Flourishing: Blessed Are The Mourners

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Flourishing when you mourn, what is it broken?

Let me read our focus verse for us again from verse four, Matthew five, four.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Won't you join me in prayer?

Holy God, your ways are not our natural ways.

Your thoughts are not our natural thoughts.

And yet here we have revealed to us your ways in an amazing manner, the manifesto of your kingdom.

You reveal it to us not to steal our joy, our happiness, but to cause it to grow and flourish.

So we ask this morning that you'd open our minds, our hearts, and our wills to hear what Holy Spirit would teach us today and help us to trust and obey.

Transforming us as little children, always ready to hear from our Lord.

In your name, Jesus, we ask these things.

Amen.

Can you think back to a time when you uh cried uncontrollably?

Perhaps it just came on you spontaneously when you heard some bad news and it just hit you out of the blue.

You weren't planning on it, but it just came.

From my memory, the first time I remember crying like this was when my grandfather on my mother's side passed away.

11 years old at the time, probably thought I was a pretty tough kid, you know, not prone to crying.

And I remember my mother and one sister arriving back home from the hospital and giving us this news that Grandpa George had passed away.

And in that moment, I recall just sort of slumping down, bursting into tears, and just sitting there, flopping down for a while on the ground.

And it went on for a while.

I don't exactly know how long, but I remember thinking to myself that I'd never be able to walk to the top of our garden.

We had a fairly big garden, it went up.

My mother had a nursery school in the back, and I used to walk up to the top with him when he'd come over and just hold his hand, grandpa's hands.

And I just remember I won't be able to hold his big hands anymore.

I used to ask him to squeeze my hands to just remind me how strong he still was.

Well, those days were all at once gone.

That was my first real taste of mourning.

Now, if you've lived for longer than five seconds, perhaps five years, uh, experience has taught you that people mourn for many reasons.

Sickness, pain, loss of a loved one, wounded pride, whatever.

But in context, we cannot separate verse 4 from verse 3.

See, the poor in spirit to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs are also mourners who shall be comforted.

In other words, blessed or flourishing indeed is the person who, having said, I am dying without hunger here, which is one aspect of being poor, the literally hungry, then continues by saying, Father, I have sinned.

I have sinned.

I believe our verse in its proper context points to three aspects of flourishing when you mourn what is broken.

This is the first a kingdom flourishing that is contra, that runs counter to this broken world.

Secondly, a kingdom mourning as a way of being in this broken world.

And finally, a kingdom comfort promised in this broken world.

And so let's begin by considering firstly a kingdom flourishing contra this broken world.

It's my first sort of key observation for us.

Again, let me reiterate out of the gate that Jesus is here describing the citizens of God's kingdom, not sort of a step-by-step how to become one.

He's speaking to his disciples.

We see that in verses one and two.

They've gathered.

Now, sure, some of them may not have been genuine followers of Jesus.

You know, they want to merely be around this man who performs signs and wonders, perhaps who can draw a crowd.

He's a magnetic character and they just want to be there.

But that doesn't change the fact that he's teaching for those already following him.

This is what kingdom people look like.

And so flowing from verse 3, we see that he's speaking to those who display a poverty of spirit.

I'm spiritually bankrupt before God, nothing to give him, nothing to earn his approval.

And then verse 4 is the emotional response to that realization.

First, you see your utter moral bankruptcy before a holy, holy, holy God set apart, pure, other.

And then you mourn this reality.

It's the natural response of a person living in this.

No, let me actually ask that as a question.

Is that the natural response of a person living in this broken world to mourn their sin before God?

Answer, no.

Hi, nyah.

This is a supernatural work.

God, the Spirit Himself opens your eyes to your spiritual state before the one who made you.

And the inevitable response is to deeply sorrow over your personal sin.

Well, more than this, you actually lament the consequences, the ripple effect of sin.

This is why the Apostle John in the book of Revelation 21, he pictures God wiping away every tear from our eyes, saying, Death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.

Here it is, for the former things.

All of those things that sin has affected are passed away.

Sin has broken us personally, sin has broken this world in which we live.

And the flourishing person recognizes and mourns this truth, this fact of life.

Things are simply not as they should be.

And I want to ask this morning have you ever been walking through the mall, perhaps Rosebank Mall or another, you're looking at people, and it just sort of hits you sometimes.

Things are not the way they ought to be.

Yeah.

It's hit me before.

I grieve over the solemn truth that people, that relationships, natural and man-made things themselves, essentially every aspect of life under the sun is broken or is tending that way.

Okay, none of us are getting younger, right?

We're like a ball of wax.

My old pastor used to say that.

We're like a you know a wax ball lighter, you know, lighter underneath it.

And what happens to the wax?

Goes down.

You know, everything heads south as you get older.

Okay, different shape, men and women.

But there we are.

Okay, it tends that way.

Broken.

Now, let me be clear.

From the many distresses of life, including the physical, uh, no human can or need be excluded from this passage.

You see, unbelievers do mourn, right?

Yeah, they mourn.

They mourn these things, but scripture is here teaching that it is only in as much as these are the results of sin.

They're mourning the results of sin.

In other words, just because you mourn, it doesn't mean that you're blessed.

It doesn't mean that you're flourishing.

This is what Paul is getting at in his most personal letter, 2 Corinthians, I would argue, chapter 7, verse 10, he says the following.

Whereas worldly grief produces death.

Unbelievers mourn, but it's in a way that seems right to them.

And as the Proverbs would say, it's a way that tends towards death.

And so, as defined last week, this word blessed, we're going to be hearing it a lot.

The Greek makarios means more than temporary happiness.

It describes the one who is truly flourishing, thriving because their life is judged good in the light of God's kingdom.

It's not a happy feeling per se, although it can involve that, but it's it's an approved, it's a it's a flourishing way of being.

You're like, Sean, stop saying flourishing, but it really is.

Okay, growing.

I'm congratulated, so to speak, by God Himself.

Have you been congratulated by God?

Approved.

Well done, son, well done, daughter.

Brothers and sisters, it's the same word Paul uses in his first letter to Timothy to actually describe God Himself.

He calls him the only blessed God.

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit flourishes, is in complete harmony and shalom in and of himself, needing nothing outside of himself, and yet the wonder of wonders, his kingdom citizens get to share in something of this divine nature.

Peter actually talks about that in his second letter in the first chapter.

We're partakers of the divine nature.

Not becoming God's ourselves, but sharers in what he's like.

And guess what?

This runs completely contra, completely against this broken world, even as we live in it.

This is the peculiar, the whole inexplicable from the natural person's perspective that Matthew 5, 3 through 12 introduces to us.

The character of those who live in the kingdom of God and who belong to it.

What I like to call pickles in a cookie jar, or if you prefer, gherkins in a biscuit tin.

Either which way you look at it, okay?

Those two don't go very well, but that's what Christians are.

We really are.

Jesus calls people blessed whom the world typically regards as unfortunate.

The poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek or gentle, the persecuted, and the spiritually hungry.

This is the gospel culture that simultaneously stands against, stands over, stands alongside, and that ultimately, like yeast working its way through bread, brings transformation to the culture of this world.

Don't we hope to see that in Joburg?

Yeah.

Now, blessed doesn't mean that mourning is pleasant.

Yay, let's all get together and mourn.

Okay.

Nor the Christians should pursue misery.

It refers to the deep well-being and divine approval belonging to those, again, as I said, who stand rightly before God.

This is good, and so this can be good.

These beatitudes, the Latin beatis, uh happy, describe kingdom identity, not a technique for earning God's favor.

Their promises are gifts of grace, the lifeblood of a, as I've said, a gospel culture.

And this means that Jesus confronts the Johannesburg culture, does he not?

He does.

He does.

In a city with a broken mix of prosperity and poverty, of rapid economic change, of violence, unemployment, inequality, broken families, and even a deep religious diversity, people are often trained very well to hide, to mask their pain.

And notice Jesus doesn't say, blessed are those who deny their sorrow.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Flourishing in the realm of the king's rule, the kingdom, is certainly contrary to that which the broken world imagines.

And so let's explore what this morning looks like a bit more.

What does it include?

And so, secondly, kingdom mourning as a way of being in this broken world, a way of being.

We have two dogs at home.

We adopted them a few months after we arrived in Cape Town in March of 2021.

We always had a dog with our kids growing up in North Carolina.

Uh so I was not rushing to get another dog when we came.

Like we need to sort ourselves out, forget about a dog at this point.

But wouldn't you know it?

There was a lady in one of our prayer groups that we very quickly belonged to, and we found out that she knew a family who were moving to North Carolina, the state that we'd just come from, and they had two dogs that they wanted someone else to take care of and adopt that needed a home, and we became that home.

Wouldn't you know it?

God always gives you what you don't know, what you don't ask for or want at the time, but he has they're part of the family now.

We love our dogs, Leo and Jock.

Anyhow, the older dog, Leo, the coccus spaniel, is now 13 years old.

He's essentially deaf.

He has one eye, the other one lost to glaucoma, and he's beginning to struggle with arthritis, although he tries to keep up with the younger dog as best he can.

Now, let me say his slow descent toward death, like every other creature, is the result of Adam's and our collective sin.

But the specific reason I bring good old Leo up is that he's still just a dog.

He's not sitting there contemplating, you know, thinking about dying.

He's not thinking about tomorrow.

He's still just being what he is.

A dog.

What's in front of me?

You know, food?

Yes, he's happy, his nose still works just great.

Friends, dogs just are.

Dogs just are.

I love that about them.

Well, I believe this is the posture that Jesus is calling for his kingdom people to have.

We're called to live as mourners as a way of being, a way of being, rather than just something that we that we do from time to time.

This Greek verb translated mourn is a strong word.

It's a strong word for grieving, for lamenting, for experiencing deep sorrow because of real loss, real pain.

It includes the grief associated with death, but it's not just about being bereft or bereaved of something or someone.

In other words, mourning has a number of dimensions to it.

And because it has a number of dimensions, for example, the church, that is you all folks, the church collectively, we have permission to express genuine and real pain.

Real pain.

The death of a family member, a friend, a child, the grief of miscarriage or perhaps stillbirth, infertility, the loss caused by crime, by addiction, by domestic violence, or corruption, the pain of unemployment, poverty, displacement, or just being without a home, the loneliness experienced in crowded suburbs or townships or informal settlements, the sorrow of troubled marriages, absent parents and children that are estranged.

They don't really want anything to do with you anymore.

The grief of a church that sees its city wounded and its neighbors suffering.

Again, biblical faith doesn't require pretending that these things don't hurt.

Jesus himself, did he not weep at Lazarus' tomb?

Yep.

He's about to raise the guy from the dead, but he weeps.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, he expressed a deep anguish before his father.

Christian hope does not eliminate lament.

Hear me well.

It does not get rid of lament, it gives lament somewhere to go.

Real people living in a real world with real pain, but a real God.

A real God.

There's more though.

The immediate context points beyond just common sadness in a fallen world.

As already pointed out, the poor in spirit of verse 3 recognize their spiritual bankruptcy before God.

The mourners of verse 4 grieve over the reality of sin, starting with themselves.

And then in the wider church, and then of course sin in the world generally.

This isn't some vague religious guilt.

Yeah, I feel bad.

Just this general feeling, no.

It's a tender conscience.

It's a soft heart that sees sin as an offense against the very one who made you, who formed you in your mother's womb.

And therefore, sin that is a destructive force that affects not only you, but human beings and whole communities and cities.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not.

See, your house is left to you desolate.

This is Jesus mourning over Jerusalem because of its hardness of heart, refusal to recognize God's visitation.

Emmanuel.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you very much.

We've got our religion.

We're okay.

So this kind of mourning includes grieving over our own pride, lust, dishonesty, unforgiveness, bitterness, lamenting injustice without becoming self-righteous, as though you know we can't be committers of injustice.

Confessing the church's compromise, her two-faced hypocrisy, her prejudice, or her silence in the face of evil.

Weeping over the ways that poverty and privilege are exploited and used against the most vulnerable.

And then, friends, feeling the weight of neighbors who are treated as disposable rather than as they are, precious.

You see, brothers and sisters, if the poor in spirit say, I cannot rescue myself, those who mourn go on to say, I cannot remain comfortable with what sin has done.

In many ways, genuine mourning is the emotional counterpart of, uh equal to, if you like, of repentance.

Repentance, you know, as you as you turn from sin and as you turn to God, that's what repentance fundamentally is.

For the first time or the or the 1000th, friends, there is mourning.

There's mourning.

So can you see that there is a personal and a public aspect to mourning?

Why?

Well, because sin is always personal and sin is always public.

It has both of those dimensions to it.

Sometimes we keep the circle small when sin is small, but but sin has this way of rippling out.

Now, I wouldn't be doing justice to our Lord's sermon if I just left it there.

You see, gospel morning is not it, it's not sort of emotional collapse, it's not unbelief.

Despair would say, you know, nothing can change.

Christian lament says, this is truly evil, this is truly painful, but God is still God.

And He will act.

You see there, the the trust of a child.

We we read it this morning, again, that was God, Psalm 13, part of it.

You know how many times do we see the Psalms doing just that?

Combining tears and trust.

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

But I have trusted in your steadfast love.

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Think of our Lord's resurrection.

This historic reality in time and space shows us, like nothing else, that suffering and death does not have the final word.

And so on the one hand, the kingdom mourner, the Christian, does not call evil good.

We don't do that.

That's what some people are trying to do in our culture, switching evil and good.

And looking at the people and saying, What?

You know, calling men woman and women men and saying that's good?

And and somehow the crazy ones are the ones who are like, but this is just basic reality.

Okay, that's another sermon, but so on the one hand, evil is not good.

On the other, neither do we believe that evil will win.

I asked this morning, where are you?

Where are you?

Can you even conceive of Kingdom Morning as a way of life, as a way of being in this broken world?

This is the supernaturally empowered call that Jesus asks for today and calls us to today.

And I ask, will you respond?

Will you respond to this apparently upside-down call of the living God for each of us here today?

You see, because whether you're a doubter, whether you're a skeptic, whether you're even sort of a hardened atheist against God today, or whether you're a genuine disciple of Jesus, mourning will come.

It will come.

All that's different is the end, the purpose of mourning.

And I say this because do you notice what unites all the varieties of mourning that I have mentioned so far today?

And particularly for the Christian.

It's God-centered, not man-centered.

Mourning is God-centered, not man-centered.

The one who has become a child of God by simple trust in Jesus Christ sighs and cries not merely for their own sins, though that's good.

Not merely for the bad things in this world resulting from the fall, though that's good, and not merely for the power of the wicked to oppress the righteous, though that's good.

To use the words of the prophet priest Ezekiel's words, Ezekiel 9, they mourn over all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem.

The abominations.

Who is that against?

It grieves the city the citizens of God's kingdom, that God, their own God, whom they love, is being dishonored.

Again, another sermon here.

I like to leave a little bit of homework for those who perhaps have taken a nap and had some lunch later on, and you've got nothing better to do.

You can jot down these few verses just to read, to really get to that idea of how our sin brings dishonor to God and what that should look like in our response.

Psalm 119, 136.

You can read that.

Psalm 119, 136.

Psalm 139, 21, 139, 21.

Then hop on over to Ezra chapter 10, verse 6.

Ezra 10:6

You can read around it.

Ezra 10, 6.

But those are all good.

The best though is Daniel's prayer of confession.

Daniel's prayer of confession, Daniel 9, 1 through 20, particularly toward the end, you'll begin to see it.

As he starts with himself, he starts with his people, and then he looks to God and how the sins of men have dishonored God.

You really get to feel that strongly.

So I commend that to you.

We've considered blessed are those who mourn.

Now let's finally camp on the promise.

For they shall be comforted.

They shall be comforted.

So thirdly, kingdom comfort promised in this broken world.

Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

These are the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah after thirty-nine long, hard chapters of God's judgment is coming on Israel, it's coming on Judah because of her rebellion, her idolatry, and her injustice.

Well, God hasn't changed.

You see, the flourishing, the blessedness of the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God rests on this reality.

They shall be comforted.

The Greek verb translated comfort, here I will say it because it connects, is parakaleo, parakaleo, and it's a passive verb.

In other words, God is the one Himself who will comfort them.

And so we get the term, if you've ever heard it paraclete, it's from the same root, but it's a name actually given to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the one who will come alongside.

That's what it means.

Parakaleo, to come alongside his people.

Because you see, godly sorrow turns the soul toward God, and God in turn grants comfort to those who seek their help from him and him and him alone.

God is the one who pardons, who delivers, who strengthens, who reassures.

Again, the psalmist, weeping may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

You know it.

Yes, tears like raindrops fall on the ground, but they come up in flowers again.

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.

That's why the psalmists and the psalms are so wonderful for God's people, are they not?

Every emotion, every expression, every cry of the human heart is found in those 150 or you know, um psalms of and I have to wonder if there was any more than 150, but I think the compiler of the psalm said, look, we've got to end the number here and just sort of package it together.

But boy, it's an amazing breadth.

Well, isn't that good news, brothers and sisters?

God's comfort comfort that leads to you know jabulani rejoicing.

Now, of course, you may ask me, Sean, when will this promised comfort be?

Well, in typical biblical fashion, I must answer, now and not yet.

Now and not yet.

Sometimes the comfort means that the affliction itself is removed.

We see that in Psalm 116.

Okay?

The prayer, Lord, you have answered me, and so I will call out to you again.

You've heard my cry, and it's removed within a short space of time.

Perhaps more often, though, the affliction remains for a while, perhaps a lifetime.

But you see, a weight of glory outbalances the grief.

Think of the apostle Paul, he's the classic example of this again in his most personal of letters to the church in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

What does he talk about?

His what in the flesh?

His thorn in the flesh.

And he does he ask God to remove it?

You better believe it.

And yet God's grace was sufficient for him.

Had to be.

And friends, it can and will be for you too.

God's sufficient grace.

I doubt there is a better summation of comfort in this broken world than the first Lord's Day question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism.

It's about 80 years earlier than our supremely better, no, just kidding.

Uh Westminster shorter catechism, larger catechism question and answer.

But boy, it's really great.

The question it asks is, what is your only comfort in life and death?

And will you will you please me for a moment and just close your eyes?

Close your eyes as I read the answer to this question: what is your only comfort in life and death?

Christian, what is your only hope in life and death?

Here it is.

That I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.

In fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, his Holy Spirit assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

You can open your eyes again, friends, lest I think you're sleeping.

Does Joberg not need this kind of comfort?

She does.

The kind that genuine that follows genuine mourning.

And I'm not talking here about Joburg's sort of coping mechanisms.

You know, the cynic, the city, you know, we complain about crime, about political parties, ANC, EFF, whoever else, okay?

Traffic on the N1, but we don't mourn our contribution.

Why?

Well, cynicism you see isn't mourning, it's actually sort of a hidden pride.

What about the stoic?

We don't cry, we hustle.

You know, we bury pain in work, in gym, in brides, in entertainment.

What about this one, the performer?

And this can be speaking to anyone, but maybe men are more prone to this.

You can come up to me afterwards and say that was a bit of a stereotype, but I think we're more like this.

You know, we confess sin quickly.

Sorry, man.

But there's no real brokenness over it.

Quick repentance is often false repentance.

Friends, the promised comfort will come as we well, a number of things.

Firstly, personally learn to lament biblically.

Personally learn to lament biblically.

Don't rush past your sin to grace.

After his sin, that's a prayer that we could all use daily.

Pray it daily.

Ask what sin have I excused this week that God calls evil?

Anger on the road?

I'll put my hands up, and I know my kids would sometimes.

That's me, friends.

What?

Driving on the shoulder?

Who do you think you are?

You know?

Lust online, racism in my heart, business dishonesty.

Friends, mourn it before you ask for help.

Because as I've heard, I'm not a miner, but mining can be pretty messy.

You have to go deep to get to the precious metal that you're looking for.

Well, repentance is like that.

Personally, learn to lament biblically.

Secondly, if you want the promised comfort to come, uh we need to learn as the church to provide safety for mourners.

So here's a church wide.

You know, is M'Thengi City Church becoming a safe place for mourners?

Many churches in Ghauteng celebrate victory only.

And that's one aspect, and it's not all bad.

But you see, a well-rounded, non-truncated kingdom flourishing says, you can weep here.

That's what James gets to in James 4 when he says, weep, mourn, lament over your sin.

Let's create space for confession without gossip.

Perhaps our deep groups and our life groups can ask questions like, uh, where are you mourning your sin?

Where are you mourning our city?

Again, let the church be a safe space for mourners.

And then finally, as we mourn, comfort will come as we mourn for the city and as we move toward her.

You know, Jeremiah, we we all know that verse 29.7 where he talks about, you know, seeking the welfare of the city.

There's a lot of truth there.

We should mourn.

You know, 30 plus percent, I think it's even higher among the youth, somewhere like 45% unemployment, you know, particularly in township areas, places where where women and kids aren't safe.

I mean, let me ask you, friends, we've all we've all heard it, but aren't the the murders of the the ten women I think the number's up to across Ekuleni, isn't that awful?

It's awful.

We should mourn it.

God, cry out to Him.

We should also mourn the wealthy Sant and Rosebank apathy where success becomes and is the functional God.

And this mourning should draw us to show mercy.

To show mercy.

We'll learn about that in verse 7 of our chapter.

You see, if you truly mourn sin, you become merciful to other sinners.

It's an amazing connection there.

You can't mourn your own sin on Sunday and then destroy someone on social media on Monday.

There's something that God does in your heart.

Now, please don't hear me saying, just try harder.

Everyone, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, mourn more truly in your own strength.

You and I can't do this.

We can't do it in and of ourselves, but the spirit of the living Christ in us can.

He can comfort sinners without compromising his justice.

God doesn't sweep sin under the cosmic rug, he deals with it.

Because Jesus was the one who mourned perfectly and was not comforted.

His cries were not heard.

We talk about that.

That's the high point of his humiliation and as he cries out to his father.

Where are you?

Where are you?

That's mourning that we will never fully understand.

He was not comforted so that you and I who mourn can be comforted.

That's the good news of the gospel.

That's Isaiah 53, you know, the suffering servant.

Again, Gethsemane and the cross, he was despised and rejected.

Men hid their face from him.

Well, today we get to celebrate the fullness of that prophecy in the Lord's Supper in communion with our risen Lord by faith.

This table actually distinguishes between two kinds of people here today.

Firstly, those who've never mourned over their sin, and hence cannot be called blessed or flourishing.

If that's you today, I ask, don't leave here today saying, I'm okay.

Call on God to open your eyes to the reality of your sin, your sin against your Creator, who made you and who shows such common grace to even those who shake their fist at him.

For the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

You know, he may grant you a poverty of spirit together with a mourning, which can be a sign that you're not far from the kingdom of God.

Jesus often said that you're not far, you're close, you're right there.

Don't miss it.

I'd love to pray with you afterwards.

I know Pastor Toby would say upon any one of us.

Come, we'd love to pray with you afterwards if that's you.

If you've never mourned your sin.

But secondly, if you are mourning today, over your sin, over loss, over the city, hear our Lord Jesus today.

You are flourishing.

Not will be, but are.

His very person is your comfort.

That's the promise of the gospel.

For Jesus, plus nothing equals everything.

If we grab hold of him again by faith, he truly is everything.

The things of this world grow.

I used to grow up singing this song, the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and your grace.

They become what they are, stuffed things.

The only important things are people made in the image of God.

You know, friends, I'm certain that I'll see my grandfather again.

I'm sure of it.

He had faith in Jesus like a mustard seed.

And it was as if God in his loving kindness gave us a sign of his actually being saved.

He'd grown up a Roman Catholic.

He was very nominal.

I think my mom went to church more than he and my grandmother did.

They didn't go to mass, they were sort of lapsed Catholics.

But in his later life, we saw a softening of his heart.

And God sort of gave this sign to us.

And both my mother or to my mother and sister, they shared it with us.

My mother and one sister, they had been able to visit him in the hospital far less than any of the other family members.

And wouldn't you know it?

They were the ones who were there when he finally breathed his last.

They got to be with him, and what were they doing?

Singing hymns to the Lord as he passed into eternity.

I think it was God's grace there.

Friends, that's kingdom flourishing contra this broken world.

That is kingdom mourning as a way of being in this broken world.

And boy, is it kingdom comfort that is promised in this broken world and yet also in the world to come, the world without end.

Are you looking forward to that day?

Me too.

So won't you turn and flourish today?

Today, because tomorrow is not guaranteed.

And so for the first time or afresh, turn and flourish today.

Let's pray, friends.

Heavenly Father, won't you grant us gospel grace?

Grace to stop pretending that we live in this world unaffected.

Teach us to mourn our sin.

Teach us to grieve with those who suffer.

Help us to truly lament the brokenness of our city.

All without losing hope.

Be present in this moment with those who are bereft, who are bereaving, perhaps.

Those who are ashamed, those who are lonely, thinking that no one else can hear them or knows them.

Lord, any who are even oppressed, whether it's economically, socially, whatever way, who feel oppressed today.

Won't you comfort us with your spiritual presence?

Even as we enjoy that in the bread and the cup together.

A kiss from God, as it were.

Please keep our eyes fixed on the last day.

When morning will end, when you will make all things new.

For your glory, for our joy, for our neighbor's best Lord Jesus, we ask all these things.

Amen.