Blessed Are Those Who Mourn | Matthew 5:4

Go to this text, then we also uh take some time to visit uh to welcome you if you are a visitor.

We are so glad that you are here today with us.

Uh, we hope that this will be an encouraging time for you, uh, that somehow it will be also an awakening moment in your life.

Uh, not because you're gonna meet some uh some exceptional people here, but we do have some exceptional people, not because our singing is gonna be necessarily better than anywhere else in town, but we do have some good singers, and not because our Bible class teachers are fantastic, though they are some very gifted teachers among us, but hopefully, because of what you're gonna hear in a moment in regard to Jesus Christ, I hope that this is really gonna make a difference in uh in your life.

You know, there are a lot of invitations that are given to us in life.

Sometimes you get invitations to join a club, you get invitations to uh apply for to get uh some kind of credit card that other people do not have.

You have uh invitations to be part of some sports team, and that makes you very excited if you like that sport.

Sometimes you are asked to participate in milestone celebrations in the life of others, and that is good.

You know, but some uh invitations are better than others.

Some invitations will uh cause you to have much joy.

Others can be seen sometime in life also as a burden.

This week I read about different people who were invited to uh exciting things.

For example, I read about someone who was invited to travel to see beautiful parts of the world.

They were invited by a person in a Venetian costume, it was dancing in the that person was dancing in the street and brought an invitation, yet won a prize.

Imagine receiving an invitation like that to go to see the world.

Uh, some recounted invitations of being invited into king's tables or to sit with presidents, and that also would be fantastic, wouldn't it?

I even read about an invit a person receiving an invitation from the claw of a falcon on the balcony.

Uh the falcon had been specially trained to be able to deliver this invitation, and also I cannot imagine receiving an invitation like that.

That would be pretty special and memorable.

But today, if you are here, I want to present you a different kind of invitation.

An invitation that surpasses all of that that you have seen a moment ago, all that I've talked about.

You see, in the Bible we read that Jesus, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, took on a human form.

And he came to personally invite people around him to follow him.

Not important people, but little people, little forks like you and I.

He said this in Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Go to Matthew chapter 11 and look at his invitation.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

We're gonna say it in a few places.

In verse 28 to verse 29, here's what he said to the people Come to me, all of you who are wearied and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Wonderful invitation, isn't it?

And we find it all over, go in Matthew chapter 4, and look at another place where he invites people to follow him.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

It's the apostles, of those he will make apostles.

And here's what we read in verse 19.

Here's what he said, follow me, he told them, and I will make you fish for people.

Now, why in the world would you want to respond to such an invitation today?

We read in the text that on hearing this, they immediately left everything behind and started to follow him.

Maybe today you are like this couple who found asylum in this country during the Second World War.

You see, they came from Eastern Europe.

Uh they were not very familiar with the American culture.

And so one day they received an invitation to a wedding from some of their friends, and they were at the bottom of the invitation, these abbreviated these letters RSVP.

Now, if you speak French today, you know what that means at the bottom of a letter.

Because this uh this means répondez s'il vous plaît in French.

But the couple didn't speak French, was not familiar with the American culture, and so they kind of wondered about it for a second.

The husband turned to his wife and he said in his German accent, What does it mean, wife?

I hope you appreciate my German impersonation today.

So I thought Nelly would.

And so the wife thought about it for a few seconds, and she replied, Oh husband, it probably means remember send wedding gift.

They were so shocked by this request, but they chose to cut all ties with the couple and not to attend the wedding ceremony.

You see, in reality, the couple that was inviting them wanted to make them feel special, wanted to invite them to the backwent table with a fantastic meal they had for them.

But they missed one of the best opportunities in their life to get close to this couple because they could not understand the invitation.

Which brings me back now to the invitation of Jesus.

Why is it so very important for you today to understand his invitation?

Well, because he stands right before you today, and through what we are reading, he offers a path to happiness.

Now let's talk about happiness for a second.

The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental right, a fundamental drive.

We even find that it was written in the Declaration of Independence.

Uh, it was so important to them that our founders thought it important to talk about it and write it down in their papers.

We all in life pursue happiness.

There is a poll that was done, uh a big uh poll, and it revealed that 71% 71% of the people on earth are searching for happiness, and they say it is my top goal in life to find happiness.

So from the moment that we wake up till the moment that we go to bed, we all kind of seek it in our lives.

We want that frame of mind, happiness, and yet achieving it seems so remarkably elusive in our life.

So let me ask you this important question.

Are you happy today?

It's such an important question for you to think about, because your answer will affect all that you do in life.

So, are you happy today?

You see, according to the same survey that was done, two-thirds of the people will answer no.

No, I am not happy.

Oh, it is not a surprise for us to see that statistics, since we know that 20% of adults in the United States suffer from depression or some form of anxiety that is linked to it.

And I think it is safe to say today that the reason why so many people are unhappy around us is because they search for happiness in the wrong places.

You see, many equate finding happiness with intimate relationships.

The lady at the well that Jesus met thought happiness was tied to men.

Some look at it for physical pleasures, professional success, or material prosperity in their life.

But interestingly, in the study that I talked about, we find that the most rich countries and the most powerful usually are rating the lowest in terms of happiness.

And Jesus knows our tendency to look for it in the wrong places.

So he comes in the Sermon on the Mount and he invites us to another path to happiness.

His method is revolutionary, mind-blowing, radically different from everything that they had learned.

It was deeply unconventional, also.

He offers us to adopt eight attitudes in life that will give us a chance to truly find inner joy.

Since George dealt with the first one last week, my task today is gonna be to examine the second day attitude, which is an outflow of the first.

As we do this, know that each attitude constitutes, in a way, a ladder, with each step that builds on the one that is before.

Let us read now what Jesus says in chapter 5, verse 4.

He says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be converted.

Now, at first glance, this makes no sense at all.

To say how happy or how fortunate are those who mourn is kind of a paradox, right?

Can you imagine today standing before a group of people who lost everything?

You may have seen the pictures uh uh on the news not too long ago about those people in Nepal that were caught in the mud slides.

Imagine you stand before all of them and you start going to preach what Jesus has said.

And you said, Blessed are you, for you have found everything and now you are mourning.

They would slap you if you said something like that.

I fully understand the writer that writes this when he had lost his 25 years old son.

He said this about his beatitude.

Blessings to those who mourn, cheers to those who weep, heal to those whose eyes are filled with tears, heads off to those who suffer, bottoms up to the grieving.

How strange, how incredibly strange.

You see, what makes this beatitude even more disturbing is the verb that Jesus is using here.

Because in the Greek there are nine terms to express mourning, and Jesus is speaking the strongest of the nine terms that you can ascribe to sorrow.

It is the term pantheon, it speaks of a deep mourning and wailing that wells up from the core of your soul when you go through a tragic event in your life.

It is a desperate, helpless kind of sorrow.

Now, what can bring a man to this point in his life?

What can bring you to your knees in despair and deep anguish, like what Jesus is talking about?

We also need to think about that.

I believe that he had three reasons or three causes in mind.

The first one is personal loss.

You see, it can be due to personal loss when we cry.

All of us, at least those of us who have been around for a while, have experienced intense mourning over some personal loss in our life.

The more what you lose is irreplaceable, the more of you feel the pain inside of you.

And the more it will be hard for you to be able to get over it.

Psychologists say that's why it's so hard to lose a child, because you can never replace a child in your life, and so you'll grieve it way more than if you lose your watch.

Many people in Texas right now are grieving over the loss of their homes due to the fires.

Some have lost their ranches, some have lost their cattle, they've lost their pets, they've lost their way of making a living, they've lost everything that they owe.

Perhaps you are also experiencing a loss today, but it's even bigger than all of that.

And maybe it tears your heart and your soul.

You know, many Bible heroes went through grieving experiences, strong grieving experiences.

You all know about Job and you remember what he lost in his life.

It must have been very tragic for him to lose all that he lost.

It took him a long time to be able to come to his senses after all of that.

But there is also another hero that we read about in the scriptures, it was Jacob.

In the Greek version of the Old Testament, we find this word pending that is used in Genesis chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

If you have a Bible, please open it there.

Genesis 37, and you're gonna see where we find it being used.

Give you an idea of what Jesus is referring to.

We're gonna be reading in verse 31 to 35.

He's gonna hear that Jacob is dead.

We know it's a lie, but to him it's reality.

He does not know it is a lie.

The other sons have sold Joseph into slavery.

And notice how he reacts to all of that.

Let's read verse 31 to 35.

It says this.

So they took Joseph's rope, slaughtered a milk oat, and dipped the rope in his blood.

They sent the robe of many colors to their father and said, We found this.

Examine it.

Is it your son's robe or not?

His father recognized it.

He said, It is my son's robe.

A vicious animal has devoured him.

Joseph has been torn to pieces.

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sack clothes around his way, and mourned for his son many days.

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but refused to be comforted.

No, he said, I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning.

And his father wept for him.

You see, Jacob was sobbing in the scripture here.

Later, when the when the brothers found Joseph again, without Joseph revealing his identity, uh, he decided to keep Judah, he decided to keep Benjamin, and Judah revealed to him that Jacob was still so very deeply affected by that loss years after it had happened.

If you have been around a parent who has lost a child, you know that it is a hard thing to get over.

They almost never get over the loss that they've experienced because a child cannot be replaced.

Perhaps today you have not lost a child with physical death, and you have not mourned because of this.

But perhaps today you are mourning because of your child who is spiritually dead.

And you grieve over the rebellion of your son or your daughter today as you sit at church.

But the words of Jesus right here, but he uses a bound to our souls in so many different ways.

First, because they imply that it is okay to grieve.

You see, Jesus gives us here through this word permission to do so.

Oh, we Americans and Europeans have such a hard time of all of this, and we need to let that sink in our hearts.

Because culturally, we are not free to grieve, even in Christian circles.

When my brother-in-law passed away a few years ago, you know, family members went to my mother-in-law.

She had just lost her son.

Four days later, they went to tell her, get a grip.

Get a grip and put a lid on it, get over it.

Four days after he was gone and he was dead.

You see, Jesus would never say something like this to someone who has lost a son or daughter.

Never.

He himself was overcome with grief, passionate grief, and himself openly expressed his grief many times.

In fact, through his beatitude, Jesus is also letting us know that we will not know the comfort that he can give unless we let ourselves grieve in life.

Brothers and sisters, grief does not kill.

We think sometimes that grief kills, but it does not kill.

What kills is often the idea of suppressing the grief.

So Jesus let us know right here from the beginning that while we live on earth, we will be involved with sorrow.

It will happen heart-piercing sorrow in our life, even if we live in his kingdom.

And yet he said, There is great joy when you go through all of this.

There is also good news for you.

Because the Bible tells us also that those who are mourning can find a unique blessing in these times that they're going through.

You see, in sorrow, we are often led to think about eternity, to what can prolong life, to what can give us a second chance.

Think about what David said when he lost his son.

He says, He will not come back to me, but I will go to him.

They are often disposed, those who mourn like this, to hear about God when they were not disposed to hear about God before.

And also we find in the scripture that Jesus cannot wait to run to them so that they can lean upon him.

You see, we find when we read the story of Jesus, that he literally sees those on earth who are weeping so that he can go and reach out to them with tender compassion.

Think about how often he reached out to those in sorrow in the scripture.

He spotted the window in the town of Maine, didn't he?

There was a big crowd, but he saw this lady that was crying and he went to reach out to her to help her out.

He also went to Martha and Mary when they were standing outside the tomb of Lazarus, they brother.

He went to them and he comforted them and he cried with them.

Do you remember the passage when Jesus chose to go to the synagogue in Nazareth to talk about his mission?

He on he takes on a scroll and he starts reading a scroll that describes the mission that he had.

And the scroll says this in Isaiah chapter 61.

Isaiah 61 · chapter mention

Go to Isaiah 61 and see what the scroll was talking about.

Isaiah 61 verse 1.

Isaiah 61:1

Stood up and he said this.

The Spirit of the Lord God is on me.

Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to do what?

To heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive and freedom to the prisoners.

That described Jesus' mission to heal the brokenhearted.

And when you respond to Christ, then you can't experience his tender comforting if you let him, which leads in turn to peace and joy in your life, despite all of the things that you have lost.

Listen how David felt after going through many losses in his life, because God had just done that for him, he had come and comforted him.

And so it says in Psalm chapter 30, Psalm chapter 30 in verse 5.

Psalms 30 · chapter mention Psalms 30 · chapter mention

Here's what he says to them.

It will continue before in verse 11.

You have turned for me my morning into dancing.

You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.

You see, only God can do that in our life.

Because He is the only one who can renew our hope when everything is lost.

And He is willing to do this so very freely for all of us.

So the first reason for grieving is the loss of our life.

But there is another kind of mourning that was even closely, more closely tied to what Jesus had in mind when he gave his beatitude.

For remember, this beatitude described the man who is on his way to find the kingdom.

He described the condition of a heart that leads to a relationship with him.

So the second attitude of a heart, as I said, is an outflow of a first attitude, which is blessed are the poor in spirit.

When we encounter God in all of his fullness, when we encounter God in all of his holiness, what happens?

Then we come to a brutal realization of a depth of sin in our own lives.

And we can only grieve what sin has done to our souls, what sin has done to our relationship with others and to our relationship with God.

Do you remember what Isaiah said when he was brought in the Lord's presence?

He could see the angels around the throne of God and they would proclaim, Holy, holy.

Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, all of the earth is full of his glory.

And the Bible tells us that with two wings they were also hiding their face from the Lord, indicating they were unworthy to look at him.

What did Isaiah say in chapter 6, verse 5?

And he saw all of that.

He said, Woe to me, I am lost.

For I am a man of unclean lips, dwelling among a sinful people.

You see, he realized all his insufficiency.

He saw himself as filth compared to God.

Paul presents the same idea in Romans chapter 7, verse 24.

Romans 7:24

He said, When he was a man living without Christ, here's what he and trying to do good, but unable to.

He said, Oh wretched man that I am, because I am not able to do the good I want to do.

And then we find in Acts chapter 9, verse 9, what did he do when he was put in the presence of God for three days?

Acts 9:9

He did not eat and did not drink.

Sign of a deep sorrow inside of him for what he had done and the kind of man he was.

Do you identify today with this way of looking at yourself?

You see, when you truly encounter him in your life, you can only grieve who you are and what you have become, because your unholiness is automatically exposed.

But blessed are those who grieve, said Jesus.

It is a good sign if you grieve, because if it is godly grief, it leads to repentance away from sin.

And repentance leads to a renewed relationship with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 7 10.

And with a restored relationship with the Lord, always comes joy in your life.

Our spirit vanishes revive, and we can say with David, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Psalm 32, verse 1.

Psalms 32:1

In my Bible, it says, How joyful is the man whose sin is forgiven.

Oh, today do you mourn over your sins?

Are you brokenhearted when you think of all the trespass that you've done in your life, all the wrong that you've done to others?

Are you now at the foot of a cross in the dust sobbing over all the wrongs that you did in your life?

We should grieve because grief leads us away from sin and to a relationship with the Lord.

So there is grief due to personal loss.

There's grief that is due to our sins.

And then we also come to grief when we realize fully what sin has done to our world.

Brothers and sisters, the more that we realize what the kingdom of God is all about, the more we see the world for what it was meant to be correctly when sin was not present.

When I listen to the news and I see how much how much men behave in such wrong ways, I always think to myself, it does not have to be like this.

We do not have to spend billions of dollars or millions to support foolish agendas in our world, like those that promote alternative lifestyle, instead of supporting education or health.

Domestic quarrels do not have to end in violence like they do so often.

They are other solutions than grabbing a knife or grabbing a gun to uh or resorting to a fist fight to solve a problem.

Rational tensions around us do not have to constantly separate people.

We can overcome prejudice and suspicion.

Women and children do not have to go on being sexually exploited the way that they are right now.

But all of this, of course, is symptomatic of a deeper spiritual crisis.

Leroy talked to us about it.

It's the result of our world not knowing God or having not having a deep relationship with him.

Brothers and sisters, we should have weeping hearts for those who do not know Christ around us.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and was greeted by acclamation by those who wanted to make him king and were hoping that he would lead all of them to freedom in what probably would have been a butchering of the Romans.

What did he do according to Luke chapter 19?

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Look in Luke 19.

What did he do at that time?

In Luke 19, the Bible tells us that he was such, but not in the way that we might think.

In Luke 19, verse 41 to 46, here's what we read in our Bibles.

Luke 19:41–46

As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it, saying, If you knew this day, what would bring peace?

But now it is hidden from your eyes.

For the days will come on you when your enemies will build a barricade around you, surround you, and hang you in on every side.

They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst.

Because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.

You see, Jesus is weeping, but he's not weeping only because we're gonna be destroyed, he's weeping because they did not recognize that he was coming to them with an extended hand and invitation, and that would lead their rejection to destruction.

Oh brother, are we today?

The dry-eyed church in a hell-bound world.

When was the last time that we cried like Jesus because the people around us are going to make destructions and in spiritual darkness?

When was the last time that we prayed for mission point with true anguish in our hearts for the lost people that are there, not just the preachers who are going to preach to them, but for the people who are dying in their sin.

It should grieve us, it should deeply disturb us that we have four countries in this world where there's not one single preacher to proclaim the good news.

In the same way, we should mourn today over our family members who are not saved, those who are not active in our families in the Lord's church today.

It should touch us when we see wife and husbands coming to church without their spouse at their side.

Even if a spouse is worshiping in different denominations.

We should grieve that our community around us is not worshipping the Lord by our side in our churches.

You see, Jesus wept for the loss, but the Bible tells us it also led him to action.

He didn't just cry about it.

You see, government mourners are not just those who weep about the sins of our world.

It is not enough to whine about our community and our world being lost.

We must take action today.

Blessed are you if you mourn and your heart is broken, says Jesus.

Because your sorrow then shows that you are in sync with his gospel.

And because it will push you to take part in his vision for the world.

I have no more time to expand upon this verse.

There's so much to say about the comfort that Jesus promised.

You can see some of the things that will go on the slide as I'm finishing, part of comfort and the reason why it is interesting, this world, this word.

But just know today that if you mourn in the right way, for the right reason, what you need to remember is Jesus will run to your side.

And he will put his arm around you, and he will put a comforter inside of you if you give yourself to him.

So I end by coming back to this spot I presented at the beginning of a sermon.

Today, Jesus, in a way, is standing right before you, and he's got an outstretched hand out towards you.

He's inviting you.

He vexed.

Will you follow me?

Will you follow me on the path to happiness?

Will you take my hand?

Will you take his hand today?

It all starts.

We got the habitation.

You are similar and broken by it.

In a moment you might start to do through the wonders of God is the correction of things.

If today you need to do this, we invite you to come forward and let us know.

If you need to put your life right with God by asking for prayers and repentance, you can also do this.

Just let us know as we stand and as we sit.