“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn” (Matthew 5:4, KJV)
When was the last time you cried—-you “shed tears”? I talked to a youth two days ago and he broke my heart as he shared his struggles and all the men and women that have failed him. Yes…I wept for him and all the other desperate youth and children in our world that are not surrounded by a loving family. I mourn for our teenagers today that are not if anyone loves them.
I mourn for the moral failure in our government that by and large have forgotten how to humble themselves or tell the truth or show kindness to their political enemies across the aisle. Yes, I mourn the spiritual bankruptcy of our nation right now and all parts of our world right now.
For hundreds of years, people used to show their mourning by wearing black, attending funerals in black and even wearing black armbands. In our cavalier lack of respect for courtesy and decorum, that’s mostly gone now. But wearing black, or in the Old Testament, or wearing “sack cloth’ or ripping your robe, was a means of showing utter sorrow and brokenness for death or a calamity. We out to be wearing black in America….
In our nation, we show mourning by lowering our flags to half mast. It means that something that brings about crying and great sorrow has just occurred.
Mourning does not merely mean that we are grieving someone’s death, but also events that have brought loss—-things that cause one to experience the speechlessness of being broken-hearted. Jesus says that if you grieve…mourn….have genuine sorrow in your soul…..you are blessed.
In the Bible , thirty (30) days was set for the deaths of both Aaron (Numbers 20:29) and Moses (Deuteronomy 34:8) when they died, and many, many other times in the Bible the same number of days was counted off. They took the time to reflect and remember what had been lost or taken from them. It was a good thing to do. Nowadays we talk too often about quickly “getting over it” and “get on with life”. But not so in the Bible.
It’s good to mourn about the right things. It’s good to weep about those things that should bring a man or woman of God to tears——tears reveal your real self—-the things that really matter. And here is the promise for those of us who mourn, those that are heartbroken and sad about the way things are in this world—and in our own failed lives: We will be comforted.
The focus here is on the people of God who are saddened with what’s happening, because they are going to be comforted. Everyone experiences sorrowful and tragic losses at some time or another in this life. If it has not happened to you yet, it will one day…and it hurts. But Jesus said ‘Blessed are you’ (Matthew 5:3-12, KJV) because we can rest knowing that He knows about our sorrows and that He will wipe away our tears and give us His joy! (Revelation 21:4, NIV)
The Messiah came to comfort those of us who mourn, but the comfort is the result of Him removing the cause of the mourning—which is our sin. That’s the message today…. that’s the point: “Good for me when I am truly sad and brought to tears by the wrong things I have done….and the wrong world in which I live that is all around me!” God is going to comfort me, forgive me, make things right and wipe away the very things that make me sad and depressed.
Billy Graham once said that: “When Jesus offered congratulations to “those that mourn”, He as addressing not just the suffering and sadness of life in this dark world, but for the sinfulness that causes it. If I am blessed as I mourn, it’s because I understand that my grieving is ultimately for a world that is lost and ruined, in which God and His will do not prevail. But in my mourning, Jesus opens my heavy heart to the Lord, and I know that my grieving is not without hope. I can know, for sure, that my weeping and grieving is only for a season—-a short time only. I know that death does not have the final victory. I know that the Messiah will turn all that away someday. And that hope brings me comfort.
As you face the sadness of life, you can do so with hope. If you have mourned over your mistakes and bad decisions—“sins”—it is a clear sign that you are placing faith in the Savior—the Lover of your soul.
Again, hear this: When the Lord says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4), he is referring to those who mourn over their own sin, for they will be comforted. When we mourn over our sins, it brings our hearts to repentance.The word “mourning” means “to feel deep sorrow, to show great concern, or to deplore some existing wrong.” It implies that if we are to live life on a higher plane, then we are to be sensitive, sympathetic, tenderhearted, and alert to the needs of others—but also aware of our own sin and lack of obedience to the Lord. Jesus did not imply that mourning is about those who have a morbid view of life; He was speaking to people who were seeking to live fuller lives with God in the center.
Before we can become strong, we must first realize that we are weak. Before we can become wise, we must realize that we are foolish. Before we can receive power, we must first confess that we are powerless. We must lament our sins before God before we can rejoice in a Savior. Mourning always comes before exultation. Blessed are those who mourn their unworthiness, their helplessness, and their inadequacy. If we have no sense of sorrow for sin, how can we know the need of repentance?
If you want God’s blessing in your life have to realize your own poverty without HIS direct blessings.you must become tired and weary of living without Christ before seeking and finding His salvation. You must come to the end of “self” before you can really begin to live. “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit” (Psalm 34:18)
Yes, our sin should cause us sorrow, but we should also have great joy and a sense of peace in the knowledge that our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ is the righteous One who does pardon us before the throne of Heaven. Even now Christ is praying for you so your faith will not fail. Christ kept Peter and He will keep all His children from completely falling away from the truth.
In Revelation 21:4 those that mourn shall be comforted by God when he wipes away all tears from their eyes. There is a day coming when sadness shall be turned to joy when woe and heartache will cease in the soul of the believer. This promise of God is also found in Isaiah 61:2, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.”
Put I want to depart with three more points:
1. The first time we have a record of God mourning is in the book of Genesis when He saw all the evil that was being committed and mourned, regretted that He had even created mankind. God gives us great freedom—what’s what soin happens. It was never God’s idea or intention! But are we close enough to the heart of God to “mourn” the sin that’s being done all around us? Or have we complacency, lazily, accepted it.
2. The gospel of John records a time that Jesus mourned. It was as He sa the crowd weeding and mourning Lazarus’ death. Now Jesus knew that Lazarus was going to die and get buried, and He knew that He would bring Lazarus back to life! And yet He mourned—-He cried. Why? Because the mourning of others touched His heart! He was sharing in their feeling of the loss of a friend! He realized, by being a part of their tears, the frailty, insecurity, fear of being human and losing someone that they loved. He realized that whereas He was 101% certain of God, His Father, these folks were not sure about God—let alone the resurrection. Jesus wiped the tears from their eyes when He showed them that those that love God and trust in Jesus will never die and never be removed from those within His family! He showed it! But He wept for their present suffering—-and perhaps He also wept for those there that would never believe—-never place their trust in Him—-never take part in the at great celebration in heaven.
3. The third point is this. If His Spirit is within you, you will receive gift of tears. He will bring you to a place of weeping and mourning the things you have done that brought about the suffering and death of Jesus. You will also find yourself mourning for people that are hurting, unloved, hurt, lost and heading to destruction. It will bring you to tears—-and He will see those tears, bless you for them, and comfort you. The most common of idiots can one day stand in this pulpit and slap the pulpit, yell at you, scream about the sins of others, and rage about those that outside the body of Christ. Some of you might even prefer that. But that’s not what Jesus did. He never yelled, slapped a lecturn, screamed about the tins of the Samaritans or the gentiles—-He gently talked about the love of His Father to those that were lost. Yes, He also told parables about a terrible place God had prepared for this that were unforgiving, mean-spirited, uncharitable, and uncaring. But oftentimes I’ve seen more un-forgiveness, meanness, and a lack of charity from those within the church, such as this, than I have a bar.
We need pastors, a friend, families, governors and presidents that mourns for what is wrong and lost, and who weep for their own sins as well.
Pity those that never mourn—they never receive the joy of being comforted by the Great Himself.
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