Hearing from the Master
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
Matthew 5:4; 6:16-18; Luke 19:41-44; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Turn to Matthew 5. I want to thank you for the fantastic response to the surveys. We received so many back, and they were done very carefully and well. Thank you. This morning we are going to look at the second beatitude: Blessed are those who mourn.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:4 (LSB)
Kent Hughes suggested that this beatitude, blessed are those who mourn, properly follows the beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, as mourning should be the resulting emotion of being poor in spirit. And I believe that at the get-go of these beatitudes we are struck with the seriousness in Jesus’ words of how we are to be blessed in life. I mean, if we took this question to the streets asking, how can you be blessed in life, the first two answers to come back would not be, blessed are the poor in spirit and blessed are those who mourn. What would be the responses to how can we be blessed? Good family, good marriage, a well-paying job, being able to travel, nice home, being well looked after for retirement, health, and maybe good friends. And I believe if we were honest and the Sermon on the Mount was not fresh before us this morning, as we have been reading it and studying it, the thoughts of humility and mourning may not have been the first things to come to our minds either. So, we must admit that Jesus’ teaching is not only counter-cultural, but it is also counter-human, as it rubs against our old nature and natural human thinking.
And I believe that specifically the term, blessed are those who mourn, is really counter to our humanness because we as humans struggle with the seriousness of life. Let’s face it, much of what is demanded from government by society. In other words, the people we vote for are those who promise that they will make life easier; not too many politicians would use that as their platform, saying to the voters, you need to work harder, be more sacrificial, think about your country before yourself. In other words, let’s not ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. But to have any hope of being elected, those kinds of ideas of sacrifice are not on the radar of our society. And it is likely our exposure to media, TV, and entertainment, and our lack of exposure to maybe some of the real heartache and struggle that others have faced in the past, that has moulded us into people who struggle with the seriousness of life.
You know that Anne and I like gardening, and on Saturday mornings, if we are around, Anne and I will listen to a Garden Show out of Toronto. And when I turn it on the radio, there is a woman who comes on the hour just before, and sometimes we will hear the last four or five minutes of it before the Garden Show comes on. And it is an older lady who speaks to senior women and tries to encourage them as they get older. And her encouragement drives me absolutely crazy. I could go on and on with much sarcasm, as both Anne and I are glad that we never hear more than a few minutes of that program. But she speaks to older women, saying things in her last show titled “Playing Outside Today” like this, and I quote: we do not always have to wait for someone to be nice to us so that we can be nice to them, we can be an initiator; we can smile first, and don’t wait until someone smiles at you, but you be the one who smiles first, and yes, we can go outside and play, yes, we can be kind, and yes, we can laugh. Now I do not want to be overly critical, but when you listen to her words, it sounds like she is talking to four-year-olds, not to supposedly mature women.
But we do, as a culture, greatly struggle to look at the seriousness of life, and this is not a new generation problem, for both the old and the young often treat each other like we were children. And we are quick to forgive ourselves, and we are quick to make excuses for our sin, for in the society we have created, the worst thing we could do is feel bad for something we have done. Even in our courts, there is an overemphasis on why someone did something, as opposed to what they did. Because if we can come up with a good reason why we did this wrong thing, we can soon justify the wrong, so that we do not have to feel so bad. But is there a time for sadness, a time for great seriousness, maybe a time to truly lament something, for Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” John Stott wrote:
“I fear that Christians who make light of grace sometimes thereby make light of sin. There is not enough sorrow for sin among us. We should experience more ‘godly sorrow’ of Christian penitence.”
John R. W. Stott, The Sermon on the Mount 25
That is a good concern, isn’t it? Have we been taught in our Christianity to mourn over our sin? Or, as Stott said, do we make light of it because of God’s amazing grace? And looking at our world, and as we have studied passages such as Romans 1, where it says that God gave them over because they refused to see Him in creation, that should bring great sadness to the believer. The Greek word pentheō translated as “mourn,” means to mourn or lament. John MacArthur says that it is the “strongest, the most severe…the deepest, most heartfelt grief.” And though it is not a popular response today in our world, the Bible says that there is a great blessing in mourning. True, there is no teaching in Scripture that believers are to be known as people who are constantly weeping— considering the many exhortations in the Bible to be joyful. Yet the Christian must see the world as it is and the terrible conditions in our world.
In his sermon on the book of Ecclesiastes, which I have greatly appreciated over the years by Haddon Robinson, he said that because of the issues in life, people respond by either living it up, throwing up, laughing it up, or looking up. Though many in our world would rather just laugh it up. The true quality of mourning is seeing the sorrow of the world around us and then looking up to God. Robert Browning Hamilton wrote:
I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she,
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me.
William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew 94
Here, the writer is expressing the blessedness of sorrow and mourning; the things we learn through times of heartache are often invaluable. This, of course, is not the one who merely grumbles or bemoans his situation in life, but it is the person who mourns over his own sin and the condition of the world. King David realized this when he wrote, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” D. A. Carson teaches that the Christian who biblically mourns understands the realities of life: that there is death, that there is sin in the heart, and that there is an eternity. Some of the significant passages in the Bible deal with mourning or lamenting because of the sin in the world. When Jesus saw the lostness of the people in Jerusalem, Luke tells us (Luke 19:21) that He cried over it. Another time Matthew writes about Jesus:
“And seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.”
Matthew 9:36 (LSB)
It would seem that the proper response to the condition of our world is to be saddened by what is around us, not cynical, not hateful, not proud, but saddened—saddened enough to mourn. As MacArthur said, “There is a great need in the church today to cry instead of laugh.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes much about mourning for the culture. He said that we, as a culture, have a lot of stuff, but often our culture sadly lacks heart and character. He said it is good for us to mourn over our own sin and over the sins of others. He wrote that the Christian should be “concerned about the state of society, and the state of the world,” and as the believer sees the “muddle and unhappiness and suffering of mankind,” he sees that the whole world is in an unhealthy and unhappy condition, and therefore, he mourns over it. The blessing for the one who mourns is the promise of being comforted. In the city of Jerusalem during the time of Zechariah, the angel of Yahweh asked:
“O Yahweh of hosts, how long will You have no compassion for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which You have been indignant these seventy years? Yahweh answered the angel who was speaking with me with good words, comforting words.”
Zechariah 1:12b-13 (LSB)
Just as Zechariah lamented over the state of Jerusalem, it is good for the believer to respond to the world in a way that is similar, in a very godly way, for he will be comforted by God. It is wise to consider life seriously and respond to all of life as our Lord did. As Deborah L. Roeger wrote from God’s perspective:
“I look at the heart. The man after my own heart is the man who desires what I desire—the man who chooses to advance my will, not his own. To that one, I come and make my will known.”
Deborah L. Roeger, The Power of Obedience: Reading Scripture
Through the Lens of Obedient Discipleship 133
And though there will be comfort in eternity, comfort can be gained in this life as we view life from a godly perspective. So, may we look at this beatitude under these two questions we have already introduced: What should we mourn over? What does it mean to be comforted?
What should we mourn over?
I think we would agree that we do not like being around negative people. We do generally enjoy those who are encouraging and positive. I believe we could say that this beatitude does not mean to walk around gloomy and cheerless. I mean, who likes the one who would be described as a wet blanket? D. A. Carson said that it does not mean that the Christian is to be perpetually morose, forever weepy. We do not want people to get the impression that—as Carson wrote—“That horse must be a Christian; it’s got such a long face.” It also does not mean that we are sad simply because our selfish plans have been changed or stopped. We might describe that as more of a temper tantrum. In other words, like a little kid who doesn’t get his own way. Obviously, this is not the kind of mourning that Jesus is speaking. I also do not believe that it means the one who mourns continuously or endlessly because of a death or accident. Those who are unable to function after losing a spouse or a child for years and years later. That does not seem like what Jesus is speaking. So, what specifically should we mourn over, and what does this look like? It would seem that it is the person who mourns, in the sense of Christ’s teaching is the one who seriously considers their own sin and the state of things in the world. Carson gives these godly grounds for the Christian to sorrow:
“He reasons that death is there, and must be faced. God is there, and will be known by all as Savior or Judge. Sin is there, and it is unspeakably ugly and black in the light of God’s purity. Eternity is there, and every human being is rushing toward it. God’s revelation is there, and the alternatives it represents will come to pass: life or death, pardon or condemnation, heaven or hell. These are realities which will not go away. The man who lives in light of them, and rightly assesses himself and his world in the light of them, cannot but mourn.”
- A. Carson, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World 23
He says that death is there and it must be faced. There has been a significant change in our society in recent years as we struggle to face death. I have mentioned this before in the whole area of funerals today, in that they are often put off and referred to as a celebration of life. They have often been taken out of the church, and the memory of the one who has died is seen in the backyard flower or in the Cardinal that flies by. Even ten years ago, most funerals spoke about some kind of heaven, though it may not have been a true biblical heaven or even believed by most who attended. But most funerals today do not refer to someone now with God in heaven, let alone apart from God in hell, as the biblical truth; the biblical language is long gone. And the fact that many funerals are now only done at the convenience of family. It was not long ago that someone passed away; life stopped, and people came, and people mourned as the funeral was a few days later.
Anne and I went to a funeral a few months ago that was well after the death. And it was almost hard to say to the family, I am so sorry, as the time of mourning was somewhat over, and the reality of the death was really already forgotten. Because it is hard for society to face death when they do not think about the reality of death. Yet the Bible says that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment. That is the truth. That is the reality, and we must face that.
Last Sunday night in our study of Colossians, I was sharing that one of my greatest desires as a teacher, that more than anything else, is that we learn together the knowledge of God. For knowing more and more about God changes how we think and therefore ultimately how we act. So, it is not surprising then that in our culture today, there is tremendous waffling on moral issues and a real lack of looking at the seriousness of life and death. Why? Because the culture does not know about God. And the less a culture knows about God, the less it will consider sin and death and eternity and heaven and hell, and the more it will focus on human thinking and human opinion and self and the here and now. Our culture does everything to avoid death. And we understand that God has instilled in us a desire to live. I mean, the human body fights for life. But though we might fight a disease to live, and try to keep safe while driving to live, or try to stay fit while growing old to live, we are all going to die. That is the reality. That is the certainty. And with death comes an eternity afterwards of heaven or hell, and that is the truth. And mourning includes the pondering of all these things.
Yet, as Christ teaches, times of mourning are so good for us. One of the greatest days of my life was my father’s funeral. As I walked into that church where Dad did so much ministry, I was overwhelmed with a sense of both sadness and joy, both mourning and thankfulness. So, we know that mourning is good. During the death of a loved one, as Jesus mourned over Lazarus. And we have many good causes to mourn. One is the mourning and longing for the presence of God. David wrote:
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’”
Psalm 42:1-3 (LSB)
And we should mourn when we truly desire to minister to someone. Paul wrote to Timothy:
“I am grateful to God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I unceasingly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, having remembered your tears, so that I may be filled with joy.”
2 Timothy 1:3-4 (LSB)
And we also mourn those we desperately love and whom we wish to affect with the gospel, yet they continue to turn their back on Christ. That we mourn. And of course, mourning over the sin of self and others. Paul wrote (2 Cor 7:10) that godly sorrow produces repentance. The concern for the spiritual welfare of others. A father for a son, a mother for a daughter. And this mourning, this lamenting, can only truly be experienced by those who know Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives this definition of biblical mourning:
“A [contrite] mourning for our own sin; this is godly sorrow, a sorrowing according to God; sorrow for sin, with an eye to Christ … and mourning for the sins of others … A sympathizing mourning for the afflictions of others.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount 49
But then Jesus said that those who mourn will be comforted. So, let’s ask the question:
What does it mean to be comforted?
John MacArthur wrote:
“Only mourners over sin are happy because only mourners over sin have their sins forgiven. Sin and happiness are totally incompatible. Where one exists, the other cannot. Until sin is forgiven and removed, happiness is locked out. Mourning over sin brings forgiveness of sin, and forgiveness of sin brings a freedom and a joy that cannot be experienced in any other way.”
John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Matthew 1—7 158
We also can think of verses in the Old Testament: (Isa 54:8) God says … with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you; (Lam 3:32) He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness; and (Hos 2:23) God will say, You are My people; and they will say You are our God. It would seem that God is anxious to bring comfort to His people, though there may be times that we are not looking for comfort from God. Times when we have a love for sin. Times when we are trying to hide sin. Times when our heart may be indifferent to the will of God or simply hard towards Him. In other words, we are hiding or suppressing the very thing that we are to mourn over. Whereas the psalmist saw the benefit in acknowledging his sin.
“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, carrying his sheaves with him.”
Psalm 126:5-6 (LSB)
Luke 6:25 warns, woe to the man who laughs now. In other words, the biblical pattern is mourning now and joy later. Well, I wish to share with you some thoughts by Martyn Lloyd-Jones on this whole teaching of mourning and then comfort. And he says that a godly man or woman should always take time to consider what he or she has done, said, and thought. As he said, it is good for man to pause at the end of the day. He wrote of the importance of considering our standing before God. That even as a Christian, we still sin at times. Just as we studied the words of Paul (Rom 7), Paul still battled with sin even at the height of his ministry. MacArthur wrote:
“The mark of the mature life is not sinlessness, which is reserved for heaven, but a growing awareness of sinfulness.”
John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Matthew 1—7 160
Lloyd-Jones goes on to say that we should ask questions like: What makes me so irritable? Why am I not able to control myself? Why do I get mad or jealous? Why do I get anxious? Why do I worry? And he said that if we do not consider these things, we are actually being disobedient to Jesus’ command to mourn over them. For how can we mourn over them if we do not think about them? But then Lloyd-Jones points out one of the great paradoxes in Scripture. That the one who does these things is really happy or blessed because mourning for our sin causes us to repent and restore our relationship with God. And he concludes that:
“A deep doctrine of sin [and] a high doctrine of joy, and the two together produce this blessed happy man who mourns, and who at the same time is comforted.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount 51
When we addressed the whole area of being poor in spirit last Sunday, we went to three passages where Jesus touched on that beatitude: (Matt 6:9-13) the Lord’s prayer; (6:25-34) the section about worry; and (7:7-11) asking from God. Finding something about mourning was harder in the Sermon on the Mount outside of the beatitude itself. But we do see this is Jesus’ example of fasting.
“Now whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6:16-18 (LSB)
This is the believer who takes life very seriously. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906. He studied in Berlin and New York City. As a Christian, he left the safety of America to return to Germany during the war to oppose the Nazis. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1943, where he spent two years serving the Lord in prison, and he was hanged in 1945. Bonhoeffer wrote in his famous book, The Cost of Discipleship, that the purpose of fasting is to keep us from pursuing the desires of the heart. And he said that fasting alone means nothing, but it is the true believer who fasts so that he can focus his sole attention on Christ. He said that when we satisfy the flesh it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service. He wrote:
“Hence there is a need for daily self-discipline. It is always true of the disciple that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and he must therefore ‘watch and pray.’ The spirit knows the right way, and desires to follow it, but the flesh lacks courage and finds it too hard, too hazardous and wearisome, and so it stifles the voice of the spirit.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship 144
He said that when we defeat the flesh through disciplines such as fasting, it enables us to crush other desires of the flesh such as hatred toward others, a preoccupation with self, impurity of thought, and an unwillingness to serve Christ fully. Bonhoeffer continually stressed that the fasting must be done with Christ as its basis and in service to Him alone and anything else becomes simply a human effort that is an affront to God, but true biblical fasting is necessary at times to drive us to right thought. We have mentioned the mourning of Christ, when he cried over Lazarus, and we know that Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
“And as He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He cried over it, saying, ‘If you knew in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.’”
Luke 19:41-44 (LSB)
And with our weeping over the condition of the world, not a prideful weeping; this is not us versus them, for we understand that the condition of the world is also a fruit of our own human hearts. Let me close with a passage where Paul speaks about this comfort from God. And these are our memory verses for this week.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (LSB)
Good for us to be known as believers who mourn well for our own sin and for others. That we are people who take very earnestly the seriousness of life. That others see us as those who care and love and who hurt for the right things. For we certainly need those kinds of folks in our lives, don’t we? But also know that our mourning brings comfort. That it is good and right for us to hurt when God hurts. When our hearts are broken for a loved one who has gone, or a child who does not believe, because this draws us closer to the character of Christ and to the heart of God. Let’s pray. Lord, we pray for those who may have never truly come to You with a brokenness over sin, to be forgiven and to receive eternal life. We pray, Father, that they might make this right with You today. And I pray for us as believers, to forgive us for our indifference to You or callousness in the area of sin, that we would continually desire to walk with You. And Lord, we desire to have Your heart. So, may we hurt for the right things, and even that hurt and sorrow would bring us comfort. We thank You for Your love to us, so undeserved, but such love that You have promised us the kingdom of God. For You are such a great God, and we will forever praise You. And all God’s people said, amen.