Video transcript below.
So welcome to video three on the Beatitudes, and this one is about mourning. Now, how are we blessed when we mourn? So we talked about yesterday being poor in spirit, which means complete dependence upon God, right? We are spiritually bankrupt. We do not have anything without God. We have to have complete dependence on him. And we talked about this being foundational. So when we have this bankrupt view of our own strength and our own wisdom, what reaction does this produce in us? What reaction does the Spirit of God produce within us?
The next beatitude Jesus gives us is blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4. If we understand our spiritual bankruptcy without Christ, then we also understand the great cost of the debt that Christ bore for us. In other words, we’re acutely aware of the high cost of sin to Jesus and the eternal consequences, not just for us, but for the entire human race. Sin kills everything. It did then, it still does. When we understand the full weight and the full consequences of sinful behavior, not just for us, but for everyone, the cause of death, the cause of disease, the cause of murder, the cause of rape, all the horrors of the world are caused by sin. And when we understand it, we mourn over sin, all sin, not just the horrible sins, right? But all sin. We mourn over sin. We sorrow for sin just like we would mourn for the loss of a child, because we’re overwhelmed by the horrific eternal consequences of our sin, our own sin. Not just the sin committed by somebody else. you know, over there, no our own sin because it’s personal. It was personal for Jesus when he took it all on the cross for us. And it should be very personal for us.
I’m going to go back and quote David Guzik, just about this particular beatitude. He says, in the ancient Greek grammar, sorry, indicates an intense degree of mourning. Jesus does not speak of casual sorrow for the consequences of our sin, but a deep grief before God over our fallen state. The weeping is for the low and needy condition of both the individual and society, but with the awareness that they are low and needy because of sin. Those who mourn actually mourn over sin and its effect. And the mourning is the godly sorrow that produces repentance to salvation that Paul described in Second Corinthians 7:10. See, sorrow for sin. Jesus is not saying be a mourner and just mourn all the time. No, he’s saying this, mourning produces repentance.
Repentance is, I’m going this direction and I turn around and go the opposite direction. That’s a turning away from sin and turning towards God. This repentance is a gift from God. It’s a gift. It’s a gift to not want to sin. And when God shines the light of his word into our life and reveals the truth, the result is a mourning that drives us to develop a deep, passionate desire to return to him and his ways. We desire to forsake sin. We desire for everyone to forsake sin. And this sorrow is not only necessary for salvation, but it’s necessary for producing an attitude that blesses us. This beatitude of mourning is blessed are those who mourn over sin so much that they don’t want to do it anymore. And what does that do? That drives us into the presence of God, which is the source of our joy.
You see how that works? It’s blessed to mourn because then we repent, and Jesus said, they shall be comforted. Is there anything more comforting in our life than the presence of God? Right?
So, and this goes along with what the apostle Paul said in Second Corinthians 7:9-11. He said, now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance, for you were made sorry, in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation. And he goes on to say, the sorrow of the world produces death. So he talks about this and confirms what Jesus was saying, is to mourn over your sin. So it will lead you to turn around and go the other way and live in the joy of his presence.
You know, if we understand that sin, all sin, is the greatest tragedy, then we begin to see it like God sees it as the greatest tragedy. And we realize, wow, not only did this cost Jesus’ life, but this is having eternal consequences for everyone in the world. And every sin matters. Sin destroys everything good. Sin produces tragedies of epic proportions. I know this, I have experienced this. My own sin has caused tragedies, horrible tragedies, not just for me, but for my family, for people around me. All the people I have not ministered to. People I was a bad example to. You know, as Christians, we become angered over, you know, egregious sins.
I’ll give an example. There was a lady in our community who was convicted of murder recently because she and her lover kept her 7-year-old daughter tied to a bedpost and would stuff a sock in her mouth and starved her to death. And I’m telling you, everybody in the community was up in arms about this horrible, tragic murder of this innocent child. The fact is that it was a tragedy of terrible proportions. But our regular, regular sin is also a tragedy of epic proportions because it takes us away from the blessings of the presence of God. It has consequences not only on us, but on everybody around us because it keeps us from experiencing what attracts people to the presence of God. And that is the fruits of his Spirit, right? We cannot experience the fruits of God’s Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, If we are living in sin and we’re enjoying it and we’re liking it. We’re not mourning over it, right?
So when we as an individual and we as a culture start to mourn over sin, that means we’re taking a different course. We’re like, you know what? That’s tragic. I’m not going to live that way. That goes against what God’s truth says. I am going to turn around and go the other way. Because I want to live in the blessed presence and joy of the presence of God.
So the other thing we need to understand is that nothing happens in a vacuum. That lady didn’t just overnight decide to starve her child. No, she went, it’s kinda like the frog in the pan, right? The frog gets in a cool pan of water on a stove, and you slowly turn the heat up, and pretty soon the frog boils himself to death because he gets used to the heat, right? That’s what sin does to us. It’s like cancer. Cancer starts with one cell. If you don’t get rid of the cell, it grows. And if we want to save our nation, save our world, save our neighborhood, save our community, save our family, we’ve got to start with us. We have got to, Jesus is saying, mourn over your sin and that mourning will have you turn around and turn towards me. And I will bless you with my presence.
Our situation in our country, our situation in our families is tragic right now. And it’s because the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the people that are Christians, that are claiming to be followers of Christ, and I’m one of them, are not mourning over the tragic, tragic, tragicness of all the sin that is around us. We are not, we’re not we’re complicit in it. You know, this situation in our country is becoming terrifying.
I had a person show up at my doorstep and demanding from me, and it scared me to death. And I’ve never had that happen in rural Missouri. Our culture is changing because we are not, we’re complicit in just small things. And those small things are growing like a cancer. If we as individuals and we as a nation want to turn it around and enjoy the blessings of God’s hands, then we have got to understand that this is critical. Jesus is saying, if you don’t mourn the very actions that crucified me, then I cannot, you cannot experience comfort. You cannot experience my peace and my joy. But when you humble yourself and seek me and turn away from your wicked ways, then I will heal you. I will heal your land. Right? That verse sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
So when we as individuals take this beatitude and make it part of our daily life, our daily existence, what I ask God to show me, God, what are my favorite sins? What are my sins of choice? Right? Is it just a lack of prayer? Is it the things I watch on television? Is it, you know, just laziness? What is it? Lord, show me because I want to turn towards you. I want to have the life that represents your kingdom. And I don’t want anybody I know to not find Jesus Christ. I don’t want anyone I know to live in hell for the rest of their life, especially not people I really love. And you know what? I can’t believe how, I mean, it’s just so amazing to me how God is answering this prayer. My prayer. Show me where I’m failing you. Show me where, where I need to be mourning what in my own life. And you know, what’s interesting too is that I’ve asked the Lord to show me not just my own sin, but to help me to pray for the sin of the world, the people who are suffering the consequences. There are children all over the world who are being horribly mistreated. I have asked the Lord to help me mourn over those things and to pray for those people I don’t even know. Because we can change them.
You know, we’re supposed to pray for even people we don’t know about because we’re supposed to pray for the world to come to know Christ, right?
And so, when we really start digging into this passage about mourning, it draws us into a repentance that’s not just for us individually. It’s a prayer for repentance, for a collection of people, whether it’s our nation, our community, our family. And this is proving to even be something that it’s magnifying the blessing of God’s presence. And I can’t explain it. I’m probably not doing a very good job explaining it. Individually mourning sin, and having it cause me to repent individually of my sin is a blessing because it’s developing an attitude of really abhouring my own sin. But it’s also developing an attitude of compassion for those who are trapped, those who are not born again and do not have the Holy Spirit to, remember, poor in spirit, the Holy Spirit power to get them out of that trap, the trap of lies they’re in, that the enemy has taken them into.
So learning to mourn and experiencing the comfort of God is an amazing, amazing attitude that we can develop. And again, these are all a work in progress, right? I have nothing to say that I’ve accomplished any of these things. I’ve not arrived. But this is the walk, this is the walk of kingdom citizens and it is amazing.
And so, when tomorrow or the next day, or the next day, whenever you listen to the next video, we’re going to talk about the next beatitude, which is meekness. I think it’s really going to surprise you what Jesus meant by this, or at least what I’m interpreting that he meant. I don’t pretend to be inside the mind of Jesus, but I’m trying. So I hope that you’ll join us for the next video on Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.
