Matthew 5 (Part 2) :4

We're in the Sermon on the Mount, and more specifically, looking at the Beatitudes, which begin by saying in verse 1, when the crowds, or when Jesus saw, rather, the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying,

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, open our hearts to Your Word. Speak to us, we pray. Give us wisdom, in Jesus' name, amen. It's hard for me to believe that I was figuring out the dates, but it was 30 years ago that I bought my first Thompson Chain Reference Bible. I've got one, I brought my third, this is my third one. And I really enjoy this particular Bible, but one of the things I loved about it, even back when I first bought it, this one's falling apart, and I've since kind of even moved on to a different Bible that I read every day, but one of the things I loved about the Thompson Chain Reference was that there were hand-drawn illustrations in the back that were given for study purposes. And it was those very drawings that really affected me when I came to begin to study for the very first time the Sermon on the Mount. Some of you, if you've ever had a Thompson Chain Reference or looked at the illustrations by a man by the name of Hugh Claycomb, believe it or not, I remember his name, anyway, you'll remember that he has a very specific and very unique kind of a drawing style. But it was about the Sermon on the Mount that those drawings really influenced me because I realized for the very first time by a drawing that appeared in the back of the Thompson Chain Reference Bible that the Beatitudes, and in fact the whole Sermon on the Mount, represented a kind of ascending stairway to knowing and serving and walking with God. And I never realized it before. I would read through the Sermon on the Mount and I would just kind of read, you know, blessed are the poor in spirit, you know, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are those who mourn, and for they will be comforted, and I just thought, well, these are interesting sort of things that Jesus is saying, but I never realized that there was kind of an ascendancy to his statements. And as we looked a couple of weeks ago in the very first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, we saw that poor in spirit basically refers to someone who is bankrupt spiritually. In other words, broken, humble, recognizing their need for God, and he said, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And what Jesus was essentially saying was, blessed are you when you realize you have nothing for you have everything. And I realized something about that statement early on when I saw that step, that stair step approach to the Beatitude, that it has to start with brokenness. It has to start with humility. And if, and if we don't have humility, we're never going to get onto step number two, right? You know, if I don't recognize my spiritual need, if I don't recognize my spiritual bankruptcy, I'm never going to move on with God because I'm going to basically kind of just think that I'm self-sufficient. I'm doing okay. I'm doing all right. You know, I don't know about you, but I'm doing okay sort of a thing, you know, how does a person like that have any room in their heart for God? Because they're kind of walking around thinking, you know, I got this thing kind of worked out. But the individual who comes to that very first step and recognizes their individual need, then they can move on to the next step and the next step. And there is this sort of a ascendancy to, to knowing and, and, and walking with God. You know, I, I started off trying to do a scan of the drawing from the Thompson chain reference Bible, but the pages are so paper, that onion skin kind of almost, you know, transparency that, you know, doing a scan, I was getting things from the other side of the page. So I put together just a little picture for you and I want to show you this on the screen. I actually found this on the internet, not the poor in spirit morning. I actually put that in myself, but I found this picture of this guy sitting on the second step because that's where we are today. We dealt with the first step last time, blessed are the poor in spirit. But the very next part of this step of, of knowing God and walking with God and living with God is what we read in the fourth verse. If you'll look with me there once again, it says,

And I thought that that picture was kind of an apt illustration of just what it is. And obviously I didn't go through all of the Beatitudes there. I ran out of steps before the picture ended, but you can kind of see the ascendancy of, of, of this process of moving closer to God. Literally verse four says, happy are those who are sad, which sounds like a real strange kind of a contradiction in terms, but the kind of sadness that Jesus is referring to here is, is mourning M O U R not morning as in the opposite of night, but morning and the kind of morning that you and I probably most typically think of is when we mourn the loss of someone, someone who is dear to us, whom we loved very, very much. And that person, you know, passed away. And so there's this period of time that we go through that we call a time of mourning. But this verse isn't pronouncing a blessed condition upon those who mourn the loss of a loved one. That's not what Jesus is referring to here when he says, blessed are those who mourn. Because Jesus is talking about the, the, the, the steps to knowing God. It begins with blessed are the poor in spirit. I mean, in other words, blessed are the destitute of themselves. In other words, that first beatitude is the recognition by an individual that I have nothing. I am nothing. I can present nothing before God by which I might be made acceptable to him. I recognize my sinful condition. I recognize my depravity. That's that first step of the beatitudes. But what is the second step of the beatitudes? It is recognizing now the gravity of my very sinful condition. Do you see? Do you see how this thing kind of makes this progression and, and, and, and while it starts with the gravity of understanding my own sin later on that morning can also take on a kind of a sorrow for the sin that has been done to others, the sin that is even around me and so forth. But after we recognize our spiritual condition, being destitute as it is, the next thing we do is to mourn the loss of all that has occurred in our lives because of sin. And I know that might sound like a strange idea to your ears in our, in our Americanized culture today. The whole idea of being sad doesn't take on a very positive connotation and so forth. But there is a time of mourning that we as believers go through related to our sin and related to all that has been lost in our lives due to sin. I want to, I want to show you a couple of reasons why we mourn. First of all, on the screen from John, this is chapter eight, Jesus is speaking here and it says,

We recognize in our spiritual depravity when we come to the first step of the beatitudes, we recognize the fact that we are completely helpless to change our lives. But in the second step of the beatitudes, moving toward a knowledge of God, we begin to mourn that loss. We begin to mourn that inability to move from our position. We begin to mourn the fact that we have been caught in a web. sin that we can't get out of and we begin to look at at our lives and we begin to look at all that has been lost and all that is that it is beyond our ability to redeem in terms of the years and relationships and and and you know and and that sort of thing I've talked to so many people and I of course I can do it in my own life but I've talked to so many others who have come to Christ at a time in their lives when they have the ability to look back and then look at the things that they've gone through the things that they've been through in those years and they see the homes and the marriages that are over you know that are gone it's just gone there's nothing they can do to get that back it's just gone you know somebody comes and says to me you know Pastor Paul I've been married three times you know I'm totally estranged from my children they won't have anything to do with me anymore and just this last year I came to know Christ as my Savior oh would to God that I had come to him sooner that I might have known the grace that saves that I might have known the power of the gospel that I might have known the redeeming work of Jesus Christ in my life to the point where I could have you know done something about these these relationships and these situations and and the jobs that I lost and the businesses that I started up that turned to ashes and you know I would have been able to to live for the Lord and maybe see some fruitfulness come out of my life and I would see some lasting relationships in my life but but but alas I don't have any of those right now because I've just now come to Jesus I've just now learned what it means to be forgiven in him I've just now learned to understand that I am forgiven and now it's changed my whole view of how I see other people and how I see my sin and how I see God but how I wish it would have been sooner and that's that morning that we go through we mourn the loss we mourn the slavery you know the the fact that that I was involved in in in sin to the point where I couldn't do anything about it I kept telling myself that I could I kept telling myself that I could stop and I would promise myself I would and I would promise my family and I would promise my children and I'd promise my employer that said I'm done I'm never gonna do that again but but ultimately I'd go back and do it I'd go back and fall into the same sinful behavior and sinful patterns and I couldn't do anything about it and now they mourn there's this morning Oh God the things that I have seen slipped through my fingers over the years because of my sin there's another passage that that speaks of once again the gravity of sin once again on the screen from Romans chapter 6 verse 23 it says,

In Christ when we come to him and we appropriate the forgiveness that he has accomplished for us on the cross we see the eternal aspect of this death overturned don't we but that doesn't that doesn't in any way minimize the fact that that death many times most times with some form of death results from sin sin brings death and again it could be the death of a marriage could be the death of a home could be the death of a business could be the death of a dream you know could be the death of hopes could be the death of relationships with children or whatever some kind of a dying takes place when we and even if you are in Christ and the whole issue of eternal death has been settled at the cross that doesn't mean that sin has lost its ability to take some kind of toll in our lives it still can take a toll you and I aren't insulated from that just because we're in Jesus yes the deal the whole issue once again of eternal death has been resolved we know that we understand that I'm going to heaven there's no question about that but I am I am I'm just because I'm a believer in Jesus and I'm going to heaven doesn't mean that I'm insulated now from the effects of sin I can still choose to go back and do really stupid things and still experience some level of death again relationships jobs you name it we've seen it happen in the body of Christ sometimes it's just plain the death of innocence and so we see these these scriptures in in in the Word of God we see what the the Word tells us about the gravity of sin and it takes a hold of us in a sobering sort of a way and we understand this whole idea of mourning over it but the recognition of what sin has done in our lives is what the Bible calls godly sorrow and the Apostle Paul wrote about it in his second letter to the Corinthians and basically this is what he said about it he said godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret that's what godly sorrow is godly sorrow is sorrow not for the sake of getting caught or being sorry that I got caught or sorry that the sin that I was engaged in is now over it's sorry that I ruined so many years of my life when I could have been living for God it's sorrow over the wasted time the resources that God has given me I look back on my life and I say you know God you gave me so much and I just I just put it away you know I just I lived in a way that just I didn't care you know I just didn't care I had so much so many opportunities so many gifts and talents and abilities and resources and you gave those to me and I lived for myself and so it produces this this godly sorrow but listen it isn't godly sorrow if it doesn't lead to repentance that's what godly sorrow does that's how you see that it is godly sorrow because it issues forth in repentance which is a changing of the mind turning from sin going the other direction that's what godly sorrow is that's what godly sorrow produces in our lives we've all seen people who are sorrowful for the wrong reasons worldly sorrow we know brings death doesn't it it's just people crying it's just people crying in their suit it's it's it's people crying because the fun is over but godly sorrow recognizes everything I've lost and brings it to God at the foot of the cross and says Lord forgive me forgive me for all that I've wasted forgive me for all the time all the resources all the things that you gave me that I just flittered away forgive me I turn now from that sin I turn from that lifestyle of emptiness that I that you might redeem these things and so forth you know this kind of godly sorrow getting to be more rare I think in our culture today as we as we call less and less things sin you know we've gotten away from that haven't we we've gotten away from calling things sin we've we've begun to label things in much more of a scientific sort of an approach to looking at life and so there are frankly less less and less things to actually repent of but we live in a time when when when the world you know scoffs at you and I for even using the word sin how dare you Christians call that sin you know how dare you do that sort of thing to say nothing of of being sorrowful over it why would you be sorrowful over who you are you know it's just the way God made you and so forth if even if there is a God in their estimation you know the influence of men like Sigmund Freud you know has has has taken a toll over the the course of modern culture and and Freud I don't know if you're familiar with him at all but he he held the belief that God was not only delusionary or a belief in God rather was not only delusionary but he believed it was actually psychologically damaging to have a belief in God he believed he held that that to to think of things as sin in your life was actually the cause of neuroses and the reason that people suffer from these various neuroses is because they're they're just so tied in knots thoughts because they think all these things are sin. And if we just get rid of the idea that these things are sin, he just, he, he, he determined that, you know, the neuroses would go away. That was basically his idea. Um, but you know, God's word has never been opposed to the idea of recognizing our sinful condition and looking straight at it and seeing it for what it is and then responding accordingly, you know, if you ever noticed what appears to be an interesting sort of a couple of verses in, in the book of James, and I want to show these to you again, James chapter four, verses nine and 10, look what James writes, he says, grief, he says, mourn and wail, change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Now, this verse isn't telling you and I as Christians to walk around in a depressed and, and blue mood all the time. That's, you know, if, if somebody thinks that that's not the case, what James is referring to is he's, he's speaking to the individual who is playing in the, in, in, in the shadow of the cross, as if the cross really doesn't have any significant meaning in their lives, who literally is, is singing a happy song and rejoicing and, and so forth, not in the Lord, but in, in, in, in their, their life and their sin, and not even recognizing what God came to do in order to redeem us from our sin. And James is really kind of addressing that attitude that we see today in our culture in America, where we're always trying to be happy. And of course we're not achieving it, but we're trying. And we think that therein lies meaning and purpose for life. And all the while God says, no, you have to go through this period in your life where you recognize your sin and you mourn over it. You grieve over it. When is the last time you saw someone who was grieved over their sin? When was the last time you actually talked with somebody? When was the last time you were grieved over your sin? When was the last time you met someone who was grieved over sin in general? The sinful condition of our nation, our world, we read through the Old Testament prophets and they seem like they're speaking at times a different language. And I'm not specifically talking languages here, but it seems like what they say is so incredibly foreign to us because so many times we see the, the, the, the prophets and others, frankly, in the scripture who are just in this, in this mourning over sin, over the condition of Israel, and they will just, they'll weep and wail. And we read those verses and we're kind of like, what is up with it? I mean, it just doesn't seem normal or natural or we really, it kind of goes over our head. What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they saying? Why are they acting that way? You know, why do they say things like that? I mean, that's just who goes around saying things like that? Who, who prays a prayer like the one Nehemiah prayed when he cried out to God for the sin of Israel? Who does that? Who prays like that for their country and weeps, you know, and wails and, and is sorrowful over the condition of a family or a town or a state or a nation or whatever, who does that? It just, it just seems so odd to us today. But when people take sin and the sorrow that begins to fill their heart from that sin and they bring it to the cross, they find something there that Sigmund Freud never understood. They find comfort. Do you remember the promise that Jesus gave with the second step? Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Let me show you a wonderful passage from 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3. It says, Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort. The God that you and I serve is the God of all comfort and he comforts those who are brokenhearted. But not just brokenhearted because I didn't get what I want. You know, not brokenhearted because my dreams or my expectations didn't get fulfilled. Brokenhearted over my sin, brokenhearted over the condition of my life, brokenhearted over the condition of my family, you know, my, my area, whatever the thing, the thing might be and, and so forth. But when we mourn our sin and we, we, we, we see it for what it is. We also recognize in God's word that his response to us is comfort. And I think that it's important that, that we understand that the converse of this can also be true. And what I mean by that is basically what if we don't mourn over sin? I mean, what if, what if sin, and this is something, by the way, here in America, we really have to be careful about. Do you, do you know how easy it is to become jaded to sin? We, we are living in the information age and I, I am a partaker. You guys know that. I love to, you know, I'm kind of a news hound and I read a lot of news. Man, can it just do a number on your heart? To the point where after a while you just kind of look at the headlines. Oh, wow. A lot of tornadoes, you know, down in the South, you know, stuff. Whoa. About a hundred people missing. Yeah. Next page. And then we look at something else going on and we read about some corruption in government. We go, yeah, what else is new? And we, next page. Then we read about some, you know, something about the, you know, porn industry or something about child slavery or, you know, something like that. And we get up from our newspaper or whatever our news sources and we just kind of move on with life, you know, we read about the travesties and injustices in Darfur and, and we just kind of go on and do our thing. It's, I mean, it's easy. So what if we don't mourn over sin anymore? What if we don't even recognize our own sin or the, or the sin and we stopped recognizing the sin that's all around us? What if our attitude about sin is backwards than from what it used to be? David actually wrote about this, believe it or not. He talked about a time when the Lord met him and responded to his, his cry, but he made an interesting statement because you see, David is a man just like you and I. And here's what he said. It's from the Psalms chapter 66. He says, come and listen, all you who fear God. And that's important because that's a lot of what it is. He says, let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth. His praise was on my tongue. And then he said this, if I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened, but thankfully that wasn't the case. He says, God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. But notice what David says there. And it's a very important thing that we recognize. He said, what if, what if, what if rather than mourning sin, what if rather than being sorrowful over sin, instead I cherished it. Now that's an interesting word to use for sin, to cherish sin. What if I had cherished it in my heart? Well, David says, well, in that case, God wouldn't have listened. So we recognize that this lack of mourning and this lack of sorrow over sin can actually create a block in our relationship with God, in our ability to talk to God and hear from him and, and, and just that whole interaction with the Lord when sin is there, that relationship is strained. We've put God at a distance, if you will. If I cherished sin in my heart. Now here's the thing, here's the thing. I, you know, there probably isn't one of us in this room today who can't relate to the corruption of, of, of our hearts to the degree that, that we've heard something on the news, we've heard some, somebody telling us something or, or whatever. we knew that what we just got done hearing was sin, but we also knew that deep down there was this magnetic attraction to what we just heard. And we were ashamed of it, and we wouldn't have admitted it to anybody, but it was there. We saw it, we felt it. It's just like this, it's like this vault that, you know, that just runs through our body, and we hear something that we should have, you know, been horrified about, but inside, somewhere deep in the sinful nature, there's something that just kind of gets tantalized and tingled just a little bit, and we recognize it as sin, and the corruption of sin. And we bring that before the Lord, and we confess that too. Lord, you know, when I heard about that, when I heard about that deal, and something inside my sinful nature just was intrigued, you know? And I know, I know that you're not intrigued, and I know that your heart just rejects that sin, and I want to have your heart. I want my heart to be a reflection of yours when it comes to sin. And that, brothers and sisters in Jesus, is why people like Nehemiah could pray such a poignant, passionate prayer about the condition of his nation Israel, because he had so longed in his heart to feel what God feels, to know what God knows, to experience what God experiences in the face of sin. Nehemiah was a man just like you and me. He was a human being. No different. All the same temptations, the same sensual sorts of, you know, things going on. But he brought that place in his heart that could rejoice in sin, that could cherish sin, and he gave it to God. Lord, I want to feel what you feel. Oh, how we need that, brothers and sisters. How we need that. How we need to feel what God feels when it comes to sin. How we need to mourn. How we need to be sorrowful over sin. Again, not that we would walk around with this depressed and mournful sort of a countenance, but so that we can come to the cross, and we can be renewed, and we can find that forgiveness. We can find that redemption. We can find that transformation of the Spirit to make our lives different, so that we, you and I, might stand out in a world that has become numb to sin. To a world that doesn't even want to use the S-word anymore. That has begun to label and categorize those sorts of behaviors, and put them over in a nice, comfortable place where people won't look at it in any kind of a negative sort of a vein. So that you and I, not that we would be that angry, you know, bony finger that points at people and cries out, sin, that's sin! But just that our hearts would come before the Lord and weep for the condition that is all around us, and the condition that we recognize all too often is right in here. And we say to our Lord, Lord, you know what? There's not room, there's not room in here for you and the cherishing of sin, and it cannot be, it cannot live at the same time. And I give you this, I give you this, that my heart might know your heart related to these things.