We have a tragedy today, and that is that people less and less are mourning over sin. And Dr. Tony Evans says, if we don't, that's a dangerous sign. If your sin and my sin is not hurting me because I've hurt God, it's because I'm not close to God. This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr.
Tony Evans. It's natural to mourn a death. But Dr. Evans says it ought to be just as natural to mourn the sin that infects our lives. Today he explains how that emotional burden can lead to an enormous blessing as he takes us to the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5.
The Beatitudes is designed to deal with real blessing. How to be truly blessed. not merely externally blessed with stuff, but to have internal well-being regardless of external circumstances. We've already explained that you can be You can have stuff and not be blessed. You can have stuff and not.
Not really be blessing because there's no air on the inside, the inside. is flawed. Therefore, limiting or losing The real meaning of blessing, although blessing. can include things. We have seen that blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those.
Who declare spiritual bankruptcy. That leads him to the second beatitude: Blessed are they that mourn. For they shall be comforted. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. This is the natural outgrowth.
Of Beatitude Number One. If you go to the bank and find out. That you have no money, it'll make you want to cry. The word mourn means internal anguish or internal agony. We all want to escape.
From agony, like running from a thunderstorm. We want to get hidden from those things that cause us pain. But Jesus says in the Beatitude that if you ever learn to cry right, More. Be internally sad. You're on your way, Dorbless.
What does he mean? What does he want me to cry about? Why does God want me to be sad? You see, the thing that should cause the believer pain when it comes to sin is that they've hurt the heart. of God.
We have a tragedy today. And that is that people less and less are mourning over sin. They're excusing sin, they're procrastinating, dealing with sin, they're calling it everything but sin so that they don't have to treat it like sin. He says, Blessed are those who mourn. Over the their sin over There.
Wickedness.
Now we still sin. Even though we're Christians, we still sin. But the spirit about the sin should be different. We should hate the presence of sin in our lives. You know that people today hate it less.
Because they ignore it more. Stuff that shouldn't be funny, we laugh at. Stuff. That would make God. Be in pain.
We think it's cute. When I was watching the movie The Passion of Christ. The scene that grabbed me the most. was that one teardrop that came down when Jesus Christ bore our sins on the cross. And heaven dropped down that one tear of all the scenes.
That one grabbed me most because it revealed the heart of God. At having to crucify his son for my sin and your sin. God had to shed a tear. That caused an earthquake. If you remember the movie...
When he looked at his son dying on the cross. Pour our sins in our place because that's what sin does. It makes God mourn.
Well, if God is living in you. And sin makes God cry. When sin is operating in us, We should be crying along with God.
So if God is crying and we're still laughing. If God is crying and we're not feeling it, It means we have drifted so far from God, we don't feel what he feels, hurt where he hurts, think like he thinks. and we have become accustomed to this age. He says, and that is the loss of blessing. Why?
Because that's the loss of fellowship. In God, there is no darkness at all. No. It's not that you don't sin when you're a Christian. It's that when you are walking in fellowship with God, you feel that sin.
And that sin causes anguish and pain when you've rebelled or when you've broken fellowship with God through sin.
So, what he's saying is, blessed are those who mourn, that is, who are sad over the sin leading them to repentance, not simply because of the consequences, but because of the cause. I have heard the heart of God. It's not just that I've done something wrong, although it includes that, it's that I made God cry. I have made God. Cry.
Because he saved me to deliver me from sin, and now I'm being comfortable in sin. I have made God cry. In the Bible There's a lot of crying over sin. Jesus looked over Jerusalem. And the Bible says he wept.
And he said, How often I would have gathered you like a hen gathers her little one, but you wouldn't. You wouldn't let me. And the Bible says. He cried. Ezekiel chapter 9, verse 4 says that the godly weep over sin.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, 21, he says, I mourned over the sin in the Corinthian church because you were sinning and not repenting. And this church made me cry. Paul said about himself, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death, this contaminated flesh? He could only scream out. Daniel in Daniel chapter nine.
Wept. And cried out about the sin of Israel and his own sin. Isaiah said, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm coming apart at the seams because I got a dirty mouth and I live among a people who have dirty mouths and it hurts.
People who are close to God mourn. Over their sin.
So, if your sin and my sin is not hurting me. Because I've hurt God, it's because I'm not close to God. Because I can assure you, God is weeping inside over our sin. And it's a cold person who sees somebody they love crying. It says that's tough.
God weeps over our sin because He died for our sins. People would tear their clothes and sit in sackcloth and ashes because when they came to the realization, my sin. Had just messed me up, hadn't just messed folk up I love, I got God crying inside of me. See that? That changes the The depth of it.
The psalmist says in Psalm 119. He makes the statement in verse 136: My eyes shed tears because people don't keep God's law. He says, when I see all the sin around me. Ah, cry. We live in a day when people don't want to hear that.
When people want to hear about happy, and God's going to bless you, and He's going to give you a new car, He's going to give you a new house. We don't live in a day when people Are hearing You are making, I am making God. Cry. He's shedding tears in my soul. Because of my refusal to address sin.
It's not. It's not The fact that I have it. It's my refusal to address it. God knows that we're still in the flesh. But my refusal to repent because godly sorrow leads you to turning the other way, my refusal to want to deal with it.
Today, we laugh at it, we ignore it, we justify it. You say, why do we do that? Because we put our souls in the freezer. and let them become hard. Our hearts have become petrified.
and hardened.
So we don't feel it. Have you ever noticed? When you have a sin. The more you do it, the less you feel it. You know?
The more you do it, When the first time you did it, you felt real bad. You did it again, you felt. Bad. And then again, you felt kind of bad. Then it went to it ain't all that bad.
And then it went to everybody doing it. See your your view of it changed as you got more hardened in it. The Bible calls that a hard heart. He says, Blessed are they who are still soft enough. and sensitive enough.
To hurt. over their sin. Because they know their sin has hurt their God and their relationship with their God. That's godly sorrow. That's the sorrow that God is looking for in his people, but it's also the road to blessing because he says, blessed are they that mourn.
Dr. Evans will talk about how the Lord comforts repentant people when he continues our message in just a moment. But first, I want to tell you about our current featured resource, Tony's inspirational teaching series, How to Be Truly Blessed. This 10-message collection unpacks what Jesus meant in the Beatitudes. helping you discover what it really looks like to live under God's favor.
Along with it, we'll send you Dr. Evans' devotional book, Praying Through the Names of Jesus. In it, you'll explore the many titles Scripture uses to describe the Lord, each one offering insight into His character, His power, and the way He relates to us. You'll also find guided prayers and room to journal your own reflections, giving you a fresh way to experience God personally.
Now this special offer is only available for a limited time, so don't wait. Make your request online when you visit Tonyevans.org. or reach out to our resource center any time of the day or night. At 1-800-832-22. That's 1-800-800-3222.
I'll repeat our contact information for you after Tony brings us the second part of today's lesson. Let's join him. Blessed are they who recognize their sin, recognize they hurt God with it, and are seeking to confess and repent of it so that they can have fellowship with God. Who brings real blessing? Part of this is related to a misunderstanding of grace.
Let me clarify. The Bible says, grow in grace. How do you know if you're growing in grace? Let me give you the simple answer. The rise in your sensitivity to sin.
You know, you're growing in grace when you're more sensitive to the presence of sin in your life. Why? Because the grace of God was given to us to teach us to deny ungodliness. Titus chapter 2.
So, as sensitivity to sin rises, your understanding and experience of grace rises with it. Many of us are not Experiencing more of God's grace because we're not growing in grace, proven by our lack of sensitivity to the presence of sin in our lives. I walked up to a car in a parking lot not too long ago, and as I got near the car, a voice came out of the locked, parked, empty car saying, Please stand back. Anybody ever run into a car like that? You walk up to the car and it says, please stand back.
I'm looking for who's talking to me. This car is saying, please stand back. Technology has become so advanced. That just getting close. Sends off a signal to the sensor of the alarm in the car to serve notice.
You don't have to be messing with the door, handle, the window. If you in the vicinity. I feel ya. Please stand. BACKS!
Technology has increased sensitivity as it relates to human presence around an automobile. The increase in grace should increase sensitivity to the fact that we have hurt the heart of God and so we hear his voice. Please go back. But because we're not growing in grace. The alarm doesn't even go off.
Or if it goes off, we don't hear it. Because we're not growing in spiritual sensitivity. We just want to get pumped up. We just want the excitement. We want the fun.
But we don't want the intimacy. And the true blessing. That comes. When sin is being addressed in the life. of the believer.
All of us, as parents, are insulted. When we're talking serious and our kids are laughing. Because we're being deadly serious. And they giggling. Many a mate is upset with their other mate when you're trying to talk serious and they're taking it lightly.
They're not taking it at the depth that you are expressing it. And what that does is break fellowship. It breaks intimacy. Blessed are they who mourn. Blessed are they who are grieved over the sin in their lives because they know Jesus Christ, God, is weeping inside your soul.
And you don't want to cause him any more pain. You don't want to give him any more reason to shed tears. Mourners become ultimately happy people. Why? Because when they repent, they are forgiven.
Do you remember Peter? Peter said, I'm not going to deny you. Everybody else may deny you, but I'm not going to deny you. Jesus said, Peter, before Tomorrow morning is time. Before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.
The cockroach. The Bible says after he denied him. Peter went out and wept. Bitterly. He cried hard.
Because he had broken the Savior's heart. He cried like a baby. He failed. Miserably. But guess what?
The Bible says Jesus came to him. On the Sea of Galilee. Wait a minute now. Jesus came to him. On the Sea of Galilee, Jesus came in and cooked him breakfast.
The Bible says he's cooking fish and eggs. He's cooking breakfast up on the shore. Peter, come on in. Have some breakfast. But wait a minute, I just denied you.
Yeah, but I saw your mourning. I saw you mourning over your sin. I saw you feeling the pain of a broken relationship. And blessed are they who mourn, because I'm going to track them down. I'm going to find them and I'm going to cook for them and I'm going to serve them and then I'm going to restore them and then I'm going to use them because I saw that they mourned over their sin.
Blessed are those who are in spiritual pain because of sin. Who then, leading to repentance, gives God an invitation to comfort them. The prodigal son got comforted by the father when he came home. He said, I have sinned. The father said, okay, let's get the robe, let's get the ring, let's get the sandals, let's get the fatted calf.
And let's party. He comforted him. He didn't beat him up. He comforted him. He comforted him because he faced his sin and was sorrowful over his sin and was returning to the Father, and the Father rather than beating him up.
Through a party. God is not against a party. He just wants it after the morning. He doesn't want to give a party. the people who don't want.
who don't recognize the effect of sin on their spiritual relationship with God. And that's why we're not having power. That's not why we're not getting answered prayer. That's why we're not having peace. That's why we're living in depression because we don't mourn over the sin.
We just want the solution. Without the morning. That is the inner agony. That leads to repentance. A heart is too hard, too cold.
You've been in the sin too long. You've been away too long. And you don't want to fake crying. You don't want a fake mourning. You want it to be the real deal so you can get the real comfort.
But maybe it's not there because you've been away from God too long.
Well, I don't know a lot about cooking, but but When the meet. If not tender. It needs to be tenderized. I hear a couple of ways to do that. First way is to season it and let it sit.
So that the seasoning gets into the meat and softens the meat over time, so that the meat becomes tender because it's hanging out with the right stuff on it for this extended amount of time, causing softening to take place in that which was either more brittle or hard, or it just wasn't soft like it. See, some of our hearts have been away from God so long that they're not soft, so they need to get seasoned. Why, you say, how do I get my heart? See, you got to hang out at the cross. There's only one place that can soften the hard heart.
You got to hang out at the cross. The cross has got to become your hangout. You got to spend time around Calvary. Why do you spend time around? Because that's why Jesus died.
Jesus died for our sins. He was wounded for our transgression. Paul says, Don't ever leave the cross. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I.
It's Christ who lives in me. The life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It is the cross. See, when believers stop hanging around the cross, They lose the seasoning and the heart gets hard. See, you should never keep the cross 2,000 years old.
As long as you want to remember that he died 2,000 years for me, ago, for me, so that one day in the future I can go to heaven, you didn't skip the cross. The cross is supposed to be a way of life. That's why we have communion. We have communion so that you can be reminded of the cross. Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me.
Don't forget the cross. Don't forget me. Don't forget why I died. Don't forget why I arose. Don't lose sight of the cross.
Because if you lose sight of the cross, the heart can't help but to get hardened. When you've had food hanging around on a plate too long, when it's getting all crusty, you know what you do? You soak it? You put it in the water and all you do is let it hang out there for a while. You don't have to do nothing.
Just let it hang out in the water with suds in it. Just let it hang out there, hang out there. And if it hangs out there long enough, stuff you used to have to scrub away now slides away. It slides away because of the place you had it hanging out. You had it hanging out in the right location in the right heap, and it took care of the issue itself.
If you and I would hang out around the cross more, we would find out God's softening our hearts so that we can now respond to him because our hearts would no longer be hardened. If you lose sight of the cross, your heart must get hard. We need to return to the cross. I need to return to the cross. Each of us needs to return to the cross so that the heart stays soft, the meat stays tender.
And not get hardened. But I hear there's another way to tenderize. You take a mallet and beat it. Right, right, right. I don't know what it's called, but I've just seen it.
You beat me. You're going to beat the toughness out of it.
Okay, bam, bam, bam, bam. Oh, you ain't soft yet? Bam, bam, bam, bam. Still a little rough. Bam, bam, bam.
Bam, bam, and you beat it. the meat gets the message, I'm not gonna mess with you, cook you, or eat you until you have been made soft enough to please me.
So you have two choices. You can go to the seasoning of the cross. and let the cross do it or you can let God do it his own way. Oh, you don't want to cry? Bam, bam, bam, bam.
Oh, you ain't crying yet. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Oh, you don't feel it yet? Bam, bam. God is saying, I can't comfort you, tell you more.
I can season you at the cross, or I can hammer you with discipline, hammer you with consequences, hammer you with circumstances until I make you cry. But it's not until you cry that I can comfort you. Blessed are they that mourn. For they shall be comforted. Dr.
Tony Evans, talking about a healthy kind of grief Christians ought to be seeking out. And he'll return with a closing thought in just a moment. But first, for the sake of time, we've had to edit out a good portion of Tony's message today. If you'd like to hear the full-length version of this lesson, just visit our website at tonyevans.org and look for details on the message called Blessed are the Spiritual Mourners. Better yet, take advantage of our current special offer.
For a limited time, when you make a contribution to the alternative, we'll send you Tony's 10-message series, How to Be Truly Blessed, along with his devotional book, Praying Through the Names of Jesus. It's our way of saying thank you for helping us keep this teaching on the air in your community and beyond. Just visit TonyEvans.org today to make your request. Or call our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222. where our team is standing by twenty four seven.
Once again, that's 1-800-800-3222. For many people in our culture, meek equals weak. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans will disconnect those descriptions as he talks about what genuine strength really is. Right now he's back with this closing thought.
Some of the people you gotta hang out with have to be people who will confront you with your sin. It just can't be everybody going to make you feel good and everybody going to talk to you, oh, you know, well, you know, I had that problem once too, and we all have that problem. And no, you need to hang out with some people who some of the time say, you know, that's wrong, that's ungodly, that's unrighteous, that doesn't please the Lord, so they can hurry up, get you mourning, so you can hurry up and get comforted. Blessed are they who mourn. For not until they cry will they be comforted.
