Real Happiness According to Jesus: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Matthew 5:1-12) - Rev. Josh Grimm

Good morning. It's great to be back with you

all, brothers and sisters, to share from God's

words. We're gonna be in the Gospel of Matthew

today, looking at the second beatitude. I'm gonna

be reading, for the sake of context, Matthew

5, 1 through 12, the opening of Jesus' Sermon

on the Mount, but we're gonna focus on the second

beatitude today, blessed are those who mourn.

And just by way of introduction, I'm not really

going to argue this with you, but there's different

ways that people interpret the Beatitudes. But

kind of the path we'll be taking today based

off of some people brighter than me in biblical

studies. And I can refer you to their books if

you're interested in a late summer rabbit trail

of theology. But the Beatitudes are Jesus inviting

us into his way, his vision of what the really

good life looks like. What does the deeply happy,

truly flourishing kind of Psalm 1 life look like?

That Jesus gives us a part of a distillation

of his teaching on what that is in the Beatitudes

as countercultural as they are. And especially

the one that we're looking at today is a very

countercultural one. But that's kind of the standpoint

from which I'm interpreting these Beatitudes

that Jesus is giving us. his wisdom, his invitation

to live the truly good, the truly happy, the

truly flourishing life in and through him. This

assumes the good news of his gospel, that Jesus

has come on the scene proclaiming earlier in

Matthew chapter four, and of course that comes

to its apex, its culmination in his death, his

resurrection, and his ascension. So hear God's

word this morning from Matthew five. I'm gonna

be starting at verse one. Now when Jesus saw

the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and

sat down. His disciples came to him and he began

to teach them. He said, blessed are the poor

in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be

comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will

inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger

and thirst for righteousness, for they will be

filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will

be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God. Blessed

are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed

are you when people insult you, persecute you,

and falsely say all kinds of evil against you

because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great

is your reward in heaven, from the same way they

persecuted the prophets. who were before you.

Please pray with me as we come to God's word.

Let's pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we

thank you that you have not left us in the dark

about who you are, but that you have spoken to

us so that we can know you, so we can be rescued

by you, so we can love you, so we can grow in

our love for our neighbors, for our church family

around us. We pray that you would open our hearts

and our minds to your word today by your spirit.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, as was mentioned in Peter's introduction,

and I might have mentioned, if you're in Sunday

School, my REF update, I think I kind of forgot

to talk about my family. Just dived into ministry

update. But my wife Ashley and I have five kids.

Our oldest is nine. Our youngest will be two

in November. And it's kind of hard for us to

believe now, but a few years ago we had fewer

children. But a few years ago we had, you know,

I mean, we started out with none, right? You

know, losing my train of thought. We started

with one. Anyway, but I have a scene in my mind

of a very memorable dinner a few years ago when

we had fewer children. We had three children,

and we were sitting at our dinner table. And

one of the things we had enjoyed in this season

of life, which was, I think, sometime around

2020, because it was before our... second youngest

now, Charlotte was born in 2021. But we had been

enjoying this family of cardinals who had made

their nest in a tree kind of behind our house.

And you had the daddy bird and the mama bird

would be. buzzing around, taking care of the

babies, making their happy chirping sounds as

anxious parents, but trying to take care of the

little hatchlings. And our kids followed. We

saw the nest, and we saw the eggs, and we had

a couple of baby birds hatch. And that was exciting

to see and exciting to hear. The young babies

start to chirp, and the cacophony of sounds of

this happy bird family. And one night we had

this very memorable dinner where we kind of had

that in the background, but the cardinal voices

sounded kind of strained. You might see where

this story is going to take a dark turn. But

the anxious sounds of the parents were not the

anxiousness of providing the food for them, but

something was clearly going wrong. And so this

interrupts our dinner. We all go to this back

window to see what is happening here at the nest.

And the parents are flying around in distress.

And we had this little tree where the nest was

by our AC unit in the back. And this snake has

slithered its way up the tree and is aiming for

the nest. Now, my wife is like, of snakes, doesn't

even want to see a picture of them. I can be

kind of okay observing snakes if we're at like

a zoo or something and I can see them behind

glass, but I try to gin up my courage and...

Isaac, our oldest, was around four at the time,

and we go to the backyard and try to find a brick

or a shovel to see, okay, is there something

we can throw at this snake to get it away without

having to get really close to the snake? Eventually,

I think I threw some bricks at the snake. The

snake goes away, but we can see probably at least

one of the eggs has been eaten, and there is

a baby bird who had been damaged. Like it had

fallen out of the nest in the course of everything

that happened once we make sure that the snake

is away You know we take the shovel we get the

baby bird back into the nest and You know kind

of wait to see what happens now Unfortunately,

you know the the next day we go we go back to

like look at look at what's happening and we

hear the mournful sounds of the mama Cardinal

and And we can see that baby bird who had been

wounded was no longer there anymore. And it makes

me tear up thinking about the story because we

were, of course, sad for this little bird family

that had been destroyed as much as we get used

to as humans, the reality of death in the natural

world and the animal world. But it was also one

of our kids' first very close -up encounters

with death and grief. That we had this little

bird family that we had enjoyed seeing their

life come together. And now there's the sadness

of the reality of death. And I remember Isaac

Rubin and Liza, who were starting at four and

younger, were crying. And here I was as a young

father, like, man, I'm tearing up. What do I

do with myself? But this moment of bringing my

kids in a different way into the reality of death

and of grief and loss. And of course, we read

from Revelation 21 of Jesus' promise to make

everything new and to wipe away every tear from

our eyes. But that story kind of draws you in.

You can surely think of experiences with grief

and loss. not just of animals, right, but of

people, and the reality of death, the reality

of sadness in our world, and is in precisely

only this world that we live in, whether it's

the unexpected or the expected loss and suffering,

it's only in this world that Jesus comes in with

the Beatitudes, and he says this, the one that

we focus on today, Blessed are the mourners,

for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the

mourners, for they shall be comforted. And we

think, how can you say, Jesus, that the deeply

happy, truly flourishing people are the people

who mourn, the people who grieve? Well, of course

it is connected to the promise that it's exactly

and only those kinds of people who will be comforted.

But I think we have to wrestle with this. If

you think about the different places you can

approach grief and loss and sadness from so often

in our American culture today, we tend to deny

our sadness, whether it's about death or just

the things that we are suffering with. We want

to deflect. We want to press things down. Sometimes

that can take us and the people around us into

places of despair. We try to detach from them.

In the culture of Jesus' day, it was an interesting

dynamic with suffering and loss, because on the

one hand, unlike our culture, they were more

comfortable with visible displays of grief, whether

it is at death or at suffering, at a time of

calamity. They're much more comfortable with

that than we are in our culture. And yet, in

some pockets of the Jewish culture of Jesus'

day, people might say, well, like the man born

blind. If you are suffering, if you are disabled,

if you have lost someone, doesn't that mean that

you've done something wrong? Doesn't it mean

that you have, who sinned, Lord, this man or

his father? There was that kind of response so

often to the grief and the brokenness of the

world around them. Sometimes today people might

say, well, suffering, we can just overcome it

through our... our power, like the Buddhist,

we just need to detach and then we can find this

inner peace in this nirvana. If we just watch

these Instagram or TikTok reels or follow this

self -help guru, we'll be able to be okay in

the face of what's gone wrong within us and what's

happened to us and what is going wrong outside

of us. And instead of all these different paths,

Jesus instead invites you and me and y 'all together

as a church family to do something different.

He invites you to grieve with him in the sure

hope of his comfort. Jesus invites you to grieve

with him, looking to the sure hope of his comfort.

And we're going to break down three different

dimensions as we take this passage in light of

the rest of the Bible of what Jesus invites you

and me and y 'all together to grieve or to lament.

And the first of these is this, that there's

an invitation to lament sin with Jesus. There's

an invitation to lament your sin, y 'all's sin,

other people's sin with Jesus. As Jesus' ministry

opens in Matthew 417, what does he do as he begins

his ministry, but he declares, repent for the

kingdom of heaven has come near. Turn from the

way that you've been going and embrace me and

embrace This fulfillment of all the Old Testament

that it talked about of a reign of righteousness

and forgiveness and peace that it has come and

it's been embodied in the person and ministry

and work of Jesus himself But that that ministry

as we confessed and our confession sent earlier

For it to matter at all has to start with you

and I being reminded of the reality of our sinfulness,

that we more than we have realized have fallen

short of God's perfect standard of holiness and

love and thought and word and deed by the things

that we have done and by the things that we have

left undone. And the thread of the ministry of

Jesus so often is encountering people who are

in the midst of their sin and in the midst of

their sin offering them forgiveness, right? As

they repent and turn from it. But to receive

the comfort of Jesus's forgiveness that is based

solely on who he is and what he has done for

us. It starts with us saying, yes, I'm Josh and

I'm a sinner, right? That I need to be able to

grieve my sin to be able to look to the Savior.

Jesus comes as the suffering servant who, as

Isaiah says, bore our iniquities for us. And

so as you think about your sin today. It's like,

well, isn't that a pleasant thought? But isn't

that part of why we come to church? Because we

realize that we are sinners. We realize that

we are messed up and we need a savior. So it's

a good place to think about it. But what are

the places of sin in your life that Jesus is

calling you to grieve today? Are there places

in your life with your sin, whether it's... pattern

of outward sin, whether it's a thought pattern

or a pattern of desire in your heart, is there

a sin maybe that you've become too comfortable

with, that you think, you know, yeah, you know,

I kind of, I do that every now and then, but

like how bad is that? Because part of the gospel

prick of repentance is us being soft in our hearts

towards that sin and not being comfortable with

it. As one of the Puritans said, to be killing

sin, or else it'll kill you, right? That we need

to be able to bring to God our hearts, and to

say, God, I need your help with this. I need

your forgiveness. Don't leave me where I am,

but also lift up my eyes to you and to the reality,

Jesus, of your blood and righteousness that is

given for me that is my only hope. What are the

places of sin in your heart? Maybe that you become

comfortable with the Jesus is instead calling

you to grieve. It might be really deep, persistent

patterns of sin that you invite someone else

into. It might also be the awareness of situations

where you've just become too comfortable with

it, that pops up in your everyday life, and it

could be a great check. You need to ask if your

marriage, your spouse, or a roommate, or someone

who is in your life a lot, Hey, where am I comfortable

with my sin? Where am I, when you're bringing

things up to me that you notice, where am I hard

-hearted and reactive? I'm glad I never do that

as a husband. Glad I never that way with my wife

when she points out my sin. But where, where

are you like that? And where is Jesus calling

you to turn from that sin and instead to look

away from yourself and to embrace the comfort

of his forgiveness? I wonder what difference

it could make to think about the cultures that

y 'all create, the communities that y 'all create,

and that all of our churches create, if our churches

could grow more as places where we openly talked

about, you know, this was the sin I was dealing

with last week, or last night, or even this morning.

That as we have, as good Southern people, the

banter about Clemson football, or in Charlotte

we banter about, a lot of people who like Clemson

football in Charlotte, by the way, as you probably

know, the rain is extended across South and North

Carolina, but we banter about sports, we banter

about the weather. What could it look like for

us to more openly talk with each other about

our sin, so that we can point each other to our

savior, and so that we can move towards each

other as we struggle and we fall, so we can mourn

our sin together. I think it's one of the coolest

opportunities I've gotten as a pastor in campus

ministry sometimes is both to sit with people

in what's really hard and really sad that has

happened to them and outside of them, but also

to sit with people who are really sad about their

sin and to point them to the good news of the

forgiveness of Jesus as they look to that. And

that's the invitation to you and to me today,

as you are convicted of your sin, to really grieve

it. This is not the way that it's supposed to

be. It's not God's best for us. We have an even

greater Savior than your sin or my sin, who lived

the perfect life that you and I did not live,

who looked at the world around him, who looked

at the temptations of the devil, and instead

trusted in the good word of his Heavenly Father,

and never fail. never fails, but he offers his

blood and his righteousness to you and to me.

Will you talk to God about your sin? As you grieve

your sin, will you look away from yourself to

the hope and to the power of Jesus and to his

forgiveness? Will you grieve your sin? Will you

lament your sin with Jesus? Will y 'all do that

with each other? The next invitation we see is

an invitation to lament brokenness with Jesus.

To lament brokenness with Jesus. Brokenness encompasses

a wider lens, the way that often as an outgrowth

of sin, yes, but the way that things are not

the way that they're supposed to be. They're

not the way that creation was originally intended

to be. And we think of this, if you follow the

news at any point, and I hope you detox the news

to the extent that you can, but so many stories

in the news, while there are great things in

the world that are not reported, So often the

things we hear about and the things that you

and I experience at our jobs, with our neighbors,

looking at our communities, are things not being

the way that they're supposed to be. You look

at government, you look at business, you look

at education, you talk to someone down the street,

and it's the trickle trickle of so many stories

of brokenness, of things being bent, of people

abusing their power, of people being hurt. and

not only culturally, but we look at the situations

that so many of you and so many people travel

through, right, with illness, with chronic disease,

with physical maladies and hardships. We scan

the globe, the stories of suffering, of people

being in dire poverty. There's so much loss throughout

our world that it can be easy for us to just,

want to try to block it out. There's a reality

in which we can only process so much of it. But

you look at the minister of Jesus, and he did

not stay an arm's length from suffering. Even

though Jesus had all power, all dignity, all

glory in and of himself, as Paul talks about

in Philippians 2, he didn't account equality

with God, something to be held onto. But he emptied

himself for you and for me coming into our world

of suffering and sadness and brokenness as he

comes and you see throughout the ministry of

Jesus that he Moves towards those who are poor

towards those who are outcasts towards those

who are disabled towards those who are dying

As we'll get into later those who have died that

Jesus does not hold himself in an arm's length

to our pain but instead he enters into it. And

because Jesus enters into it, he offers us the

comfort to be able to engage the pain of your

suffering and my suffering and the suffering

of the world around us. How do you respond to

the deep pain that's in your life? How do you

respond to the place, whether it's a thread of

persistent suffering, of being hurt by someone,

whatever that thread is in your life, in your

story of deep hurt and deep unease of experiencing

this is not the way that it should be, what do

you do with it? Sometimes I think we can try

to numb out our pain. Are there ways that, someone,

one author talked about the difference between

taking a break, from our pain and our suffering

and numbing out that, you know, maybe taking

a break, a little escape is, you know, one glass

of wine versus when I've had five or six glasses

of wine to numb out. Story, you know, with a

lot of younger people maybe is the trite example

of, well, I'm going to watch one show versus

I'm going to binge watch a whole season of a

show. Sometimes that can be numbing. But what

does that look like for you? Are there places

you go to instead of God? to receive comfort

for your pain. And we can think about with the

reality of our need for rest, especially depending

on the season of suffering that you might be

in, it's good to take a break to get renewed

from that pain. But the numbing invites us just

to kind of push the pain down. And we can't actually

bring it out for healing. And what Jesus is saying,

instead of Looking to other places for your comfort

and for your hope as you grieve as you lament

Your suffering and things not being the way that

they're supposed to be What could it look like

for you? To lament with Jesus to bring your suffering

To bring what is weighing you down to Jesus and

to his comfort? There's such a beautiful opportunity

is As Peter was praying the pastoral prayer for

the opportunity as believers to one another,

each other, to look out for each other, to bear

each other's burdens and cares. It's such a great

opportunity of the body of Christ as we share

the things that weigh us down. So often that

is when God speaks his word of comfort to us

is through other believers. Is there something

weighing you down that you need to share with

someone else to be able to receive more of God's

comfort? for you through his people. As it came

up earlier in the service, it's always cool when

there's these providential connections, right?

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1, 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. Isn't that

amazing? He comforts you and me in our troubles?

Don't take it for granted. The God of the universe.

wants to comfort you in your troubles. But even

more than that, he doesn't waste the troubles,

but what does he say? So that we can comfort

those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves

receive from God. That one of the beauties is

you process where you've been and what God has

done in your life is that even if somebody doesn't

have the same situation of suffering and loss

or hardship or sin struggle that you had, as

you receive God's comfort for your pain, it frees

you up more to share God's comfort with someone

else in the midst of their pain. It's amazing

how God works out all things for the good of

those who love him and are called according to

his purposes as we look to him and to his purposes,

as we bring our pain and our sadness to him.

The last thing we've seen is kind of the thing

that I headlined with the opening illustration,

right, is. the invitation to lament death with

Jesus. To lament death with Jesus. Of course,

some of the biggest wounds and feelings of loss

and feelings of something is missing here or

something really hurts in this room are the wounds

of death, right? Some of the biggest wounds in

the lives of the people that we live with and

we want to share the good news of Jesus to. Paul

calls death the last enemy, right? I think it's

so beautiful as you look at the life and the

ministry of Jesus, the story of the account of

Jesus being moved by the death of his friend

Lazarus in the Gospel of John, right? That even

as Jesus knew that he was going to raise Lazarus

from the dead, Jesus wept at the death of his

friend. Jesus, even though he knew he was going

to be the one who would finally defeat death

in principle through his resurrection, who will

return to finally erase the sting of death for

the people of God for all eternity, that still,

Jesus, as he encounters death, he weeps, he grieves

that the loss is a loss, that this is not the

way that things are supposed to be. And it's

in light, of us being able to encounter those

tears and that pain, that the glory of the resurrection

is even greater. But it's only as we travel through

the journey that the pain actually matters, that

the loss actually matters. So like I asked you

to do with your sin and with suffering, is there

a loss in your life and your story that maybe

Jesus is inviting you today? to bring to him

for his healing, for his comfort. Is there a

loss that you've experienced? Maybe God has given

you a lot of healing from over the years, but

that you still need to be able to talk about

and to bring to other body of Christ people to

experience their comfort. What might God be laying

on your heart today with those wounds of loss

and pain? Maybe you don't really have one of

those on your mind today, but... This passage

is a great opportunity as you think about grief

and mourning to be able to ask yourself, are

you ready to die? Are you ready either for the

reality for all of us in this room is that either

things will end when we die or Jesus comes back,

whichever happens first. And this beatitude in

the wisdom of Jesus invites us to ask ourselves,

are we ready for that? And can we say, that our

only comfort in life and in death, as we face

the reality of the uncertainty of our lives,

the uncertainty of the world around us, is in

Jesus Christ, in his blood, in his righteousness

given for you. Wherever you might have been with

loss, wherever you might be with the fear of

death, where is God calling you today? To bring

that to Jesus, to know his comfort, to know his

power, that he comes and he says, I am the resurrection

and the life. As we land this beatitude, it invites

us to look to the triune God, to look to the

one God who is three, the three who is one. To

him alone is the consoler of your heart and mine.

We see the different persons of the Trinity work

in different ways to comfort the people of God.

As Paul has already said in 2 Corinthians 1,

you have a father who is the father of all mercies.

To look to him. for your sadness over your sin,

your suffering, your loss. Jesus, the eternal

son made man, is the man of sorrows who bore

our grief and our sadness and is yet the one

who is the resurrection and the life. The Holy

Spirit is the counselor, the comforter, who comes

to guide and to console you and me, the people

of God. The one who Paul says in Romans 8 helps

us to pray. When in the midst of our sin and

our suffering, we don't even know what to pray,

but God gives grace upon grace to come alongside

of us, even when you don't know what to do. And

I've asked you questions to consider on your

heart as you respond to life, but the beauty

of God is that God comes alongside of you and

me to comfort us, to console us, and to guide

us, even when we don't know what to do. And what

he invites you to do, even if you don't know

what to do today, even if you can't think. of

what the next step of faith is, is to cast yourself

on this God, to cast yourself on this living

and reigning and returning Jesus who says, blessed

are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Will you look away from yourself? Will you look

away from your circumstances? Will you give yourself

and your circumstances to God, looking to him

and to his comfort in Jesus and Jesus alone?

Please pray with me.