Kingdom Living - Those Who Mourn

I think it's obvious for us that the high point of what we do here on a Sunday morning is to be in His Word. And so that's why I faithfully always come to this place and I say, "Please turn in your Bible to Matthew, Chapter 5." So please do that. Please take your Bible and turn back with me to Matthew, Chapter 5. We are in our series through the Sermon on the Mount and we have titled this series, The Extraordinary Christian Life. This is a verse by verse, sometimes word by word study through the Sermon on the Mount. And we're just going to take our dear sweet time so that we can get all that the Lord wants us to have.

Now I believe we've started well in dividing this first section of the Sermon on the Mount. We know the first section is the beatitudes starting in verse 3 on down to verse 12. Now when I say started well, I mean that we have thoroughly divided verse 3. We took our time. I took two messages to divide verse 3 and I did that purposefully. Now we must remember what our Lord is saying here in verse 3. Of all of the many resources that I study, all of them say the very same thing, that verse 3 is the key to all of Christ's teaching, not just in the beatitudes, but in the entire Sermon itself. Now let me explain what I mean.

First of all, no one is in the Kingdom unless they're poor in spirit. You cannot be a true Christian unless you have been broken and made to see your true condition before God. Now this comes through the new birth. If you've never been poor in spirit, well then you're not a true Bible Christian. And then second, being poor in spirit is the fundamental characteristic of citizens within the Kingdom. All of the other Christian characteristics found in the beatitudes flow from this fundamental work within the human heart.

You can't get all that Christ wants to give you here in the beatitudes and even in the Sermon on the Mount unless this characteristic is a part of your life. So simply being poor in spirit is the key to entering the Kingdom and it is the key to Kingdom living. We move on to see that verse 3 is the gateway to everything that Christ is teaching in the beatitudes. It's the gateway or the key to everything within the Sermon on the Mount. That's why we took our time with two messages to make sure that we have a solid, firm understanding of verse 3.

Now before we can really turn our attention to verse 4, I want to go back to something that I shared at the end of last week's message. I gave you three tips, I might call them expectations. These are three tips or expectations when we are seeking to live out the beatitudes. I said that you will be called a fool by the world. We need to understand that. The lost world will call us a fool and then you will be misunderstood by many, even most within the life of the church. It's because this teaching is really so foreign to many in the church today. But you will be encouraged by the few.

You will be encouraged, even joined in this desire by the few. Now here's what I want you to see. Within the beatitudes, Christ is explaining what true kingdom living looks like. We must see that true kingdom living is completely out of step with the world and even out of step with many in the church. This is a new and different way of living because it is the opposite of the world and it's really not the norm in many churches because many churches have become far too worldly. Now let me be a little more specific and this will help you. In verse three, we learn the source of our joy and happiness. It is a work that God does within us.

That work of blessedness comes about when we're truly poor in spirit. We learn that this phrase means we are truly humble beggars on our knees before God. We are broken, we are destitute, we are broken and destitute before our God. And as we relate to God in this way, He works in us. He actually imparts a part of His character to our character and we become more like Him. Therefore He brings about a work of joy and happiness within us. We are blessed. Now what about the world? I made reference to the lost world. Those in the world are prideful and they are arrogant and they are self-serving.

They believe happiness and joy and fulfillment comes from the externals. Money and power and position and prestige and physical beauty, just meeting the desires of the flesh and really and truly the list just goes on and on and on. Now let me take a step back and let's look at a contrast here. The lost live for sin and self. They are the king of their own life. They are the captain of their own ship. They live in a world of darkness. They live in a world of darkness and their world will be judged on that day. The true Christian, he seeks to repent of sin and to crucify self.

The true Christian, their king is Jesus and he is the captain of their ship. And they live in his kingdom possessing kingdom life and the work of the church which is eternal. Now you need to listen closely here to what I say. So perk up. Listen to your pastor. The way we can attain and maintain this life is simply spelled out before us in the Beatitudes. It is a completely new and different way of life. This is true kingdom living. That's why I've used that term throughout the series here. True kingdom living. So together let's get all that the Lord wants to give us as we just progress through these Beatitudes.

Now I want to explain to you my approach with the verse. We're going to divide verse 4. So let's look back at verse 4. It's just a few words. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Now we already know the meaning of the word blessed. We have examined that thoroughly and we're going to examine these two words here in the middle. This word mourn and then this word comforted. And then along the way I will explain to you what Jesus is saying to those in the audience and then I will make application along the way. So let's look at our first major truth in our outline. Number one, what is this word mourn?

That's a very legitimate question. What is the meaning of this word mourn? Now just like in verse 3 with the word poor there is a lot here that we need to see. But before we can see what it is we must examine what it is not. We did this with the word poor. We must examine what it is not. First what this word mourn what it is not. Now there is a natural mourning which all people eventually experience. When we watch our mother or father die then we mourn. I remember when my father-in-law passed away. I saw my wife and her siblings and her mother, her family, they mourned. And of course I mourned along with them at the loss of a loved one.

And when we are forced to grapple with sickness then we mourn. I remember a family who lived next door to brother Keith and their family. They wrestled with a terrible, terrible sickness. They had a little girl who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And they endured a terrible sickness for well over a year. And they mourned during that time of sickness. I saw it and some of us here ministered to that family during that time. When we endure great tragedy in life we may mourn. I remember when I was a small child and my parents had some friends who went through a terrible, terrible divorce.

It was probably the first divorce that I ever saw and knew of and it is etched in my memory. Not only was the man a friend of my dad's but he also worked for my dad. But I vividly remember my parents describing the mourning that the wife went through. She even told my parents that it would have even been better if her husband had died. She mourned greatly because of losing her husband. Now this is a natural mourning. This is something that all people in life will experience someday. Rich or poor no matter the shade of our skin. And this mourning is experienced by Christian people and also the non-Christian alike.

But this is not what Jesus is talking about here in verse 4. This mourning spoken of in verse 4 pertains to people in the kingdom. This only pertains to true Christians. This is why verse 3 is key. Not only is this spoken of for the Christian, this mourning is more than just mourning over death or sickness or tragedy. This mourning is spiritual in nature. This mourning pertains to what kind of living? Kingdom living. So verse 4 applies to those who are in the kingdom. So that leads us to the second observation that I want us to make here. And that's answering the question, what is this word mourning? What's the meaning of this word mourning?

Now in understanding the meaning of the word we need to examine a few details. Actually there are 9 different verbs for the word grief or mourning in the original language in which the New Testament was written. Nine different words for mourning. The one used here in verse 4 is the strongest or some commentators say it is the worst. It is commonly used for death, the death of a loved one. This is a grief which cannot be hidden. It takes hold of one and it will not let them go. It speaks of one who has a broken heart and they cannot control that anguish. They cannot control that brokenness and tears. I give you a physical example.

I remember a time when I found myself in the emergency room. A young man that we had been ministering to had been involved in a terrible automobile accident and we were summoned and we were called and we ended up there in the ER and we were ministering to that young man and he happened to be driving the automobile and although he was hurt, he was not hurt bad. Oh but the one in the vehicle with him was, as a matter of fact, the young man died. And I found myself in that room with that family that I did not know. I found myself in that room with that young man who had passed away. And I watched that mother mourn.

I watched that mother be gripped by grief and I listened to her howl and I listened to her wail and I listened to her cry out in anguish and no word I could say could comfort her. No word that the coroner could say could comfort her. No word that the hospital staff could comfort her. There was only one that could help and it was a family member. You see that beautifully, physically describes what was going on here. But there's another layer to this word here. This is in the present tense and this means that this is not just a one time mourning. It is ongoing. It is continual. It is a part of life. But what are we seeing here?

What are we seeing with this word? The meaning of this word here in verse 4. It is the strongest of words used for grief within the Greek New Testament. It describes a mourning normally associated with the death of a loved one. It can't be hidden or controlled. Out of that grief come great brokenness and tears. But it is ongoing. It will not go away. But this grief is associated. It is connected to those who were in the kingdom, true Christians. But that leads me to a question. How do I know it is associated with those in the kingdom? Remember what we learned back in verse 3. Theirs is the kingdom. It is possessive.

Those of us who are born again, we possess the kingdom. And verse 3 shows us that all that we see in the Beatitudes is connected and associated with those who are born of God. Let's go back and look at verse 3 and verse 4. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Remember the last portion of verse 3 goes along with verse 4. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Well, now we come to a million dollar question. Actually two. What is this mourning attached to?

What is it associated with if it does not have anything to do with physical death, sickness, or tragedy? Well, that brings us to our second major truth in our outline. What do we mourn for? What do we mourn for? Now notice I use the word "we." Why do I use the word "we" here? I said "we" because this pertains again to those who are born again, those of us who are in the kingdom. We possess the kingdom, so this was written for us. Now in all my study of all the resources that I consulted, they all really made application of this mourning in different ways. They were all similar. But for me, all of their insights really just came together.

Really they were mixed together with my insights. So my insights here really just come from them and from mine, and it's just all mixed together. But the question, what do we mourn for? Now there are four areas of life that I want to speak to and I want to apply or attach this mourning to. First we see that we must mourn over personal sin. We must mourn over personal sin. Here is where we see how the beatitudes are connected and why. The Bible commentator D.A. Carson says verse 4 naturally flows out of verse 3. He goes on to say that mournfulness can be seen as a counterpart to poverty and spirit, and that is so true.

We are humble servants before God. We are total beggars before God. We are broken in spirit and enabled by God to see ourselves accurately. In that work we see our sin, the very sin which put Christ on the cross, the very sin that the perfect Son of God had to die for. And that very sin which put Christ on the cross is the very sin that we must be broken over. It's not just that we see our sin at salvation, no, but we see our sin as we continue to walk with God and seek to be made right with God in our sanctification. Now remember that poor in spirit is a part of our sanctification.

When the Holy Spirit enables us to see our sin, then by the weight of the Spirit's work in our life, we should mourn over that sin. I believe that outflow from being poor in the Spirit is this mourning. So this leads me to a question. Do we actually mourn over our sin? Do we see our sin? And are we broken for our sin? Do we mourn for our sin? This automatically reminds me of a verse that Paul writes to the Corinthian church. Corinthian 710 reads, "For godly grief," the new American standard uses the word sorrow. "For godly grief," or "godly sorrow," produces a repentance which leads to salvation without regret.

Whereas, worldly grief or worldly sorrow produces death. See there is a difference. So my question is, is the Spirit so working in you and enabling you to see your sin the way God sees your sin and you are poor in spirit and broken before God and you are truly mournful for your sin? When was the last time we cried and cried all night? We labored in brokenness and mournful living. Why? Because of a sin. Maybe a sin that we struggle with. Or do we just tip our hat at our sin? I think about Psalm 51 starting in verse 2. It's the Psalm where King David is confessing before God. He's dealing with that awful sin that he committed with Bathsheba.

It was so many sins. And look at how he described his life. He was broken. He felt like his own bones were broken. And he is crying out in exactly the way we are learning about in verse 4. He is mourning for his sin. And then we see it in Psalm 32 verses 2 to 5 as well. What am I showing you? David is a great example of how he mourned for his sin. His bones were broken. His soul was an anguish. He didn't just cry out with crocodile tears. No, he was mourning over his sin. And he said, "Against you and you alone, God, have I sinned." Listen to the question, "Do we mourn over our sin?" I'm afraid we do not mourn over our sin.

We may feel sorry for our sin or maybe sorry that we caught call for our sin. But do we mourn over our sin? Would someone see us mourning like a mother who has lost her son? I'm afraid most of us can't answer that yes. So what do we see? We mourn. We are supposed to mourn over our sin. And I believe we all need a special and unique work of the Spirit to bring us to a place where we not only see our sin the way God sees it, but where this will actually take place where we mourn for our sin. The second area where I believe this applies is we should mourn over his church. We should mourn over his church.

Now possessing the kingdom is not only possessing Christ as Lord and Savior of our life. We know that's the first step. We possess kingdom work, and kingdom work is the church. Christ died to purchase the church. He promised to build his church and build his church through his people. The church is the arena in which God chooses to receive most glory at this time in history. The entire story of the New Testament is the story of the church. And as a matter of fact, if you go all the way to the end of the book of Revelation, it's all about the church. Chapters 1 to 3 are about Christ purifying his church.

And then chapters 4 to 22 are about the future victory of the church. Now in our Sunday night Bible study, our adult Bible study, we're going through that book by Richard Mayhew. What would Jesus say about your church? And I love what he says. And he says, and I'm quoting, "We must share Christ's high priority for Christ's purity and power outlined in the three chapters of Revelation 1 to 3." What is Richard Mayhew saying? We should see the church the way Jesus sees the church. And this leads me to a question for you. Do we have Christ's heart for the church? Do we actually have Christ's heart for the church?

And does that lead us to have a broken heart and even a mournful spirit about the state of the church? I'll take this application a step further. All of us have loved ones who have no healthy church. We have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, children who do not have a healthy church. There are people who have come to me and have said, "Do you know if there is a healthy church where my son or my daughter or my mother or my father lives?" That should break our hearts. Why? Because Christ's church is sick and people can't find a healthy church. It should break our church when we see churches sick theologically.

We see bad doctrine in the life of the church. And we see people being victimized by that bad doctrine. It may even be some of our family. "Oh, that should break our hearts." Everyone that should break our hearts is when we see the church governed by worldly and carnal and even lost leaders. I've been recently counseling a friend of mine who was let go at a church. He was fired at a church. Not for bad doctrine, for bad practice, no, because there are wolves in the life of the church and they're governing the affairs of the church. That should break our heart.

But oh, to be more specific, I think about all of those who have rejected what God is doing here, what God is doing here. We are not a perfect church. We will never be a perfect church. But we are a healthy church led by men who know that God has called them to do this work and God is saving individuals and sanctifying people and God is growing His church. And I've watched people come here and leave here. Why? Because they want to hold on to their sin. I've watched people come and leave because they want to hold on to their bad theology. I've watched people come and leave because they would rather have an unhealthy church.

And oh, that's heartbreaking. And listen, we should always have Christ's heart for the church. Oh, He always had a broken heart for His church. And then the third area where I believe this applies, and that is we mourn over the lost. We should mourn over the lost. As we live our life, we have lost all around us. We have family members. We have lost neighbors. We have lost coworkers, lost people in our community. We see them at the feed store. We see them at the gas station in the grocery store. We see them when we mow our lawn and we get our mail and we drive by them and we see them in their yards.

We even have lost to sit at the dinner table with us and we interact with them in family events. We do, we mourn for the lost. Men and women, people we know, even people we do not know who are lost and headed to damnation. According to the New Testament, Jesus wept two times in His earthly ministry. First He wept at the death of His friend Lazarus. Now some think He wept because Lazarus died. I really do not think so. He knew what He was going to do. I believe He wept because of the unbelief of the Jews. But second, He wept over the unbelief of the Jews there in Jerusalem. He looked over Jerusalem and He wept.

Now why was Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? Because the Jewish people and the Jewish nation were rejecting Him as Messiah. His people, the Jews, were lost and they needed Him as their Messiah and Savior and Lord and they were rejecting Him and Jesus was brokenhearted at their lostness. Do we weep over the lost? Do we weep over the lost? Do we weep over the lost? Or are we comfortable and just think everything will work out? Do we weep over our lost sons and our lost daughters? Do our children see us up late into the night praying for the lost? In the fourth area, where this mourning should apply, do we mourn over the world?

Do we mourn over the world? The Great Commission is that great task to take the gospel to all the nations and Christ entrusted this precious work to one institution and one people. Christ gave this work to the church and no one else. And listen folks, it just amazes me at how many so-called Christians can pour their life into an institution outside of the church when Christ is given the greatest task ever to the church.

Christ trusted the New Testament church with the work of evangelizing the world and we see that right away in the book of Acts and it continues on all the way down to the book of Revelation and you can boil the work of the church down to two responsibilities. First to grow the saints and second to reach the lost. You can turn it around. The responsibility of the church is to reach the lost and to grow the saints, grow the saints and reach the lost. That's it. And as we look around, we must ask ourselves if we are reaching the lost peoples and the tribes and the nations who are not reached.

Do we mourn over the lost peoples who have never ever heard? Now pastorally I'll share with you where we are as a church. I have preached many times and talked thoroughly that this is our responsibility. But you know we have a lot of things we are working on in the life of our church now. We've got a lot of in-house things we're dealing with and we're not quite there where we can go, where I want us to go. See, I have a heart to reach the world but we are not quite where we should be yet. God is working in us in a way in which you might not ever know and that is preparing us so that we can go in a greater way. Now what have we seen here?

We are to be a mourning people. This is a brokenness which can't be hidden. It leads to tears. It is a continual grief. It just won't go away. And the object of that grief first, it first must be our sin, our sin against the Lord that we love. And the object of this brokenness is for the sin of the church, the defeat of the church, the struggles of the church. And the object of this grief, it should be sin and the lostness of the world. And the object of this grief is the unfinished work of the church which lays before us. Let's move on. I want us to see our third major truth. What is this word, comforted? We see this in verse 4.

"Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." Now what is the meaning of this word, comforted? There is only one place to find this comfort. This is not any physical comfort, but this is a comfort in a person, capital P person. This comfort comes through the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. And briefly we see this comfort come in two places or two peoples. First in the salvation of the sinner. When a lost sinner is brought to faith in Christ, they receive comfort. No longer do they wrestle with their alienation from God. No longer do they see themselves as a rebel against God, deserving that hell in that damn nation.

They are comforted by the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit for the very first time they have a peace. And so the sinner is brought to a place where he can finally have comfort in peace. But the second place or the second people is in the sanctification of the Christian. Jesus promised his disciples that he would not abandon them as orphans. He told them that he would send them a comforter who was the Holy Spirit. His work in them was to guide and to counsel and correct and encourage and teach and comfort them. And Jesus told them that he would be in them through the work of the Holy Spirit. So what do we see here?

The Holy Spirit is the comforter. This isn't a feeling. This is a work of God. For those who mourn, there is no comfort that can compare with the comfort and the joy and the inner happiness that God gives. Again, this is a work of God that God does and it is not affected or destroyed from anything without. So my question for you is this. Is there the comforting work of the Holy Spirit of God within you? And look, it applies to every area of life. Yes, you're going through trial, but the Spirit comforts and counsels and guides you. Yes, you might wrestle with the sin, but the Spirit comforts and counsels and guides you.

Yes, you might have great obstacles in life. No matter what you face in life, is the Spirit of God guiding you and teaching you and comforting you or do you always find yourself at a place where you have no peace, no security, no comfort. See the law center can never find comfort. Not until he finds comfort in salvation first. And then the fourth observation or the fourth main truth in our outline, what is the reward? What is the reward? Go back and look at the verse. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Look at that verse again. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Look at the reward.

Look at the reward when we allow the Spirit of God to break us and we are poor in spirit and we mourn. We mourn as Christ would have us to mourn. We are blessed. There's the reward, an inner joy, a work of God within us and then we are comforted. Yes, we are comforted by the work of the Spirit and oh, do not forget that we possess the kingdom of God. Blessed, there's the reward, are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. There's the reward. And what does he say? There's is the kingdom of heaven. We possess and are part of kingdom work.

Look at all of the reward when we embrace this mourning, this poor in spirit, this mourning that only God can do in us. Now just like with verse three, I'm going to reassemble the verse. Remember I've haphazardly broken down verse three and that's what we're doing. We're taking the middle portion of the verse. We're understanding the middle. We're just reassembling that verse and oh, not that there's anything wrong with the verse before, but when we divide and understand and then reassemble that verse, it looks so much better than it ever did before. And notice the reassembling here.

Those who mourn, those who are broken down the tears, those who are in a state, a state of continual grief and mourning over their sin, over the work of the church, over the sin and lostness of the world, they will be blessed of God. God works in them to produce a joy and an inner happiness. God performs this work in their inner being and God rewards them with true kingdom work. He rules in them as their Lord and savior. He entrusts them with the kingdom work, the work of the church on earth and they joyfully serve King Jesus doing the work of King Jesus on earth until he comes to take them home. That's the reassembling of verse four.

Now as I move away from dividing the verse, explaining the verse, I think we should definitely see that Christ intends us to live much differently than the world. Oh, I think that we should see that Christ has a new life for us. The world lives for laughter and entertainments. They are pleasure seeking, but Christ tells us that we are to live as beggars before God. We are to live in mourning, grieving and afflicted before God. And sure we have joy, yes we have happiness, but our joy and our happiness comes from within, from a work of God, not from without, not from the world around us.

Sure we have joy and happiness, but that comes from being a part of kingdom work and a work of the church. We must pray and seek God and ask that God would do this work in us. And listen, I stand here as your pastor and I know that I don't mourn as I should. I know that I need a fresh work of mourning in my life, but I'll be honest with you. I am more broken in spirit than you know. I am more mournful than you know. I am more broken in spirit for you and the work of the church. I am more mournful for those who leave and they want to hold on to their sin or their bad doctrine.

Listen, I am more poor in spirit and more broken and mournful for the work of the church than you know, but I'll turn it around. All of that is what brings me the greatest joy and the greatest happiness and the greatest satisfaction. There is a work that God does in me and that's why I stand here as I do today. Now again, I want to remind you that we must have our eyes wide open. I go back to those three tips, these expectations, because what are we doing? We're learning this new life, how God wants us to live and we're going out into our home and into our workplace, into our neighborhoods.

We're going into where we shop and we want to live this life and we need to understand. We need to have tips and expectations that show us what we will encounter. And listen folks, you will always be called a fool by the world. The world will never be your friend. They'll call you a fool. They'll call you an idiot. They'll look at you and say, "What a waste." And then you really will be misunderstood by many within the church, especially when it is an unhealthy church, a sick church. There'll be many who will misunderstand you. You'll be out of step with even people that you may worship with.

And as God works in you and God works in me, you'll be encouraged by more people who will be just like you. They want this work. They don't care what the world says. They don't even care what their friends and neighbors and family will say. You'll be encouraged by the few and then many more as God begins to work and do this work and as we seek this happen in our life. So I want us to go back to the verses. Verse 2, "And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying," who's here? Jesus is on the mountain side. He's teaching His disciples. They're on the front row. They're the Jews. And then they're the Gentiles scattered out.

In my mind, I picture them as being in the back. He opened His mouth and what does He say? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And then that natural outflow. The next step, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Now what do we see this morning? This is the beginning of true kingdom living. This is the beginning of the life that God has marked out for us who seek to love Him and serve Him and know Him. And listen, kingdom living is those who mourn. Kingdom living, those who mourn. Now what do we do, Pastor? We take all that the Lord's given us in verse 3.

We see the natural outflow coming into verse 4. We put it all together. We go to our Lord and ask God to do this work in us.