Serious Joy

Last week we began studying the Sermon on the Mount and we spent some time laying out some foundational principles for how to interpret and apply this sermon of Jesus. We also spent some time considering the first of these many Beatitudes that open the Sermon on the Mount.

Today we're going to consider the second Beatitude. Blessed are those who mourn. I'm gonna invite you to stand with me in honor of God's Word and we will read this morning from Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 4. Matthew 5 verses 1 through 4. Hear now the word of the Lord.

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. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Let's pray together. God we have a natural aversion to sorrow and mourning and yet these words that we just read, words that come from you and are perfectly true, tell us that our joy, our comfort can only come through great sorrow and mourning. So would you please give us grace today to embrace this truth in order that your name might be glorified through the unspeakable joy that you give us as we obey your word. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Be seated. I love the Olympics. The excitement of watching an athlete in his prime, an athlete who has trained and devoted himself to one goal for years is competing for a medal and it's do-or-die time. One of the competitions that impresses me the most I think is the marathon. I remember watching the Olympic women's marathon several years ago there was a Romanian runner who had built up a very comfortable lead going into the last six or seven miles of the race but you could you could see that she was straining. Her muscles had just about reached their limit and and there was a grimace on her face as her mind was trying to manipulate her body just to finish strong. Well the commentator who had evidently run the marathon himself was telling us what was going on in her head as she was struggling to finish the race and he said that if she could just get within sight of the stadium that she would win. He said being able to see the end of the race gives you a shot of adrenaline that spurs you on to the end. Well the stadium came into view and sure enough she never slowed down.

She ended up winning the marathon finishing well ahead of everyone else. The goal of victory, the anticipated dream of winning the gold had enabled her to push through the pain and the agony and the misery and finish with joy. The verse that we're looking at today is not a fun verse probably no one here would choose this to be their life verse. It's not the kind of scripture that you would typically hang up on your wall at home because it's painful. It's a hard truth. Grief and sorrow are not paths that any of us would naturally choose.

In fact we do just the opposite. We run from sorrow but just like there is a goal that makes the pain and agony worthwhile in a marathon so here there is an outcome set forth in this difficult verse that makes the pain and the sorrow and the mourning worthwhile. So as we dig into these words of Jesus I want to encourage you this morning to keep your eyes fixed on the joy at the end of the race. Don't yield to the temptation to try and short circuit the process. You know if that Romanian marathon runner had jumped onto one of the TV crew vehicles and ridden to the finish line that would not have been victory.

She would have been the first to cross the finish line but she would not have won the race. If you want your joy, your comfort to be genuine you've got to endure the sorrow. Now the truth of Matthew 5-4 is not only difficult to accept it's difficult to understand because it's really a paradox isn't it? Through sorrow comes comfort. Through pain comes joy.

This goes against the grain. It goes against our natural reasoning and yet the meaning of Christ's words here are perfectly clear. If you want happiness that transcends circumstance, if you want real joy you'd better be prepared to go through some serious grief because that's the pathway to real joy. Every man, woman, girl, and boy wants to be happy. We're created that way. We're made for joy and the deepest most significant joy we can experience comes from fully delighting in God. But we've messed that up haven't we?

We've messed it up. Our sin disrupts our desire and ability to delight in God. If we are to know perfect happiness, if we are to experience purest pleasure we have to deal with sin.

We have to eradicate it. As long as we have the slightest delight in sin or tolerance for sin in our lives complete and perfect joy is impossible. So here's the truth that Jesus is conveying to us in Matthew 5-4. He's telling us that a high view of joy demands a serious view of sin. A high view of joy demands a serious view of sin.

Matthew 5-4 promises blessedness. In other words happiness that transcends everything to those who mourn and then it gives a reason why these mourners are blessed. It's because mourners are the only candidates for comfort.

Mourners are the only candidates for comfort. A couple of weeks ago in our Sunday School video series that we've been going through R.C. Sproul made a similar point regarding courage. If you were there you'll remember he said that the prerequisite for courage is fear.

There's no need for courage if there's nothing to fear. And in a similar way there is no need for comfort unless there's sorrow. It's only those who mourn that need and receive comfort.

So with these thoughts in mind let's let's jump in. And the first question I'd like for us to consider is this in what sense are we to mourn? In what sense is is Jesus saying we need to mourn here? Is this blessedness and this comfort promised to everyone who sorrows without exception?

Or is something more specific in view here? What kind of mourning brings comfort? It's interesting to note that in New Testament Greek there are at least ten different words that describe mourning or sorrow and the actions that accompany sorrow. And each of these words communicates different nuances of meaning.

Sometimes even the same word can have different shades of meaning depending on the context in which it is used. There are certain kinds of griefs that are actually condemned in Scripture and not all grief is created equal. So we can't say that the promise of comfort given in Matthew 5 4 is guaranteed for any and all who mourn. There's a specific type of mourning that Jesus has in mind here.

Let me briefly mention three ways this idea of mourning or sorrowing can be used and I think this will help us hone in on the sense in which Jesus is using the word. First there's what we might call natural sorrow. Natural sorrow. This would be the kind of grief a person experiences when he's suffered some kind of temporal loss.

Maybe an unexpected financial deficit, shattered expectations, the breakup of a marriage, the death of a loved one. These are things that are all part of our natural existence. They're temporal.

They're earthly. Nevertheless they cause great pain and sorrow. This would have been the kind of sorrow that the disciples experienced after Jesus's crucifixion. We read in Mark 16 10 the account of Mary Magdalene after the resurrected Jesus had appeared to her. She goes to the disciples to tell them the news and it says in Mark that she went to them as they mourned. That's the same Greek word that Matthew 5 uses as they mourned and wept. The disciples were experiencing a deep natural sorrow over the death of a loved one. This kind of sorrow occurs all the time in the course of life and we're all familiar with natural sorrow. It's a good thing to mourn this way and God gives us his grace and comfort during those times of intense natural sorrow, but this isn't the kind of mourning that Christ is referring to in the Beatitudes.

Now let me just stop for a minute and explain something very important. I was sharing this truth several years ago with a group of people and after I finished an elderly couple whose son had recently died came up to me and and they explained that they thought I was saying God doesn't comfort us when we experience natural grief and sorrow. I want to be very clear I'm not saying God doesn't comfort us when we grieve the death of a loved one or when a bad circumstance happens to our our life, our family.

All I'm saying is that this this natural sorrow is not the kind of sorrow that Jesus is directly referring to here in the second Beatitude. To be sure God comforts those who mourn over a death, over a physical illness, over the loss of a job. God's God's care and concern for his children is not limited merely to to their spiritual health and well-being.

No, God God made us physical creatures. He put us in a temporal existence in time and space and so all of these spheres both physical and spiritual, the visible and invisible, the natural and the supernatural matter to God. He is the God of all comfort Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 1 3. There is most definitely a divine comfort available to those who experience this natural sorrow. But I should qualify even that statement by pointing out that God's comfort even to those who who sorrow in this natural sense is always mediated through Jesus Christ. Without Christ as your Savior, as your representative before the throne of God, there is no guarantee of comfort natural or otherwise. But in Jesus Christ there is comfort both in this life and in the in the life to come. If you're experiencing temporal natural sorrow this morning there is comfort to be found in Jesus Christ.

So run to him. At the same time, and this is the point that I'm trying to make here, there is a sadness that should grieve our hearts more than death itself. And as we will see it's comfort in the midst of this sort of sadness that Christ promises to give. Before we get to that though there is another kind of mourning that we often confuse with the kind that Jesus has here in in in view here in Matthew 5. We'll call this sinful sorrow. Paul describes this type of mourning in 2nd Corinthians 7 9.

In fact let's turn there and read it together. 2nd Corinthians 7 Paul is addressing the Christians in Corinth and he's referring to his previous letter he's written to them in which he confronted them with a particular sin. And he says in verse 9 of 2nd Corinthians 7, I rejoice not because you were grieved but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret whereas worldly grief produces death. There's a brand of sorrow that is wicked and useless. It does not produce the comfort that Matthew 5 4 promises.

In fact just the opposite it produces death. It brings nothing but death. The primary characteristic of this sinful sorrow is the fact that it does not lead to repentance from sin. It does not result in a change of a person's attitude towards sin. It's the sorrow of someone who's merely grieved by the consequences of sin. Let's say a person gets caught in a moral failure.

Perhaps they lose their job because of it or lose their spouse over it. They become depressed and sorrowful over the outcome or the effect of their sin but they don't hate the sin. They hate the fact that sin has wrecked their life but they don't repent.

They have yet to realize the vileness and the horridness of their sin. Folks this kind of sorrow is itself a sin and scripture is full of examples of this. You remember the story of Cain and Abel how Cain murdered his brother in cold blood and when the sin finally caught up with him God punished him by saying when you work the ground it shall no longer yield to you its strength.

You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Now Cain's response to this was not repentance it was sinful sorrow. He said to God my punishment is greater than I can bear.

There was there was no recognition that he deserved far worse. He was only bummed that his act of murder was going to have a negative impact on him for the rest of his life. This is not the kind of mourning over sin that leads to comfort and to blessedness. Or think of Esau who refused to live by faith would only live by sight. Hebrews 12 17 subs up Esau's life this way for you know that afterward when Esau desired to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no chance to repent though he sought it with tears.

Remember the story of King Saul he he forsook God and so God forsook him by taking the kingdom of Israel away from him. Saul's life comes to a bleak end when he realizes he's lost the battle against the Philistines and in hopelessness and grief he commits suicide by falling on his own sword. Saul's grief was not a sorrow that led to repentance. He died without hope without comfort because he refused to repent. Perhaps the prime example of this sinful sorrow would have to be Judas Iscariot a disciple who betrayed Jesus for 30 measly pieces of silver. Matthew 27 describes the last few moments of Judas's life moments that were filled with sorrow but not the kind of sorrow that leads to repentance and life and comfort.

The gospel writer says when Judas his betrayer saw that Jesus was condemned he changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders saying I have sinned by betraying innocent blood they said what is that to us see to it yourself and throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple he departed and he went and hanged himself. That is mere remorse that that kind of sorrow that that leads to death this isn't the kind of mourning Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5 because there's no comfort without repentance. So what kind of sorrow is Jesus referring to? Well he's referring to godly sorrow over sin.

This is made evident by the context of verse 4. The Beatitudes as we pointed out last week are a list of spiritual traits spiritual qualities that describe the Christian and so Christ I believe is not referring to natural sorrow but spiritual sorrow and it's apparent that he's referring to sorrow over sin in light of the previous Beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are they that mourn.

You see the connection between those first two Beatitudes. Poverty of spirit refers to the the moral bankruptcy of man he has nothing to offer God that would make him acceptable he's spiritually deficient he's inadequate and the only thing he contributes to his spiritual state is filthiness and defilement and impurity this is the state of man's spirit without God. So when a person by God's grace recognizes that he or she is truly poor in spirit that that they're utterly bankrupt before God the automatic response is deep intense sorrow over that condition. That's the sort of mourning Jesus describes. He's saying blessed are those who mourn over their poverty of spirit for they will be comforted. Jesus isn't referring to the natural sorrow that we experience whenever we suffer some temporal loss he's certainly not referring to the sinful sorrow that we experience when we suffer the consequence of disobedience but refuse to repent he's referring to the godly sorrow over sin that leads to repentance a turning away from the very sin that is causing the grief that's the kind of mourning that promises comfort there are numerous examples of this kind of mourning in Scripture perhaps the most captivating illustration comes from the life of Peter we all remember his bold assertion that he would be loyal to Jesus to the death and yet Jesus prophesied that before the rooster had finished crowing he would have denied his Lord when this prophecy came true the Bible tells us that Peter remembered the saying of Jesus before the rooster crows you will deny me three times and he went out and wept bitterly Peter was experiencing intense sorrow over personal sin he saw the wickedness of his own heart and it brought bitter bitter grief now we know that Peter eventually repented his relationship with Christ was restored his loyalty to Christ was tested countless times after that but he proved faithful even to the point of suffering a martyr's death his sorrow was not over the loss of status or or reputation he was grieved over his broken relationship with the Lord whom he loved more than anything so the morning referred to in the Beatitudes is a sorrow over sin and that sin is typically our own personal sin but sometimes there's another sense in which we can experience godly sorrow over sin in a general sort of way not the specific sins of my own heart but the presence of sin in general and I think we see Christ mourning over sin in this way Jesus had no personal sin over which to mourn but he was surrounded with sins the effect of sin every day and it grieved his soul for example he wept over the death of Lazarus even though he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead he wept over the city of Jerusalem why Martin Lloyd-Jones gives us the answer he says this is why our Lord mourned this is why he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief this is why he wept at the grave of Lazarus he saw this horrid ugly foul thing called sin and sin which had come into life and introduced death into life and had upset life and made life unhappy he wept because of that he saw the city of Jerusalem rejecting him and bringing upon itself its own damnation and he wept because of that he mourned over it and so does his true follower the one who has received his nature in other words he must mourn because of the very nature of sin itself because it has ever entered into the world and has led to these terrible results indeed he must mourn because he has some understanding of what sin means to God of God's utter abhorrence and hatred of it this terrible thing that would stab as it were into the heart of God if it could this rebelliousness and arrogance of man the result of listening to Satan it relieves him and he mourns because of it so there is a sense in which we mourn not only over our own poverty of spirits specifically but we mourn over the devastating effects of sin all around us generally humanity is walking around enjoying their rebellion worshiping at the altar of of trinkets and shadows oblivious to the fact that an eternal weight of glory could be theirs and that knowledge should break our hearts thank God that this second beatitude doesn't stop at the word mourn there is grace in this verse sorrow is not the end there is the promise of comfort to those who mourn blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted and this really is the main point of the second beatitude in fact of all the beatitudes it's it's about the the joy of the blessedness of the Christian life as we think about the comfort that's promised here in Matthew 5 4 let me first point out that this is a passive verb in other words it means there's something being done to us we're not the agents doing the comforting we can't comfort ourselves remember we're poor in spirit we're spiritually bankrupt theologians like to call this verb a divine passive that is God is the agent who brings about the comfort we do the mourning he does the comforting and yet how often do we try to comfort ourselves in our sin we weren't made to mourn we were made for joy that's how God created us and so we cut when we come under conviction of sin we've got to find comfort we've got to find relief from the sorrow and the conviction so we embrace through repentance the comfort that God gives us or we try to fabricate our own false comfort as I thought about this this past week about my own tendencies I realized that when I'm trying to delay repentance and produce my own relief from conviction I often run to one of two options I either run to distraction or a hide behind denial we get pretty good at distracting ourselves from dealing with sin don't we sometimes we run to entertainment or or leisure as long as I'm amusing myself I don't have to think about the condition of my heart before God or if we want to feel really good about ourselves we run to busyness we throw ourselves into our work or into some project sometimes a very virtuous project but this too occupies our minds enough to keep us from having to dwell on the misery that sin is causing oftentimes though these distractions quit working and we're not quite ready to give up the fight so we employ the denial technique we either deny the sinfulness of sin by redefining sin saying things like I'm not angry I'm just stressed or it's not lost its curiosity or I'm not bitter at you I was just hurt we deny the reality of conviction by pretending to be happy pretentious joy we've all done it haven't we we have a knockdown drag out on the way to church as we drive and we get there we're seething and angry and and just full of disgust at how we have been mistreated then we get out of the car and the church parking lot and all of a sudden we're spiritual we put on a happy face we pretend to be full of the joy of the Lord when just underneath the surface we're wrestling with our own ugly sinfulness it's pretentious joy it's a denial technique that we use to manufacture our own comfort what kind of comfort is real what kind of comfort does God give us it's not the kind of false comfort that comes from distraction it's not the kind of comfort that comes from downplaying sin or from pretending to be joyful what kind of comfort is promised here AW pink describes three distinct ways that God extends comfort to those who mourn over their sinful condition first he identifies the divine consolation that follows conversion the divine consolation that follows conversion when God begins to call an unbeliever out of darkness into life he puts that person under deep conviction of sin and as that person is converted from sinner to saint the depth of guilt that he has experienced prior to knowing Christ is suddenly overcome by this incredible unexpected joy over the knowledge that his sins are forgiven this is the kind of comfort that Christ spoke of when he said come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me from gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls my yoke is easy and my burden is light folks if you do not know Christ but you do know the misery and the pain and the guilt of your own sinful state before God Jesus Christ says come to me and I'll give you rest go to Christ and you'll find the comfort that you so desperately long for but there's another kind of comfort that's promised it's the continual comfort of the believer by the Holy Spirit the continual comfort of the believer by the Holy Spirit when we're converted to Christ we have a new standing before God we are forever righteous in his sight because of the finished work of Christ on our behalf but at the same time we're not yet free from sins presence the Christians still struggles with sin we hate sin and yet we often find ourselves harboring and treasuring our sin we love holiness and yet that holiness often eludes us this the struggle ought to cause us to mourn if we're in Christ we will grieve over the sin tendencies that still reside within us Paul knew this struggle all too well he describes it at length in Romans 7 but even in the midst of this struggle a struggle that's gonna last for the rest of our earthly lives there is comfort Paul says in Romans 7 24 wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death and we like Paul realize a wretchedness we realize how enslaved we are at times to this body's desires and we grieve but not as those who are without hope because our grief causes us to look again to Christ and we say with Paul thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord so there is this ongoing cycle in the life of the believer of conviction of sin followed by grief and sorrow over that sin followed by repentance followed by joy and the consolation of Christ but then lastly there is a final comfort that awaits every Christian the comfort of all comforts Paul refers to this as the blessed hope this comfort will come when we leave this world behind in and are forever done with sin John describes discomfort in Revelation 21 4 he says God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away behold God will make all things new so we have this threefold comfort the comfort we receive at conversion of sins forgiven the comfort we receive throughout our journey in this life as we are refined and and made more and more like Jesus and then ultimately the final comfort will receive when God eradicates pain and death and sorrow forever our blessed hope as we close this morning and think about how to specifically apply this message to our lives let me mention two things I think will be key to our finding lasting comfort in real joy first of all we need to take sin seriously we need to take sin seriously our text says blessed are those who mourn Luke's gospel the parallel passage to this puts it in the negative it says woe to you who laugh at sin now for you shall mourn and weep sin is not something to laugh at it's not something to be ignored it's something to mourn over and we live certainly in a culture that likes sarcasm and lightheartedness when it comes to sin but folks sin is not a joke it's a destroyer of joy we need to learn to take sin seriously and deal with it properly so let's be very careful not to laugh at sin Jonathan Edwards had a list of 70 resolutions that he lived by and every time I read these I'm just convicted by my own lack of spiritual fervor and maturity his 37th resolution relates to this need to take sin seriously let me read it to you Edwards says resolved to inquire every night as I'm going to bed wherein I have been negligent what sin I have committed and wherein I have denied myself I think that's a great application of this verse if we're gonna mourn over sin we've got to deliberately and regularly consider the state of our soul what if we like Edwards spent time every night asking God to search us and show us the depth of our sin and then spent time mourning over the joy that we have forfeited because of that sin but folks don't stop there don't stop at mourning over your sin Jesus didn't stop there he said blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted so take sin seriously but don't ever forget to look to Christ we are to deplore our sin but we'll never find comfort for our souls by looking at ourselves the sinfulness that we so deplore about ourselves ought to make us look to Christ and it is in the looking to Christ that we find comfort and the blessedness that is promised here in Matthew 5 4 Hebrews 12 1 through 4 says therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood a high view of joy requires a serious view of sin so strive against sin mourn over it and then look to Jesus alone for comfort let's pray father thank you for the promise of comfort to those who mourn may we be among those who mourn as we should not over the mere consequences of sin but over the shame and disgrace our sin brings upon you our Redeemer our Lord and over the pain and suffering that our sin brought upon your holy son the Lord Jesus Christ may the comfort we receive from Christ truly make us lose our taste for sin more and more and fill us with the eternal happiness that only you can give we pray in Jesus name amen