Who is the Blessed Mourner?

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5.
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We are in an ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount.
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So today we are going to be looking at Matthew chapter 5 and verse 4 when it comes time for the reading of the text.
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But before we read the text, I just want to give a short introduction.
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Deep within the pages of the Old Testament, there is a phrase which has befuddled many Bible readers down through the ages.
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Because it represents sort of an emotional paradox.
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The verse goes something like this, and I imagine most of you have heard it.
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It says, it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting.
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It is in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 2.
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It is better to go to the house of mourning than it is to go to the house of feasting.
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And I was thinking about that phrase this week as I was preparing my message.
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And I got to thinking that that phrase really goes against every natural expression of reality that most of us can consider to be accurate.
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Certainly going to a place of mourning, such as a wake or a funeral home, is never a pleasant experience.
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Nobody is excited to go to the funeral home.
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Likewise, conversely, most of us enjoy a feast.
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Most of us, some more than others, but most of us enjoy a feast.
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We enjoy getting together, we enjoy the fellowship of a good meal.
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Yet the text of the Old Testament there in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 says it is better to go to the funeral than to the feast.
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Some people say, well, that is Ecclesiastes and that book is hard to understand anyway.
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That is just a confusing book of the Bible, so what are you going to do? It is difficult.
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But the reality is that though these words are opposed to our natural sensibilities, they do show us a profound agreement with the words of Christ which we are going to study today.
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In the text this morning, Jesus is going to say that there is a blessedness which accompanies mourning.
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In fact, He says, blessed are those who mourn.
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And throughout our lesson, what we are going to see is that He is not talking about all types of mourning, but rather a very specific type of mourning which indeed carries a very specific type of blessing from God.
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So let's stand together.
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We will read just verse 4 of the Beatitudes here.
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As we have been going essentially one line at a time each week, today we are in verse 4.
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And it says these words, it says, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to again hear Your Word.
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I pray, O Lord, first and foremost, that You would keep me from error, as I am certainly capable of preaching error.
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And I pray also, Lord, that You would open up the hearts of Your people to the truth.
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I pray that, Lord, if there are those here who do not know the truth or do not know Christ, that You would use this as a time of conviction for them.
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And for those who do know Christ, that You would use this as a time, Lord, also to convict them of growing closer to You.
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That all of this, Lord, would be used by You to glorify Your name and to edify Your people.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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I would imagine that everyone under the sound of my voice this morning, except perhaps maybe the youngest among us.
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We do have a few small babies in the crowd.
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But other than them, I imagine everybody under the sound of my voice has experienced some type of grief in their life.
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I would say even tremendous grief.
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Having worked for years in a funeral home, both as a teenager and later as an adult, I've had the opportunity to see many people grieve and to grieve with many people.
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In my time in ministry, I have accompanied the deathbed of more than a few people, both believers and unbelievers.
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And experienced the response of family and friends as they spent their final moments with their loved ones.
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And grief is tremendously painful both to experience and to watch.
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A.W.
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Pink said this, he said, Mourning is hateful and irksome to poor human nature.
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From suffering and sadness, our spirits instinctively shrink.
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I think that's true.
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I think we naturally recoil from grief.
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No one enjoys it.
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No one feels good about it.
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When we experience it, it is a hard thing.
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And given the opportunity, most of us would avoid it.
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A.W.
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Pink goes on to say, It is natural for us to seek the society of the cheerful and joyous.
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Yet the verse now before us presents an anomaly to the unregenerate.
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Yet it is sweet music to the ears of God's elect.
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If blessed, why do they mourn? If they mourn, how can they be blessed? Only the child of God has the key to this paradox.
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For blessed are they whose sorrow is at complete variance with the world's logic.
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Men have in all places and in all ages deemed the prosperous and the gay to be happy ones.
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But Christ pronounces blessedness on those who are poor in spirit and mourn.
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Again, Pink is pointing out this paradox.
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That the world looks at mourning as horrible and bad and it's not good, but yet Christ says it's blessed.
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And that's strange.
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There's a paradox.
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And just in case we miss the power of Jesus' Word when He says, Blessed are they that mourn.
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We need to consider the language of the Beatitudes.
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The underlying Greek language.
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Sometimes when we read it in English, we don't always get the full force and the full effect of what was originally stated.
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The word mourn in the Greek is the strongest word which is used for mourning in that language.
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It is the word which is used for the mourning of the dead, for the passionate lament for one who was loved.
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In the Septuagint, this is the same word which was used, if you remember, when Joseph was sold into slavery.
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His father was sold by his brothers.
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He's been killed by an animal.
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This word for mourning is the same word that was used of Jacob when it said he mourned for his son.
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To give you an idea, this is the type, the level of pain, the level of suffering that Jesus is talking about.
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This is the hurt one likened to who has lost a child.
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So it's not just simple sadness, but it is a true, deep and profound grief which Jesus calls blessed.
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Now, I want to make a point that I hope that we all understand.
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Because, as I said last week, many people misunderstand Jesus' words.
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Many people have misinterpreted Jesus' words, particularly in the Beatitudes.
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And one of the things that people misunderstand about this particular Beatitude is that they apply it to all types of mourning.
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That all mourning is blessed by God.
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But I want to share with you a very simple truth that when Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn, He had a very specific type of mourning in His mind.
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Not all mourning.
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In fact, I want to share with you some mourning that's not blessed.
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Can I do that? Can I share with you some types of mourning that are not blessed? If you're taking notes, you might want to write these down.
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Number one, the mourning or the sorrow of unbelief.
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That's not blessed by God.
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What do you mean, Pastor? Well, in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10, it says this.
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It says, Now, what is worldly grief? What is Paul talking about there? Well, worldly grief is a natural consequence of unbelief.
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Worldly grief comes by those who have rejected God and also rejected the meaning of their true existence.
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We were created for the sole purpose of magnifying God and worshiping Him.
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We were created in His image, and when we deny that for which we were created, there is a natural grief that accompanies it.
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Let me say that again.
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When we deny that which we were created for, there is a natural grief that accompanies it.
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The grief of unbelief.
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Some of you might be thinking, well, you know what? I know some atheists, and they're right fine people, and they seem pretty happy.
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I know some atheists that seem really happy.
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How can you say there's a grief that is associated with unbelief? Well, I say it because the Bible says it.
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I say it not based on experiences of my own, but I say it because the Bible says that those who live outside of a belief in God are suppressing the truth in their hearts of His existence.
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The Bible says that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
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That their entire lives are spent having to live in denial of that which they know in their soul to be true.
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Do you realize that? That atheists live all the time having to force down the truth that God placed there that He exists.
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It says that in Romans 1.
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Isn't that an amazing thought? That their whole life is living...
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That's why atheists are so incurably religious.
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What do you mean atheists are religious? Have you ever met any that are like hardcore atheists? I've gone to conferences that have been...
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There are atheists outside.
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They're holding signs.
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They have shirts.
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And you know what some of the shirts are now saying? Don't believe in God? It's okay.
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Why do they have to tell themselves it's okay? Why do they have to convince others that it's okay? Because they know deep down it's not okay.
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Because inside their heart they know it's not right.
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So they need somebody else to tell them it's okay.
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They need somebody else to help suppress the truth.
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So they have to convince each other it's okay.
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Because when they lay down at night and they close their eyes and it's nothing but them and their soul, their soul tells them they're wrong.
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They have to have somebody from the outside tell them they're okay.
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And that's a mourning, but it's not a blessed mourning.
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Because they live in a state of despair that often leads to great and horrible negativity in their own lives.
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What do they do to replace that need for God? They try to replace it with sex and drugs and alcohol.
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They try to suppress that yearning that's in their heart, the knowledge of God that's in their heart.
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They suppress it any way that they can.
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They fill that void with anything that they can.
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That's why in our land we are the huge market for all these anti-depression things.
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Because there's this attempt to suppress the truth.
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I need something to make me feel better about myself because I know I'm living apart from God, apart from the way I was created to be.
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I was created to worship God and enjoy Him forever, but yet I deny His existence.
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I live in despair.
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So give me something to make me forget about it.
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Consider Judas.
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Judas is one who mourned.
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But Judas is one who mourned, not a blessed mourning.
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Judas is one who mourned his own sin, but it was not repentance.
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It was despair which led to what? Death.
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Just as Paul said, there is a mourning which is ungodly and leads to death.
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And what's the result of Judas? Judas, he goes out, he finds the nearest tree and the nearest length of rope and he suspends himself from it.
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That's not a mourning blessed by God.
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I'm sorry.
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So we need to understand.
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We talk about blessed mourning.
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That's not it.
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The mourning that accompanies unbelief is not blessed.
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That's number one.
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Number two.
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This one's a little long.
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I'll say it.
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Hypocritical sorrow of someone who is caught and rebuked.
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Let me say that again.
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Hypocritical sorrow of one who is caught and rebuked.
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Have you ever seen a person who was caught in something that they should not have been doing? Caught in the act of sin and then they cried crocodile tears before a crowd of people over the situation? Beloved, those tears are the result of having been caught, not the result of repentance.
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That's mourning, but that's not blessed mourning.
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Cain got caught.
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Remember Cain? Cain killed Abel and God came to Cain.
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And where's your brother? Am I my brother's keeper? There's this great exchange between Cain and God.
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And what did Cain say when God said, you did it, you killed him, and you're going to be punished.
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What did Cain say? This punishment is more than I can bear.
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It was all about him.
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The punishment that you're giving me is more than I can bear.
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Leave out the fact that I just murdered my brother.
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I am the one who's suffering.
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Look at all these politicians.
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They get caught.
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And what do they do? Well, first they often embarrass their spouse by dragging her out and making her a part of the spectacle.
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And they cry these crocodile tears of nothing.
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And then they run again.
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On what? It ain't repentance.
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That's not blessed mourning.
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That, if anything, is simply the sorrow of being caught.
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And that's not what Jesus is talking about when He says blessed are those who mourn.
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What I'm doing is I'm taking away some of the ones that we might think, because we're going to finally get down to what Jesus is talking about, but I'm peeling away the onion.
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Because again, so many people misunderstand Jesus' words and they pile on to it, pile on to it.
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Stuff that ain't right.
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So we've got to peel all that off so we can get to what is.
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There's a third type of mourning that's not blessed by God.
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And that is what I call pretend mourning.
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If you want to see, you're in Matthew 5.
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Turn over to chapter 6 and verse 16.
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Let's turn one page.
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Chapter 6 and verse 16, it says this, And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
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See, in the time of Jesus, there was something about being a religious person.
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Even today, you know, these people that are highfalutin religious folk, and one of the ways that they would get people to respect their religiosity was that they would fast regularly.
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But what they would do is they would make themselves look like they had been fasting even if they hadn't.
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They put on a fake mourning.
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A fake gloominess.
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It reminds me of the modern preachers who work themselves up to tears and emotion simply to get a response from the people.
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And I'm not one that's opposed to emotion.
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Don't get me wrong.
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But this attempt to pretend, this pretense that goes on, this fakeness, pretend sorrow is not the mourning which is blessed by God.
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Number four, the fourth type that is not blessed by God is what I would call and what I have labeled here common mourning.
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What is common mourning? Well, it's the mourning that everybody deals with.
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Everybody in the world mourns about something.
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All people, believers or unbelievers, have grief in their lives.
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We all face illnesses.
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We all face death of loved ones.
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We all face economic distress, pain, suffering.
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This type of mourning is common to all men.
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It's one of the few things that all people must deal with.
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Whether you're rich or whether you're poor, no matter what race you come from, no matter what socioeconomic background you come from, everybody has to deal with grief at some time in their life.
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Everybody mourns at some time in their life.
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We call that common mourning because everybody mourns, but that is not the type that is blessed by God.
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So that's four types that are not blessed by God.
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So we peel back some of the onion, trying to get to the heart.
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Well, what is it then? If these types of mourning are not what's in Jesus' purview when He says, blessed are those who mourn, well, who are they? Who is the blessed mourner? Much like last week, if you remember, I said when Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, I said, you know, a lot of people focus on the word poor and they focus on economic poorness.
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And I said it's not economic poorness, but it's the poor in spirit.
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It's the person who has recognized their destitution before God and recognized their sinfulness.
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That's the poor in spirit.
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In the same way, the word blessed are those who mourn speaks of a very specific type of mourning.
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I want to share with you what that type of mourning is.
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Some of you probably have already thought about it and figured it out, but just in case you haven't, I want to give you the picture of the blessed mourner.
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Three things that are mourned by the blessed mourner.
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Number one, the blessed mourner sorrows over his own sinful condition.
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I see some of you.
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Yeah, you knew that one was coming.
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You've heard me preach.
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You knew that one was coming.
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But beloved, even though I've said it many times, it doesn't make it any less true.
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There is a mourning which begins the Christian life and accompanies it all the way through.
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And that is a mourning over our sinful condition.
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The mourning that we should be faced with when we realize that we have offended our Creator.
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The mourning of the broken and contrite heart, the one whose spirit is broken over having been condemned as guilty before the judge of the universe.
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Turn in your Bible to Luke 7.
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Most of you probably remember this story.
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Luke 7 and verse 36.
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It says, one of the Pharisees asked Him, that's Jesus, asked Jesus to eat with him.
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And he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table.
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And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table of the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
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Beloved, that's the picture of the blessed mourning.
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Here is a woman who the Bible only identifies as a sinner.
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It doesn't go into it.
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It doesn't have to.
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It simply says, here is a woman who was a sinner.
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And you might say, well, aren't we all sinners? Well, yeah.
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Which means what? Well, two things.
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Number one, her sin was known by everyone.
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But number two, her sin was known by her.
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And that's the most important part of that.
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It's not that her sin was known by everyone because all of our sins are known by everyone.
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We're all sinners.
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We know that she knew her own sin.
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She was a sinner.
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She knows that her life, she knew that her life had been marred by her sin.
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And those at the table knew it too.
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Which is why when Jesus allowed her to touch Him, they talked amongst themselves, oh, if He was a real prophet, He wouldn't let her touch Him.
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Oh, she's got dirty hands.
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She's a sinner.
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But I ain't worried about them right now.
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They were wrong and we all know they were wrong.
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What I'm worried about is her.
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Her attitude.
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Her attitude is the attitude of the blessed mourner.
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She threw herself at the mercy of the court.
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She knew she had nothing of righteousness in her account.
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She knew that her life had been marred by sin.
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So what did she do? She cried at the feet of the Savior.
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She didn't come to Jesus and express her goodness.
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Well, Jesus, even though I'm a sinner, I give a tenth of all my income to the temple.
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No, she didn't do that.
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She didn't say, Jesus, though I'm a sinner, I make sure I take care of these children in this orphanage.
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No, she didn't do that.
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She didn't try to express any of her goodness.
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All she did was cry at the feet of the Savior.
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She demonstrated a level of spiritual sorrow which is rarely seen today in churches because people are too busy being proud of their accomplishments than they are to be broken over their sins.
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One commentator said this.
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He said, this is a very elemental doctrine of the faith, yet it is largely ignored in the modern evangelical church.
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People are either told to accept Christ with absolutely no preaching of the law or consciousness of sin, or they are told to acknowledge the fact that they are sinners without anything deep or specific, and then to accept Jesus, such pretending produces superficial, carnal Christians who never mourn their own sin.
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I mean, oh, you've got to accept that Jesus is the Savior, accept that you're a sinner, believe that He's the Savior, confess your sins.
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It's ABCs of Christianity, what we always did in the VBS.
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And there's no mourning over our sin.
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There's no concern that we have offended the God of the universe who created us.
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No care.
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The commentator goes on to say this.
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Mourning over one's sin and depravity is viewed as outmoded or even unbiblical by some.
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The blessedness of mourning has been replaced by the gospel of self-esteem.
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Sorrowing over sin has been rejected for having your best life now.
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Bewailing our iniquities has been jettisoned for the laughing revival, the coffeehouse service, the rock and roll jam fest.
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Our culture's obsession with entertainment, serving our perceived needs and wants, trying to be happy and having fun all the time, has permeated much of the modern evangelical church." And I agree 100%.
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People say, well, I don't want to go to that church.
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I don't have fun at that church.
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Really? Get over yourself! Don't have fun.
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I feel very confident in saying this.
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If you have never mourned over your sins, you are not a Christian.
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You don't know Christ.
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Some say, who are you to question my conversion? I'm not questioning your conversion.
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I'm announcing the reality that you're not saved.
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If you've never cared about your sin before God, if you have never mourned over the fact that you have offended the God of the universe, you are not a Christian.
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If you don't believe your sin is worthy of hell, you will not reach out for a Savior to save you from that hell.
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You'll believe a social gospel that's related to a social club and not a church, and you will go your whole life thinking that you are right with God, and you will end your life in hell.
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Oh, now it's uncomfortable.
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If you think it's hot in here, we have no air conditioner.
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Oh, so it's hot.
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No, I've got a place that's a lot hotter.
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Oh, now he's preaching hellfire and brimstone.
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Well, somebody better, because our nation is going there.
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So somebody better preach the truth.
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So we need to mourn over our sins.
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And if we cannot mourn over our own sinful condition, we cannot appreciate the depths of love which Christ demonstrated on the cross.
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Because He took the punishment for our sins.
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If we don't appreciate how bad our sin is, we don't appreciate how bad His punishment was.
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But there's also the reality that we don't just mourn over our own sins, we also mourn over the sins of others.
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When Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn, we mourn over our own sins, yes, but we also mourn over the sins of others.
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When we find a fellow believer who is found engaging in sin and is living a life of sin yet claiming the name of Christ, what is our response? Oh, I've got to go tell so-and-so.
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I called him.
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Is that our response? Or is our response to be broken for Him? That's what church discipline is supposed to be, by the way.
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It is supposed to be the desire to win back this wandering brother.
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Remember, Jesus said if you do this, you have won your brother.
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If he comes back, you've won.
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There's no reason to go tell anybody anything because he has repented.
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And that's the goal of discipline.
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When I hear that someone is sinning, I pray that God would break your heart because He certainly has broken mine for you.
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2 Corinthians 12-21, the Apostle Paul says this, I fear that when I come again, my God may humble me before you and that I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.
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He says, I am mourning over their sin.
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When Jesus came to Jerusalem, what did He say? Oh, Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem.
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You who killed the prophets.
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Do you remember that? He mourned over the sin of Jerusalem.
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We too must weep over the sins of our brethren and we pray for not their judgment, we pray for their restoration.
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That will keep us from gossip, by the way.
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That will keep us from being happy about their situation.
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Because like I said, a lot of times gossip makes people happy.
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Oh, did you hear what He did? Oh, did you hear what He did? If we would actually mourn over their sin, we won't be happy to express it, but we'll be on our knees before God on their behalf.
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And it would change the way we operate.
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Everywhere.
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That would be a massive shift in the paradigm of the church all across our land and across the world if people would quit being happy to catch somebody in sin and start mourning over the fact that someone is in sin.
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And it's not just for believers, even though I would say that's first and foremost.
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We also weep for the sins of unbelievers.
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You know, when Jesus was weeping for Jerusalem, it was mainly a city of unbelief.
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And He wept for them.
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And I weep for our country.
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I weep when I turn on the television and I see a country of people that has by and large rejected the Gospel, rejected Christ, rejected morality, rejected the reality of what God has given us in our hearts, suppressed the truth so far, and forsaken all that we were founded on.
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That hurts my heart.
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And I mourn for that.
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So we mourn for our own sins, and we mourn for the sins of others.
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And finally, and I'll close with this, we also should mourn for the persecuted.
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We should mourn for the persecuted.
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If you read through the Beatitudes, which we will be going verse by verse here, weeks ahead, there's going to come a part where Jesus is going to shift His attention to persecution.
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And it really is the underlying theme of this whole thing.
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Because Jesus is making the point about the reality of life that the Christian is one who will be hated by the world.
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Blessed are you when men hate you and revile you and say many things against you, all because you follow Me.
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And we're called to mourn for those who suffer for the faith.
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I don't think we do that...
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I won't say enough.
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I don't think we do it at all very much.
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Because it's not just something that happened 2,000 years ago.
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Yeah, the early church suffered a lot.
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They suffered at the hands of many.
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They suffered at the hands of both Jew and Gentile.
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But beloved, it's still happening today.
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Persecution is happening today.
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Some atheists say it's a myth.
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Oh, there's no Christian persecution.
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That's just a myth.
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It's much ado about nothing.
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But the reality is that there are people who are being killed today for their faith in Jesus Christ.
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There are churches which are burning today in Egypt, some of which are 1,600 years old.
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They have been the houses of worship for 1,600 years.
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And today they are ashes because of the hatred of Jesus Christ in the Gospel.
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So don't you let some pencil neck atheist on CNN tell you that it ain't true, because it is.
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The Gospel is hated.
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Christians are persecuted.
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And it's very, very, very real.
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The Voice of the Martyrs and organizations like that whose goal it is to reach out and help these people, you just go and do a little bit of research and you will find that this persecution is very real.
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And our hearts should mourn for those who suffer for Christ.
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One, because they're suffering.
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And two, because we would want the same in return when the suffering comes to us.
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We would want there to be people praying for us.
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We would want there to be people whose hearts are hurting for us.
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We would want that love and concern coming our way.
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And we know that.
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And even though we are sitting in an air-conditioned building on most Sundays, and we're here comfortable on most Sundays, the reality is this is all subject to change.
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There is nothing that guarantees the freedom of our religion in this land.
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At any moment, that freedom could be snatched away.
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Oh, now you're a naysayer.
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Now you're negative Nelly.
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Let me tell you something.
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The reality of the freedom of the press and the freedom of religion, it only takes those in power to get tired of it quick and it's gone.
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And it goes away slowly sometimes and sometimes it goes really fast.
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But beloved, we should never take it for granted.
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I read about these pastors, and I said I would end with this and I will.
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I read about these pastors who are removed from their families, they're beaten and afflicted, they're hated and despised, they're starved.
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Some of them are beheaded.
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All for doing what I'm doing right now.
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If I did what I was doing and I ran, I wouldn't last a day.
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Beloved, we should mourn for them.
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Our hearts should be broken for them.
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But we must never forget that Jesus did not just say blessed are those who are mourned.
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He said blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
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We have the comfort of Christ.
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There is a comfort that even though we have sin, He has justified us as it says in the Bible.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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We have that comfort in knowing Him.
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We have the comfort of knowing that even though our brother in Christ may sin, that no one is outside of the realm that God can't reach out and grab them by His grace, so we pray for Him.
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And we have the comfort of knowing that though one may suffer for the gospel's sake, no one who ever suffers for the gospel's sake will ever suffer in vain.
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Because the Bible tells us that Christ is their reward.
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So beloved, the great blessing of this verse is that there is a blessedness in mourning.
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But it's not common mourning.
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It's the mourning over our sins, the sins of others, and for those who hurt for the Word, for those who hurt for Christ.
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So this morning I encourage you, examine yourself.
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Ask yourself that question, have I ever mourned over my sin? Have I ever mourned over the sin of my brethren? Have I ever mourned for my brothers and sisters in Christ? And if not, ask yourself why? Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.
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We thank You for this call to mourning which we have been given, and we pray that we would have our hearts broken over our sin, over the sins of others, and over the suffering of those who suffer for the Word.
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I pray, Lord, for every believer under the sound of my voice that we would be under the conviction of the Word this morning and that there are those here who do not believe the Gospel, that You would confront them with their sins and bring them to a knowledge of the truth.
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That there is no Savior but Christ and that they would call out for Him in repentance.
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That they would be like the blessed sinner who washed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
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That they would be ones who were broken before You over the weight of their sin.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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Beloved, we come now to our final song.
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I will invite you to stand as we sing.
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And if you have a need for prayer, please come.