All right. Thank you, pastor. Let's go to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five. A few months ago, if you remember, I think it's been a few months, time flies when you're having fun. But a few months ago, I got the privilege of preaching on Wednesday night and we preached on the Beatitudes and we looked at blessed are the poor in spirit. And the Lord led to go to the next one. And so as opportunities come, We might be able to make our way through this as the Lord allows and the Lord leads. But tonight, Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 4. And if you could stand with me out of respect to the reading of God's word. Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 4. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Father, we come before your presence. We ask for your help. Give us strength as we look at this topic of mourning, probably something that we don't think about too often. But Father, you promise a blessing to those that mourn. You promise comfort to those that mourn. Be with our time now as we look into your word. May you speak to our hearts. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. So blessed are they that mourn. for they shall be comforted. I don't know about you, but I want God's blessing on my life, don't you? And we come to the Beatitudes, and we see a number of these blessings, or blessed are, and we're given a characteristic, and with that, we're also given a promise. And last time, when we were together, and I was afforded the chance to preach, we looked at blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And we talked about how we need to recognize our own spiritual bankruptcy, that there is nothing that we can, offer to God. We are completely dependent on Him. And I'm thankful that He is the kind of God that recognizes He still accepts us even when we can't really offer anything unto Him. And we talk about that humility that's required of us. And as we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we understand that it's a message to followers of Christ. And as we come to the Beatitudes, we recognize that there are certain characteristics that should be evident of those that want to follow Christ. And tonight, I want us to look at really the second Beatitude, which is, blessed are they that mourn. for they shall be comforted. You would think it's a bit of a paradox. Happy are the sad ones, right? It don't make any sense. But you know, honestly, that's how God's kingdom works, doesn't it not? It's contrary to most of how we understand life. Blessed are they that mourn. I liken it to sacred sorrow, sacred sorrow. But one person said it like this. If you want to know someone's character, find out what makes him laugh, and what makes him weep. Tonight, I just simply wanna look at three things, three truths from this beatitude that can help us understand what it means to mourn, and how it can help us better equip us to follow Jesus. And I understand we got candy to pack, and so if you listen, I'll talk quick, if you listen quick, and we will see what the Lord has for us tonight. So, if we want to understand the blessing that comes from mourning, we have to see, number one, first of all, the priority of mourning. The priority of mourning. Jesus says, blessed are they that mourn. If I want God's blessing, I need to make mourning a priority. Now, you may think, what does it mean to mourn? It's a good question. What does it mean? Well, I found this definition helpful. To mourn is a genuine lament or a deep heartfelt grief. Mourning can be something we do inwardly. Oftentimes, it can be something we also do outwardly. Yet, we live in a culture that the thought of crying or grieving is unsettling, it's perceived as weakness, and oftentimes it's borderline embarrassing. On the other hand, we live in a culture that prioritizes or capitalizes on laughter. We have comedians, we have actors, we have amusement parks, we have all kinds of mediums to incite our ability to laugh. I don't know about you, but every commercial that comes up, it's getting to be Christmas season, we understand that. So you see all the toy commercials and all these things. The political ads are over, the commercials for toys have begun. And so, with that being said, I've never seen a commercial that tries to advertise a toy where the kids are having a miserable time. I mean, if Nintendo wants to advertise their next Mario Kart, it's not going to be a picture or a scene of kids with their Switch controllers going, Oh, that's not gonna sell product. They have to capitalize on the excitement because when kids see kids happy on the television, what do the kids immediately think? If I'm gonna be happy, I need what they need, what they have, right? We prioritize, our culture prioritizes happiness. Listen, I'll tell you, lacquer's a good thing. Is it not? I mean, Proverbs 17.22 says this, A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones. Hey, a merry heart, a happy heart, doeth good. It's good to laugh. It's good to be happy. But it's interesting to note, we don't have a record of Jesus in the Scriptures ever laughing. You ever think about that? Now, obviously Jesus had many times of fellowship with his disciples, and no doubt times of fellowship bring about laughter. We can see probably a connection there. But you know what we do see recorded in scripture? Is times when Jesus mourned. Do we not? Think about it. Jesus was mourning or grieving over the city of Jerusalem for His people's rejection of Him. Luke 19, 41-42 says this, And when He was come near, He beheld the city, speaking of Jerusalem, and He wept over it, saying, If thou hast known, even thou at least in thy day, the things which belongeth unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. As Jesus gets ready to go into Jerusalem, gets ready to be crucified, he looks at the city, he understands the rejection that comes, and Jesus weeps over the city. He mourns over the city. Listen, in a time of bereavement at the loss of Lazarus, we find our students, our middle school and our high school students' favorite memory verse of all time, John 11, 35, Jesus wept, right? Jesus wept at the loss of Lazarus. He wept as he saw Mary and Martha heartbroken over the loss of their brother. And Jesus was caught up in that moment and Jesus wept. He mourned. He grieved. But understand when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount, it's written to those who follow Jesus. And if Jesus prioritized mourning, should not his followers? We must understand that the genuine part of mourning, there is a genuine part of mourning, but there's also a fake kind of mourning. If you think about it, in just the next chapter, Jesus would confront the Pharisees in their fasting and how they would put on a sad countenance to draw attention unto themselves. Hey, listen, that's not genuine mourning. Mourning that affects only our appearance, but doesn't touch our heart is hypocritical mourning. Hey, have you ever had someone fake cry to get something they wanted? You seen that? I mean, just the other day we were in a store of some sort and you could hear this little girl just crying at the top of her lungs because she wasn't getting the toy she wanted. She was in deep grief because she was being deprived of her happiness. No, it's a far cry from the mourning Jesus is speaking of. Secondly, mourning is not just simply feeling sorry or going about moping through life. That's not what mourning is. It's not walking around with a sad, depressed look all the time. Listen, it's not the Eeyore syndrome. You familiar with Eeyore? You familiar with Winnie the Pooh? That poor donkey that always seemed to lose his tail? Well, I got some words from Eeyore today. I'm not gonna read it and try to do it in my Eeyore voice. It'd be embarrassing. Here's some words from Eeyore. Don't worry about me. Go and enjoy yourself. I'll just stay here and be miserable. When your tail is missing, remember you have every right to mope. It's a poor guy. It's the only cloud in the sky and it's drizzling right on me. Somehow I'm not surprised. Listen, our hearts can go out to Eeyore. They can. I was a big Winnie the Pooh fan growing up. Yet those sentiments are not the sorrow that biblical mourning encapsulates. Mourning goes much deeper than that. But we have to understand that mourning, there's a priority in mourning. And understanding that will help us, number two, to understand the practice of mourning. So if I'm to prioritize mourning in my life as Jesus did, Jesus understood that there were times to mourn, how do I go about doing that? Well, when it comes to mourning, we need to understand that the Lord is attuned in our times of mourning. Listen, the Lord is not disconnected nor disinterested in the affairs in our life when we go through deep times of grief and heartache. You'd understand that. The Lord is very much attuned to the human experience that we have of mourning. But Solomon advises us that mourning should be a part of life. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 4. It says there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. We'll save the time to dance for another message, but there is a time to mourn. So what are some times, what are some ways we can practice mourning? I'm gonna point out a few examples, but I'm gonna point really to what I think, I believe Jesus is getting to when he's talking about mourning. First of all, we can mourn at the loss of a loved one. Absolutely. You go back to Jesus and Lazarus and Lazarus' funeral, Jesus mourned, Mary and Martha mourned. I remember deeply mourning when my mom passed away when I was in fifth grade. I deeply remember that time in my life of genuine grief. Listen, we can mourn in times of distress or trials. If you remember Job's friend in Job chapter two, it's not on the screen, but if you remember, after all the things that Job went through, his three friends finally showed up, and when they saw just the mess that Job was in from all the trials that he went through, they started crying for him. In the New Testament, in Romans chapter 12, verse 15, it tells us to rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep. Listen, if you know someone who's going through trials and you see them mourning, it's okay to mourn with them. It's okay to try to understand what they're going through and be a help to them. How about this? Times of loneliness. Consider Psalm 42 verses one through three. As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Catch this, my tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, where is thy God? going on. Was that it? Yeah, where is that God? Exactly. Sorry, I thought there was another verse. But notice the psalmist, he's crying, he's in despair, he's grieving because he wants to thirst and he wants to hunger after God, but it seems like God right isn't there. And even the people around him say, where's God? Where's God right now? You need him, why isn't he there? So there's times where there's perceived loneliness that we can mourn. How about this, the sins of others are the sins of a nation. Mark chapter 3 verses 1 through 5. Jesus here, he entered again into the synagogue and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him. And he said unto the man which had the withered hand, stand forth. And he said unto them, is it lawful, unto them, speaking of the Pharisees, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they held their peace. Catch verse five. And when he looked around about them with anger, being grieved, at the hardness of their hearts, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand, and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored whole as the other. Think about it. Jesus, wanting to heal on the Sabbath day, he asked the question, on the Sabbath, is it lawful to do good or is it lawful to do bad? And they wouldn't say a thing. Deep down, they knew the answer. It was okay to heal on the Sabbath, but it would have broken their religious laws. And Jesus was grieved. He mourned at their answer. He was distraught at it. Consider Psalm 119, 136. Rivers of water run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law. Listen, so often we will get angry and righteously indignant at the sins or wrongdoings of others. But have we thought to mourn for that person? When was the last time we mourned for the lost person who, despite our attempts to share Jesus with them, still reject him? Do we mourn? So those are all examples of what it means to mourn, but I wanna park for a second here on what I think Jesus is getting at when he's talking about, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. And I think while all the other things such as a loss of a loved one, time of distress, time of loneliness, the sins of others or the sins of a nation, those are all things that legitimately can cause us to mourn. I wanna park on this, our sin. Do we mourn over our sin? There are many reasons to mourn, but I believe what Jesus is getting at here is He wants us to mourn most of all about our sin. Now, understand, for the Christian, positionally, our sins are forgiven past, present, and future. But do we not, church member, still struggle with sin? We do, absolutely. We have a flesh that we wrestle with every single day. Sin is very much a part of our daily experience. Think about King David for a second. King David probably stands as one of the greatest examples of mourning over sin. You think of Psalm 51, you think of Psalm 32. Psalms that were written after David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed. And David held on to that for several months, almost a year, until the... Oh man, I just lost his name. Nathan the prophet came and confronted David. And when David was confronted, he began to mourn. Think about Psalm 32 verse 3. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. What triggered David's mourning? A realistic view of his sin. Think about Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah 6 verse 5. Isaiah has this magnificent view of God, high and lifted up. And when he sees God for who he rightly is, he says this, Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. What triggered Isaiah's mourning? A healthy, realistic view of God. And guess what? Here's what happens. If we're truly honest with ourselves, we often compare ourselves with other people. Do we not? Because we can justify in our minds that we are better than they are. After all, we may go to church more than they do. We may live a better moral life than they do. Our families aren't as big of a mess as they are. And so on, and so on, and so on. But what triggers mourning? A realistic view of my sin and a healthy, realistic view of who God is. The Bible does not endorse such comparison. As a matter of fact, 2 Corinthians says, whosoever compares himself amongst himself, amongst others, is not wise. But here's what Jesus is getting at. We have to stop looking at other people, stop looking at others to self-justify ourselves. Instead, we ought to look to God, because when we do, we are left with no choice but to be confronted with our sin. And when we're confronted with our sin, it should cause us to mourn. You see, godly mourning brings about the greatest godly happiness. But mourning isn't an end of itself. It actually has a goal in mind. When I'm confronted with my sin, I have three responses. When I'm confronted with my sin, I have three responses. First of all, I can simply regret my sin. In other words, my sin only affects my mind. It's kind of like the my bad type of response. There's regret, then there's remorse, where my sin only affects my mind and my heart. Yes, there's a sense of feeling sorry, it's very emotional driven, we're heading in the right direction, but the third response is the best response, we call that repentance. Think about it, not just regret, my bad, not just remorse, oh man, I'm sorry. No, I was wrong, because repentance affects my mind, it affects my heart, and it affects most of all my will. And in doing so, I mourn over my sin and I look back to God as the only source for forgiveness. One person said it like this, the mark of a mature man is not sinlessness, which is obviously reserved for heaven, but a growing awareness of our personal sinfulness. The closer we live to God, the more we will mourn over our sin. Don't be deceived, my friend, on the concept of the littleness of sin. We are quick to justify our wrongdoing. We're quick to justify our deceit. We're quick to justify our little spots of pride in our life. And one of the greatest traps we will ever fall into in the Christian life is to categorize and minimize any form of sin. Think about this. This goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 4. You think about Cain and Abel. Obviously, Cain and Abel, they came, they offered sacrifices. God favored Abel's. He did not favor Cain's. Cain is upset about this. Genesis chapter 4, verses 6 through 7. He's giving Cain a way to get restored, but he gives this warning. And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Sin is likened to that crouching lion getting ready to pounce. I came across this reel yesterday, and it was a conglomeration of kids at a zoo. And they were in the tiger exhibit or whatnot. And every time The kid would look in the window, the line stood still. And as soon as the kid turned around for the photo moment, you saw the line crouch. And then the more it turned around, oh, he's fine, turned back around to mom and dad, and all of a sudden the line would just charge at the window and try to pounce, and he'd obviously get blown up by the glass. But nonetheless, that's what sin is like. It's crouched, it's ready to pounce. Sin wants to destroy no matter the type of sin. Sin wants to rob us of joy. Sin wrecks havoc on us. The writer of Hebrews warns about not being fooled by the deceitfulness of sin. So the answer is, truly, when we sin, when we fall into sin, when we mess up, we need to mourn. We need to mourn to bring us to repentance. Mourning really is really the next step. I said last time that a blessed are the poor in spirit really sets up the stage for the rest of the beatitudes. Because if I'm not poor in spirit, listen, I'm not gonna mourn. Because if I don't understand my destitution before God, if I don't recognize that, listen, I still mess up, I'm not gonna genuinely mourn. But mourning really puts me in the right perspective of my sin. And it brings me to God, and guess what? Blessed are they that mourn, because why? They shall be comforted. So we see the priority of mourning. We see the practice of mourning. But then number three, and we're done, the promise to the mourners. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. I love that word comfort. It's the word from which we get Pericle. It's actually the word that we find a reference to the Holy Spirit in John chapter 16, that he is another comforter. He is one that's called alongside us. You know what, when we confess our sin, you know what the most awesomest comforting thing that we can experience? God's forgiveness. I'm thankful for God's forgiveness, are you not? I'm thankful that when we confess our sin, God comes alongside us to forgive us and to bring undeniable, unquestionable comfort. It's only then that we can exchange our sackcloth of mourning for a garment of praise. Because you remember back in Psalm 32, when David said that his bones waxed old as he was mourning over his sin, and when he got that sin right, the first verse kind of gives it away. Psalm 32, verse one. Blessed, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. What a blessed comfort that is. You see how mourning led to forgiveness. We see also, sorry, how mourning led to forgiveness, which was exemplified in the Church of Corinth. I want to look at a New Testament counterpart to this. Listen, Paul's first letter to the Church of Corinth wasn't pretty. We spent about a year preaching through it. You go through that letter, it's a blistering rebuke for the many sins that the church committed. However, I love 2 Corinthians. Why? Because it seems that the Corinthian church made the necessary corrections. And 2 Corinthians is definitely a different tone than 1 Corinthians. Here's why. Example, 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 8 through 11. We see how they dealt with their sin and they received forgiveness. For though I made you sorry with the letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. For I perceived that the same epistle had made you sorry, though it were for but a season. I would love to park on this passage so much or so much here. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance, mourned to repentance, grieved to repentance, for you have made sorry after a godly manner that you might receive damage by us in nothing. Verse 10, for godly sorrow Worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. Verse 11. For behold, the selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you! Yea, what clearing! Wait, did I mess up? Go back, David, sorry. Yea, what clearing of yourselves? Yea, what indignation? Yea, what fear? Yea, what vehement desire? Yea, what zeal? Yea, what revenge? In all these things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this manner. What did the Corinthian church do? They were confronted with their sin, they mourned for their sin, they repented of their sin, they were forgiven. in that order. And that's the order we have to follow as well. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. When we mourn over our sin, we can find comfort in Christ's forgiveness. But only when we learn how to mourn, only when we embrace the sacred sorrow that we have, that we can have, that we'll have a deeper understanding of our Heavenly Father, who is both a faithful forgiver and a great giver of grace. Psalm 30, verse 5. For His anger endureth but a moment, in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. I don't know about you, but do y'all have a comfort food? Y'all have a comfort food? Ice cream? Candy? I'm sure Pastor's comfort food is like a 24-ounce steak. That's probably his comfort food. But I was looking up here earlier today and I found some comfort food. Where is it? Oh, there it is. Oh, man. Love me some comfort food, right? Love Kit Kats. I'm gonna open this and it's gonna go everywhere. I love me a Kit Kat, comfort. Sam's like, hey, you want some of this comfort? Oh man, I'm happy to share, maybe not. Even if I ate one, I would still be probably 12 to one down from Pastor Charles, but nonetheless, we all have our comfort food, do we not? When we're down, it's a Lucky Charms? Is that the cereal? One of many, all right. We all have that comfort food. When we're down, when we're distraught, we go to that comfort food. Friend, when we're down and distraught, when sin's messed us up, the only way to true comfort is to mourn, is to mourn over our sin. No amount of comfort Kit Kats or comfort candy or comfort whatever can ever bring the comfort that a forgiven heart provides. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.