Blessed Are Those Who Mourn-Doug Crum

Okay.

Good morning.

I want to start off with a phrase and I want to see if you can complete it.

My baloney has a first name.

It's what?

It's O S-C-A-R.

The best part of waking up.

Capital One.

What's in Okay?

I think some people will know this.

There's somebody over in this area that I'm certain has never heard this before.

But like a good neighbor, that's right.

And one more, this is this section, you'll know this when Red Bull gives you wings.

You know, it's so interesting how commercials and slogans and jingles just seem to stick with us for decades.

Some of those are over 50 years old.

But there's one that I remember growing up, and I don't know if this was nationwide or just in the Dallas area, but there was a financial group that was known as JD Wentworth.

Does anybody JD Wentworth?

Do you remember those commercials?

They would have somebody who would like throw open their window, they would lean out and they would yell, It's my money and I need it now.

Right?

There'd be a car driving along, they'd roll down the window, it's my money and I need it now.

That is one of those commercials that have has stuck with me for a really long time.

In fact, that ad campaign was the most successful campaign that that company had ever had.

And while the commercials were a little bit goofy and the acting was a little bit over the top, the slogan was absolutely a hit.

It resonated with a group of people with a culture and a society that says, I don't want to wait, I don't want to work for it, I want it and I want it now.

People love the idea that they shouldn't have to wait for something that they want, they should get it right now.

So just a useless facts, but I think this is interesting in illustrating this idea, is that if you were to go and buy a lottery ticket, I'm not condoning that, but if you were to buy one and all of your numbers, however many that it takes for you to win, if you win a hundred million dollars of the Texas lottery, do you know how much money you'll get?

Well, there's actually two different ways that the Texas Lottery Commission pays out.

They do it in annuity, which means the day that you win or shortly after, they'll give you your first annuity, and then every year for the next 30 years, they will slowly ratchet up that amount.

And so at 29 years, you've had 30 payments now, you will get out of$100 million, you know how much you get?

$100 million.

However, we do live in a society that says, it's my money and I want it now.

And so the Texas Lottery Commission says, hey, if you don't want to wait the 29 years, we'll give it to you in a lump sum, but it's gonna be a little bit less than that$100 million that you just won.

In fact, the total that they will offer you on$100 million, I mean it's it's nothing to shake a stick at, but it's$44 million.

It's more than cut in half.

And then because you've taken out such a large amount and done so in one year, the amount of federal taxes that you're gonna pay is gonna knock out another 15.

So that$100 million winning lottery ticket is still not too shabby, but it's dropped down to$29 million.

That's what you get out of that$100.

So, if you can get$100 million over 30 years or$29 million now, what do you suppose most people would take?

What do you think is the better one?

Do we have any any kids who are in math?

Can somebody tell me which one's higher,$29 million or$100 million?

Okay, good job.

But let me let me tell you this crazy statistic.

Out of all the people who've won the lottery, approximately 90% take the cash value, which is, depending on your state, between a quarter and a third of what they would get if they would just wait for it.

We want our money and we want it now.

We don't just want our money, we want happiness and retirement and that Amazon package, and we want it now.

It's what we're craving for, it's what society says that we deserve and what we're entitled to.

But let me ask you this question.

Are you comfortable with a God who is comfortable with you being uncomfortable?

Let me ask this again.

Are you comfortable with a God who is totally comfortable with you being uncomfortable?

Or have you noticed that we live in a society that is wildly uncomfortable with being uncomfortable?

At the slightest hint of unhappiness or dissatisfaction or discomfort, we immediately want a remedy, a refund, and a return label.

One of the things that Jennifer teaches in a reading class, beyond just reading, and what so many teachers are at the elementary, middle school, and high school level, and beyond is they're trying to teach the kids, their students, the importance of what they call productive struggle.

She said every year the percentage of students who do not want to participate in productive struggle continues to go up and up and up.

What that basically means is that they're comfortable doing things as long as it's easy.

But the moment that it gets hard, whether they're a low student or a high student, when they get challenged, they begin to shut down, they put down their pencil, they start playing, they start complaining, they say, I can't do this.

They want to be excused to go to the office or the nurse or the restroom and they just don't want to work anymore.

And she says, more than anything else, what I'm trying to teach my kids is that when you face something difficult, don't quit.

You have to keep on trying.

But the fact is, is that they are a product of a society that has spent millions of dollars on ads and countless hours trying to teach us that our lives should be safe and secure and easy and fun.

It is like we have bubble wrapped our own lives.

It's what makes us feel safe.

It's what we think makes us really happy.

And it deceives us into thinking that we actually have control of our life.

We have insulated ourselves from any tragedy that we think might happen, and we think we've somehow created this border, but the reality is that that thin veil can be torn away at any moment.

Regardless of your job, your current health, or your projected future at any moment, that can change.

And it is so scary to us that we want to just sink in and close in and say nothing can or should ever happen to us.

And my question is this if Walmart will take your return, if insurance will repair your car, and if Burger King will make you a new burger and give you the next one for free, shouldn't God do the same?

But I want us to listen closely to what Jesus says in the Beatitudes, the second, third, and fourth one.

He says this.

He says, Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Now the English gives us a pretty good idea, but the Greek will go even further when it uses the present active tense to describe those.

What Jesus is really saying, you who are mourning, you are in a state of mourning.

You who are currently living in meekness, you who are hungry and thirsty right now, you are blessed.

You're blessed.

If you're mourning and meek and hungry and thirsty, you are fortunate, you are privileged and you are favored.

Why is this?

Why would Jesus suggest that in our brokenness and in our hunger and in our meekness when we don't have what we want, he says that you are favored and fortunate.

Why is it?

You are so because you will be comforted.

And because, as he promises, you will inherit the earth.

And because you will be filled.

I want you to notice how the tense changed between the first part of each passage and the second part.

The first part is in the present tense.

You're mourning, you're meek, and you're hungry.

And Jesus says, What?

You will.

Or for for some of you in your Bibles, it says, You shall.

Do you hear what he's saying here?

He's saying it will happen, but it hasn't happened yet.

Now, I'm not saying that God does not bless us even right now when we choose to follow him.

But what Jesus is definitely saying is that your ultimate comfort and your reward and the feast that is being prepared for you is not available yet.

We are waiting for that to happen.

It's not right now.

It's not here.

It's not something that we've earned or we deserved.

Jesus is saying, you're in a terrible spot right now, but you are fortunate.

You are blessed because you will be rewarded.

But there are too many preachers and pastors and teachers and TV evangelists that have sold us on the idea that God wants you to be happy and He wants you to be happy right now.

They're selling it and people are buying into it.

They're buying into the idea that God is some sort of cosmic genie in a bottle who owes you wishes because you've read or you're reading your Bible, because you've thrown in a few bucks or given your entire salary to the church, because you occasionally or often or always attend Bible class.

But what we need to hear from the words of Jesus is that God is not a vending machine that is up in the sky who promises to drop down treats and rewards every time that you do something good.

We have baptized this terrible theology in thinking that God just wants us to be happy.

Satan has used Scripture to try to prove that God just wants you to be happy and give you everything that you want.

Paul is talking to a church that he loves and they're going through hardship.

He's in prison at the time and he's in the midst of hardship, and he's trying to tell them, I know it's really tough, but you can get through it.

He says, I know what it's like to be hungry, I know what it's like to be poor, I know what it's like to be in need.

He says, but I want you to know that Jesus gets me through all of this.

He is with me in that.

But we tear out that last little part and we put it on our sneakers and on our mirrors and on bumper stickers, and we say, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I don't have to study for a test anymore.

I just show up and I say that prayer.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Forget about working on your marriage.

You don't have to do that.

It's falling apart.

Go play another round of golf, go grab another round of beer because my marriage is okay, because I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Yeah, my boss should probably fire me, but he won't.

Because I go to church on Sunday.

And God will not allow me to lose this job.

Even if everything is going right and you're doing what is right, we somehow think that God owes us this and we deserve this.

But the fact is, is that God doesn't owe us.

It's terrible theology at best, and at worst, it's incredibly dangerous, and it's putting people's salvation at risk.

And so let me ask you this question, and this is a question I'm I'm genuinely asking, and I would like you to help me answer this.

If you believe that God instantly blesses you when you do good, then what does that mean?

If you believe that God will bless you when you do something good, what are the ramifications of that of that thought, of that theology?

What happens?

Maybe I'll just stop trying so hard.

Oh, when you do bad, God will punish you.

Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you do.

Have you ever had a really bad day and thought, you know, I probably deserve this?

God is probably punishing me for this.

If if I hadn't lied to my wife, I would have had the green light.

I would have gotten the good parking spot at Walmart.

But God's upset with me.

What why is it such a dangerous theology to think that that God owes us something?

That if we do good, he's gonna repay us back.

Why is this a problem?

Do what?

Because then it's based on us and not him.

Because then we think, well, I'm the one who's done good and he owes me something.

Have any of you tried really hard at being good and bad things still happen to you?

If we do good and God owes us, what happens when we do good and God doesn't hold up his end of this bargain that he's supposed to, you know, pay us back more?

What happens?

What's the problem?

He's not faithful.

If you hold up your end of the bargain, if you say, God, I'm doing what's right, I'm at church, I'm saying my prayers, I'm reading my Bible, I sing, I listen during the sermon, God, you owe me.

And then you get the call the next morning from the doctor that says, I'm sorry to tell you, but you have cancer.

If God owes us things when we do good, and then bad things start to happen, then we're only left to believe this.

God doesn't know what's going on, or he doesn't care what we're going through, or he doesn't have the ability to do anything about it.

And so when we push forward this prosperity gospel of God just wants you to be happy, the moment that you're not happy, we go to God and say, God, this one's on you.

Or we're left to believe that we haven't been quite as good as we should have been, and maybe we should just try harder and Christian more, and then maybe God will start paying us back for all the things that he owes us.

Instead of a relationship that's built on faithfulness, it becomes these transactions in which we think that if we do a little good, God will give us more.

But when he doesn't reciprocate, then he must not be loving or good or powerful.

But what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount is he's going to flip the script.

And for all the people who are looking for happiness, who are looking for power, who are looking to be filled, Jesus says, You who are mourning, life is difficult.

Your body is weary, and you are lonely, and you're tired, and you're empty, and you know that you need God, and you're blessed.

Don't despair.

God will comfort you.

For those of you who are meek, you are gentle, you're not trying to take, you aren't trusting in your own power, you aren't focusing on getting or bullying or collecting.

You are blessed.

You're not worried about the things that are getting in the way of knowing God, and you're trusting in Him, not in what you can do.

He will one day give you more than you could ever amass.

And some of you who are hungry and you're thirsty for righteousness, what he's saying is you desperately want what God wants.

For this world.

You desperately want what God wants for this world.

You want what He wants for the clerk at Walmart and for the waitress at Chili's, for your neighbor next door, for your mother-in-law, for your boss and your coworker, and the annoying kid who sits next to you in class.

When you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you desperately want what God wants for those people.

You are so fortunate.

You want God more than anything else, and you want his will to be done, and he is going to fill you up someday.

You're not letting this world and its junk and its mess get in the way of what God wants for you, and that makes you fortunate.

Don't try to seek out joy.

Don't try to take what you think you have earned or deserved.

And don't fill yourself with what this world is giving you.

It will never, ever be enough.

I don't know where the colors are.

I don't want to pick on you guys.

They are an amazing family.

They're into the pecan growing business, and I've gotten to see their place.

It is awesome.

I love pecans, but there is a problem with pecans.

Do you know what the problem with pecans is?

Like it is impossible to eat just one pecan.

Like, have you ever eaten?

It's like a pringle.

You eat the pecan, and you're like, that's so good.

And somehow there is something in that pecan that says, give me another one.

Like, I've never been able to sit down with whatever amount of pecans I have in my hands, I want every one of those.

I've never been able to say, you know what, I'm done.

I don't want any more of them.

I love pecans.

You eat one and you want another one and you want another one and you want another one, and that's good and great, but there's a lot of things in this world that you can eat it and eat it and eat it or receive it, receive it, and receive it, and collect it and hoard it and hold it, and it will never, ever be enough.

And Jesus says, Oh, that is a curse.

It's a curse.

You if you're hungering and thirsting for this world has to offer, you will never have enough.

And so he says to those of us who just want to follow him.

We're hungering for him, and we're broken and we're empty.

And then rather than being people who give, who take and take and take, we just want to be people who try to be content and grateful for what we have.

Jesus says that you're blessed.

And so this morning, if you're feeling really good about yourself and about your life, there's a chance that you just might convince yourself you don't really need God.

And my prayer is that you will turn away and see him, that you'll seek him, and that you'll taste and know that he is good.

May we be a people who desire him.

And even in our morning, we know that he's faithful.

That's what I want you to leave with.

That we have a God who is faithful.

And if you're hurting and struggling, we want you to know that Jesus has not abandoned you, that God has not forgotten you, that his promises have not failed.

They are good and true and they're coming.

And so don't give up.

Don't give up.

Continue to seek him.

This is what we want to do as a people.

I'll share one more thing and we'll stand and sing a song of invitation in just a second.

But before we do, uh, we're up there getting ready for the baptism, and D'Artagnan and I are up there and we've been talking, we've we've prayed, and we're about to get in the water, and they're about to raise up the thing.

And he goes, Hey, can can we can we pray one more time?

He says, Because when I step into that water, I don't want people to see me.

I just want them to see Jesus.

Because Jesus is the reason why I'm here.

That's the reason why we're here, people.

That's the reason why we're here, is because of what Jesus has done, is doing, and what he's promising to do in your life.

And if you want to be a part of that, we want to invite you to step into a relationship with him.

And we want to invite you to do it this morning as we stand and sing.