who trust Him! ”
Last week we looked at the first beatitude, what this “blessed are the poor in spirit” was about, being blessed because you are poor in spirit means is that in realising your poorness of spirit you do something about it, you seek after God. God comes into your life and things change as the Holy Spirit impacts your way of living.
When we compare ourselves to Jesus we are all poor in spirit, when we compare ourselves to the Holiness of God how do we weigh up we don’t and we are all in the words of Johnny Cash, “weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
So what Jesus was saying was that the poor in spirit had correctly estimated where they stood with God, to be able to see they needed God, that with Jesus working through us by his Holy Spirit we can then have abundant life – spiritually enriched. We can be right with God.
But
To do this there come another realization, Jesus spoke about this, when he said; “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
1) Why is it that these people are blessed because they mourn? Because of what they are mourning about. So what is it they are mourning about, maybe one of the kids has run off and joined up with those radical zealots, or dinged the chariot, they could have lost their best fishing net or a family member might just been arrested by the Romans for not paying their taxes and are being sold at the slave market next Thursday. No it’s not about that type of mourning, this again about something spiritual.
What it’s about what these mourners have discovered is that they are affected by those things that get in the way of their relationship with God, that those things that we call sin; are things that separate, that put a partition between them and God. They’ve discovered that they are sold out to a way of living that they don’t want to be in, because they want to be close to God.
Paul the apostle puts it this way, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do.” (Romans 7:14-15)
Paul in this passage is talking about where he stands with God’s law, he then admits that in his mind he is a slave to God’s law but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
What Paul understands, what those who mourn understand, is that we can’t do the whole escaping from sin by ourselves or even through following the law, all this legalism does not fix any of our sins. What occurs when we mourn, when we see how our actions mess up our lives, we see that our own sinful actions, the lying, the cheating, stealing, wronging those around us, acting out of what we want and not loving others how we would be loved pollutes us, our flesh, our minds and the relationships we have with others and the relationship we should have with God.
The whole world is damaged through sin, all of creation groans because of sin.
We are right to mourn.
To be comforted we must understand our sinfulness because it is just so wrong. Now it’s easy for me to say that, but why is it so wrong? Firstly
A) Sin is fighting against what God wants for us. Sin is against God. AND
B) If we continue in our sins we are showing that we are ungrateful to God. Jesus died so that we could be forgiven of our sins. So then, why we would go on sinning. To the believers who continue in their sin the writer of Hebrews says it this way, “…if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because of their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” (Hebrews 6:6) Now that would give cause for mourning re–crucifying the author of life himself. AND
C) Sin keeps us from good things, it raises barriers to our relationship with God. This means we can’t be blessed in the ways he wants to bless us. John in his first letter says this, “if we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” (1 John 1:1) In Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome he says “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!”
Sin results in death, it results in physical death and it results in spiritual death,
Now who would you class as being in a life of sin that is real hard on full on sinful living, well I thought about it for a bit and I thought of lots of people and one group and my apologies to the former ones among us that I found some interesting information on were gangsters!
I found this article by: Prof. Francesco Aragona, who has spent 40 years examining their insides (that’s gangsters insides), he says Mafiosi (Tough Italian gangsters that is) are likely to have thickened arteries, kidney failure, stomach ulcers, sterility and mental illness.
Their livers are yellowish, fatty and chronically short of glucose, says Aragona, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of Messina.
"The strains of a violent criminal life lead to internal conflict and the individual can become extremely disturbed, both physically and mentally," he said.
"They become incapable of responding to any stimulus and can die from heart attacks or strokes just as easily as a shotgun blast." (http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-27/news/mn-1819_1_shotgun-blast-mafia-sicilian)
The truth is that sinful living is not only bad for you both physically and mentally, gangster or not…but is spiritually destructive as well, there is an internal conflict that occurs as what we know is right, struggles with what we know is wrong.
What a predicament we find ourselves in a right old pickle. To carry on in sin is destructive, it separates us from one another, it separates us from God, it makes us sick, it shortens our physical lives and leaves us spiritually broken. This gives even real hard men cause to grieve and if they are mourning that’s a good thing!
It’s a good thing because, and this isn’t like when my old Dad would say “good grief boy what have you done this time?,” this is real good grief,
2) What was it Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” If you mourn your sinful actions then you will be comforted.(SBI)
So down to the nitty gritty, when we realise, we mourn, when we repent of our sins, realising we no longer have to act on those impulse’s that cause us to sin, our lives change.
Living with Jesus, is not the answer to all of life’s struggles, the power bill doesn’t get miraculously paid, snow continues to fall on the road we drive on, our heaters still chew through the gas too fast and actually sometimes we encounter persecution for following Jesus.
But: our perspective completely alters.
We start to live in the spirit not in the flesh; God is our comforter; Paul puts it this way, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.” (2 Corinthians 7:10) No regret how good is that! If you mourn your sinfulness then you will be comforted.(SBI
God is the God of all comfort, again the words of Paul; “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...” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4b).
The Holy Spirit comes to us in our mourning and we are able to be comforted. Jesus said this before he was arrested “But I tell you the truth: It is for you I am going away, unless I go away, he Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7)
The really good thing about this is that Jesus redeemed us from our sins, “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2) So whoever mourns their sins will be comforted.(SBI)
So this is a really great thing. We sin, we are all sinners, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), none of have the monopoly on sin, Jesus died so that we can be forgiven of our sins, we realise what a burden our sins are, we mourn this burden. Jesus forgives us our sins and then he comforts us in our mourning. That verse I have just read from Romans has a bit more that follows it, it goes like this , “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.”
This justification brings with it the knowledge that in Jesus we have forgiveness and his Holy Spirit comforts us, that word justification, means ‘just as if I’d never sinned’, as we mourn, as we repent, we are freed.
Do you mourn? Do you struggle with the things you have done, we have a place here, where you can come to God, acknowledging your need, I especially want to challenge the men here today, I find that the ladies are able to approach God easily asking for forgiveness but there is something about Kiwi men, too tough to be comforted, come God wants to comfort you, men and women alike!
