Gospel Mourning

Well, as a society over the last few decades, we talk about this a lot.

We talk about issues, you know, in our culture and all those things, but not to beat a dead horse as it were, but in our society, we've really forgotten what shame is.

In fact, we spend a lot of money probably every year as a culture to get rid of shame.

One of the greatest problems that our culture thinks that we face today is guilt, that we feel guilty, and so we figure out how is it that a person can get rid of their guilt.

And of course, some people do it professionally, you may do it through medicine or some sort of doctor visit or something, but others, you may try to get rid of your guilt through a numbing of alcohol or drugs or such.

Of course, we understand that the problem in our society today is not that we feel guilty, right, but it's that we are guilty.

So I invite you to turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5, we're in the Beatitudes, and we come upon the one tonight in verse 4, the second one, where Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn.

In other words, if you buy into society's methodology for getting rid of your guilt, for getting rid of your shame, whether that be medicine or some other thing that you're trying to do to get rid of your guilt, then you'll never be among the blessed, as Jesus says here in Matthew 5.

What needs to happen to you is what we just sang about in that song. You need to be born again.

You need your heart that runs away from shame and guilt to be awakened by the

Spirit of God and to embrace that guilt and embrace that shame. Why?

Because the second part of the Beatitude is true too. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Now we've just cited the verse already, but let's go ahead and stand formally as we honor the reading of God's Word, and I will read this

Beatitude in its totality. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 4,

Jesus teaches His disciples, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Father, we pray that we would understand this text tonight, that You would bless it to the eternal benefit of our souls, and that Your Word would continue to do its work in our hearts and in this church.

We pray You would grow this church for Your glory, spiritually and numerically. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated. Interesting thing that Jesus says tonight, that the mourner blessed.

Of course, Ecclesiastes talks about how there is a time to laugh. Laughing is good. Sometimes people say laughter is the best medicine, and laughing, there is a time to laugh.

But as we understand this text tonight, I want you to understand the title of tonight's sermon, Gospel Mourning.

Gospel Mourning. Now, we have to go back a couple weeks, and this is what happens when on Sunday nights you're sharing the pulpit.

So last week we began 2 Timothy under Brother Jacob, but a couple weeks ago we talked about the beatitude before, which is blessed are the poor in spirit, and we talked about how the beatitudes are pronouncements of blessing.

Jesus is teaching us here, these are the people who are blessed. Now, what does it mean to be blessed? There is an element of happy in the word blessed, but the word for blessed is not a one -to -one equivalent with the modern word for happy, or our understanding for happiness.

Now, just feel the tension, if you will, in verse 4 for just a moment.

Blessed are those who mourn. That's almost, that's almost impossible to fathom in our mind, like how could

Jesus say this? Approved, happy are the mourners, right? How can you be blessed and mourn simultaneously?

Well, I think that's why we have to understand this word for blessed, blessed is more than simply happy. A note in the

ESV study Bible says blessed is more than a temporary or circumstantial feeling of happiness, this is a state of well -being in relationship to God that belongs to those who respond to Jesus' ministry in faith.

Now, are Christians happy people? Well, of course they are, but our happiness is, the true

Christian happiness is deep and abiding and everlasting happiness. It's a holy happiness, as it were, and it only comes through gospel mourning.

So let's look at the text, and Jesus is saying, you're not in a state of well -being with God.

Listen carefully here, children, I want you to consider this as well.

You're not in a state of well -being with God. You are not one who has responded in faith to the person and work of Jesus, unless you are one who mourns.

Verse four teaches us that it is the mourners who are blessed. So I think understanding what

Jesus is saying here is of paramount importance, and so we're now going to examine this idea of gospel mourning.

So what is it that Jesus means here? Okay, number one, true gospel mourning is real contrition.

Okay, number one, true gospel mourning is real, genuine, actual contrition.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Remember in Isaiah 57, 15, a couple of weeks ago,

God dwells in the high and holy place, but also with who? He who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.

God dwells not with the proud, but with the contrite. And so Jesus is not saying here, of course, that Christians should be miserable.

I think that there are some Christians who believe they have the spiritual gift of misery. That's not what

Jesus is saying, that you're to be miserable, and to make other people miserable. I also want to correct the notion that maybe people take this verse and they apply it to a funeral or something.

They say that, you know, you lose a loved one or something like that. Well, it's okay, you know, because blessed are those who mourn.

Well, lost people cry at funerals, but does crying like this necessarily lead to this comfort?

And the answer, of course, is no. This is not, he's not talking about crying when your boyfriend breaks up with you or crying when your dog dies or crying when something more tragic, when a family member's died.

No, no. There's a context here, and the context is in verse three, of course, which says what?

Blessed are the poor in spirit. And so this naturally flows out of this.

So John Stott notes, it's not the sorrow of bereavement to which Christ refers, but the sorrow of repentance.

Daniel Doriani says, Jesus does not bless all mourning. He's not saying all mourning is blessed.

Rather, Doriani says, he blesses the mourning that coheres with kingdom values.

And I will say this, there is nothing more in line with kingdom values than a sinner's repentance.

That is, a sinner realizing that my kingdom is trash, my kingdom is worthless, my kingdom is foolish and wretched.

But I will turn to the one in whom my soul finds rest.

What a shame, wouldn't it be, to live your life and to mourn the wrong things?

How terrible that would be, to be one full of worldly sorrow that only leads to death.

So where does this godly contrition, where does this sorrow of repentance begin?

True gospel mourning is real contrition. So where does it begin? Number one, it begins with mourning for your own sins.

Jesus says, blessed are those, blessed are the mourners, that is, the ones who mourn.

So who are the mourners? This is one of those sermons that the subpoints have subpoints, which include a few subpoints.

But six things involved in gospel mourning for our own sins. What does it look like for a person to mourn their sins?

First, it's sincere. Okay, last sermon, being poor in spirit, we said we can't be full of self.

We acknowledge our guilt and corruption. We acknowledge our bankruptcy. We are humble. But listen, friends, it is one thing to acknowledge those in our brain, and it's something else to steed, to verbalize, to be broken over these things.

You understand? It's one thing to say, yeah, yeah, I'm worth this, I'm no good, yeah, all these things. But it's another thing, it's another grace, as it were.

It's an evidence of grace, I should say, when we are broken over our sin. To mourn our sin is to be sincere in our mourning.

There's a natural flow of mourning here in the text out of those who are poor in spirit.

In other words, I'm broken, I can't do anything about it, and this humbles me.

I see sin now for what it is, and I'm grieved by sin for what it is.

Not just because I'm going to jail, or not just because one time there was a man who came to church.

I was at a church pastoring, and I had never seen this man before, and I introduced myself to this man.

And I said, hello, I'm Brother Allen. He said, oh yes, I'm a member here. Well, at that point, I'd been a pastor there for three years.

Well, come to find out, this man started coming back to church because he had gotten caught with child pornography on his computer.

You understand that it appeared to me that he was not feeling sorrow for his sin so much as he was feeling sorrow for the fact that he got caught.

There are differences here. So, true gospel mourning is sincere. Secondly, it recognizes culpability in the cross.

This is why Jesus went to the tree, friends. Not just because of sin, but because of your sin.

If you were the only Christian ever, I know this is hypothetical, and it's silly sometimes to go, but just walk with me through this illustration.

If you were the only Christian ever to ever exist, what would

Jesus have had to gone through to save you from your sins?

Do you think that to save you from your sins that he would have had to go through something less?

That he would maybe have not had to bear the wrath of God on the cross? No, friends. He would have still had to endure the wrath of God.

He would have still had to endure Calvary. He would have still had to endure the affliction and propitiation of the cross.

Gospel mourning then realizes Jesus didn't just endure suffering for sin in general, but for my sin.

My sin subjected him to the wrath of God. My sin nailed him to the cross.

I smote him as it were with the cat of nine tails. I hollered out in the crowd, crucify him.

It recognizes culpability in the cross. Thirdly, gospel mourning mourns particular sins.

Sometimes we're guilty of praying in this way, Lord, forgive me of my sins. Then we go on about our day.

This is not the heart of one mourning our sin. We say, God, forgive me for the way

I spoke to my wife. Forgive me for the lack of control of my tongue.

Forgive me for that angry thought, that selfish deed. It mourns particular sins.

Blessed are those who mourn, those who mourn particular sins. Fourthly, it doesn't seek to defend, excuse, or explain sin.

What we're talking about here is gospel mourning is real contrition. It begins, first of all, first sub -point, with mourning your own sins.

And now we're talking about six ways under this sub -point of what it looks like to mourn your own sins.

So, fourthly, it doesn't seek to defend, excuse, or explain sin. Charles Quarles says, true repentance makes no excuses and offers no rationalizations.

It grieves for sin from a broken heart. Oh, God, I'm sorry you're offended, right?

Like, I'm sorry you didn't like that. That's how we repent sometimes to one another, right? I'm sorry if my actions hurt you, right?

No, this is understanding, God, this is on me.

I am in sackcloth and ashes, as it were. No excuses.

It's not, well, the reason I did this was, or if it weren't for that person, I wouldn't, no, no, I am guilty, right?

Well, I got angry, but they made me angry, right? No, it's no excuses.

Fifthly, it turns from sin and hates sin. Now, in the

Bible, we have some examples of people who almost seem to repent, but they don't.

For example, Cain, Esau, Pharaoh. We're reading in 1

Samuel, and we're in 2 Samuel, spoiler alert, but Saul dies, if you haven't got there yet.

And Saul, when Samuel tells him that the kingdom is taken from him, he reaches out and grabs onto Samuel.

As Samuel turns away, and remember, Samuel's robe tears. You have people in the

Bible, Cain, Esau, Pharaoh, Saul, Judas, all these men seem to offer a stemblance of repentance.

But you need to understand that saying, I'm sorry, or even shedding tears, or even actually feeling some sort of sorrow is not enough.

It's not true gospel mourning in and of itself, because the Bible says, in 2 Corinthians 7, 10, that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

I cannot tell you how many counseling situations I have been in where a man or a woman has looked at me with tears in their eyes, and they felt some sort of burden for their sins.

And then a day, or two, or three, or a week, or six weeks, or six months, I don't know where they are.

They didn't experience true mourning for their sin. Friends, have you been stricken with godly grief?

Not just, I don't want to go to hell, or I don't want people to think less of me, but struck with a hatred of sin, and a turning from sin, a repentance.

Have you seen sin as offensive because it's an affront to God who is holy and worthy?

Have you seen God's definition of sin and not your own? Blessed are those who mourn, who mourn their own sin, who hate it, who are broken by it.

Gospel mourning produces genuine repentance. Sixthly, gospel mourning is a continual mourning.

Now this is interesting, so stay with me here. But the mourners here is in a present sense.

Blessed are those who mourn, not who mourned, right?

It's a hard word to say in the past tense. It's not blessed are those who have at one time in their life mourned.

Rather, it's present, right? It's active. Blessed are the ones who mourn.

Blessed are the mourners. In other words, we're not just talking about sometime in my life,

I cried when I got saved. In a very real sense, Christians who've been

Christians for a long time know this. The more we grow, sometimes the more that we seem to be mourning our sin because we realize the depth of our sinfulness, right?

As a babe in Christ, we just maybe believe that sin is some of those things out here that we shouldn't be doing.

But as we grow in the Lord, we realize the need for continued repentance and continued grace in God.

Blessed are those who mourn continually, right? So think about that for just a moment.

If Jesus says that those who are mourning are those who are in a state of blessedness, then a real question we have to ask is, when is the last time you mourned over your sin?

Have you ever mourned over your sin? Too often, too often we treat sin so trivially, trivially, and I'm not even saying that word, so another word, foolishly in our lives.

Do you realize that mourning is an evidence that the

Spirit of God has worked in your soul? That you don't just laugh at sin or hate sin, but we're broken over.

So first, gospel mourning begins with self. Secondly, gospel mourning continues to the church.

Blessed are those who mourn. Of course, it's in the plural. In one way, the church is a weeping church.

Do you know what a solemn assembly is? Did you know in our country, by the way, we can go look this up just to be sure, but you can fact check me on this, but I know for sure that in our country, we've had presidents call for days of fasting.

But I believe they've even called for solemn assembly. Churches in America, in our history, in the colonial days, and also when we first became a country there for a while, churches would hold solemn assemblies.

Now, what does that sound like, right? Well, it sounds like an assembly that's solemn, okay? No mystery there.

But what churches would do is would come together and confess their corporate sins, right?

We're talking about maybe their lack of evangelism, their propensity to too much worldliness, their lack of concern about holiness, and they would confess these things together, and they would confess corporate sins together, and they would ask for the

Lord to grant grace and repentance. I tried to lead a church through this one time.

The Southern Baptist Convention, I believe is in 2010, passed a resolution calling upon churches to hold solemn assemblies.

So here I was, a young Southern Baptist, and I thought, well, the SBC told us to do it, so let's do it.

And I attempted to lead a church through it, and the church really was kind of angry at me and like pushed back on it.

And I didn't realize, and the reason is because we don't do this. Well, you don't even know what a solemn assembly is, right?

Because it's fallen out of practice. But the idea here is that our hearts ought to be broken at times in our life for the state of the church.

In Luke 6, 25, Jesus says, Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

In other words, I really am afraid in too many places that's the state of the church. Don't talk about brokenness.

Don't talk about mourning. We've got to be happy, happy, happy. We just need encouragement.

Churches and church leaders who talk about the need for the church to mourn are often pushed aside or ridiculed.

We don't have time for that kind of stuff. We need to be doing stuff more practical. We don't need this negativity.

The world is so negative, right? So we pick on him a lot, but Joel Osteen was interviewed one time and they're like, why don't you ever talk about sin?

And he's like, you know, I just believe that God has given me a message of positivity. There's so much negativity in the world and I just want to be positive.

But friends, this is not what Jesus says. He doesn't say blessed are the positive, right?

He said, blessed are those who mourn. In Ezra 10 one, it says, while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him out of Israel for the people wept bitterly.

Can you think of the last time you saw the church weep? Bitterly. Friends, would to God that we would mourn sin in the church and love one another and the

Lord enough to confront it and be a broken people. Let me put it this way.

One problem in the church today is too many Christians don't know what their carpets smell like because they've never been on their face before God, pleading with God for their own souls, the souls of their children, for repentance and forgiveness, for revival.

This is the state of the church in many places today. Thirdly, true gospel mourning doesn't stop with self or church, but extends to society.

We should mourn our own sin first. We should mourn alongside our brothers and sisters in the church.

Thirdly, we ought to mourn society. The Psalm writer in Psalm 119, we're not sure, perhaps it was

David, but Psalm 119, 136 says, my eyes shed streams of tears.

Why? Because people do not keep your law. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.

So understand, we get frustrated with those who are advocating abortion and gay marriage and the rampant debauchery evident in our society and righteous indignation is a good and God honoring response.

We should be righteously indignant at the sin that we see paraded around us, literally next month paraded around us.

But friends, have we forgotten that not only is righteous indignation a proper response, but so too is gospel mourning.

Look at our nation. How can you look at our nation today and not have at least a modicum of weeping?

They're not worshiping our great God. Yes, I'm right along with you. He frustrates me like no other to see

Joe Biden come out and say the things that he says. It frustrates me, but how can

I not weep? This man doesn't know God. So many who are seated in our congressional seats in the

House of Representatives and the Senate and even the Supreme Court, they don't know God. These people who are parading down the streets and addressing their children in these little rainbow flags, they don't know

God. They don't honor God. They don't give God the worship and the glory that is due him.

They refuse to give him the glory that is due him as his name. What a great offense.

And also sin is ruining their lives. I saw a thing today that two men had a, obviously you understand the language.

You have to use it. It's so confusing, but two men had a baby, meaning they used a surrogate mother and now these two men, they have this baby.

And that ought to break your heart that this child is going to grow up with a broken understanding of what

God has ordained is beautiful in the family. What a travesty.

Sin is ruining the lives of our citizens in this nation. And if nothing changes, they will burn forever in the lake of fire.

And I'm pleading with this church that we would mourn for our society, that the evil that we see, the glory of God despised, the detrimental effects of sin that we see on those around us, the faltering of the family, all of these things ought to break our hearts.

And then we'd be broken enough for our own sins and for the sins of the church and for the sins of society that we'd be prompted to make the prayer closet, the prayer meeting a priority.

How we would make evangelism a priority. Oh, yes. You will hear me say this a million times and I won't stop saying it.

The number one reason that we proclaim Christ in Perryville is because he's worthy to be proclaimed.

But there is another motivation too. And that is I desire to see my friends and neighbors and fellow citizens of this great country, as it were, bow the knee to our

Lord, confess their sins, find forgiveness for their sins, repent of their sins.

May we take these motivations to Christ and cry out to God for our own souls, for the souls in our church and for the souls in our community and country.

True gospel mourning is real contrition. Now, that was a big long point. The second two aren't as long.

Secondly, true gospel mourning results in comfort.

That's why we have to get the first part right, because look at the text. Blessed are those who mourn. Why are they blessed?

For they shall be what? Comforting. That is the word has the connotation of consoled, encouraged, right?

Those who mourn are blessed because they shall be comforted. So you understand why it's so important that we understand the mourning part?

Because if we don't understand the mourning part, then how do we understand the comforted part? So it's only those who mourn who are comforted.

If you go through this life and you never mourn your sin, you will not be comforted. God breaks his people in order to heal them.

You think about this heart surgery and physical heart surgery in some people is a necessity. It extends their lives by years and decades, but it's not easy.

Recovery from heart surgery sometimes can be difficult. Pain and sometimes the rehabilitation is very, very hard.

Yet the surgery results in decades, perhaps added to someone's life.

Similarly, who thinks that a divine heart transplant would not hurt in some ways?

I emphasize here that this mourning isn't something that we go out and muster up. Rather, you need to understand that true gospel mourning is a work of the

Holy Spirit in our lives. He reveals these realities to us about our sin and our separation from a holy

God. And as he does this, he breaks us over our sin. The natural man, the unbeliever, the false

Christian refuses to truly see sin in the way that the Bible describes it. But true believers, those who are born again, mourn sin and they are the ones the

Bible says here that shall be comforted. That's a promise, right? Shall be comforted.

Not maybe, not might, they shall be. Two realities to this comfort. First, it's experienced in part now.

In other words, the mourning that we have for our sin, God is pleased to comfort us.

No mourning, no comfort, no brokenness, no healing, no sorrow, no joy.

But when we realize who we are before God, wretched and vile, and when we realize the extent of Jesus' work on the cross, like the old song that says, whosoever surely meaneth me, and when we realize that Christ really is our all -sufficient and only suitable

Savior, and that His promises are real and true and sure, and that whosoever would cry out to Him in faith, whoever would feel their need of Him and repent of their sin and fly to Christ in faith will be saved.

Even on a Sunday night, I issue this gospel call. Friends, this can be you. This could be you tonight.

Those who understand their sin and where they stand before a holy God and would go to Christ in faith, in repentance, and trusting

Jesus alone as their only suitable and all -sufficient Savior will be saved. This is the comfort that the gospel brings us.

God saves mourners, and He comforts us with His grace and forgiveness. And while our mourning, certainly in some senses, is continual, we're also simultaneously comforted with the promises contained in the gospel.

God knows our tears. Psalm 56a says, You have kept count of my tossing.

Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? God knows our tears.

He knows our mourning. And so Scripture beckons us as believers, don't give up, right?

Keep fighting sin. Keep cutting off the arm of the flesh. Keep mourning sin. Because Jesus has already won the victory, right?

If we are in Him, we will make it because He has purchased our pardon. Rest, rest, rest.

As you mourn, don't let your mourn turn into being in a state of despair.

You aren't perfectly in the image of Jesus yet, but know this, if you are in Christ right now, dear sister, dear brother, you will make it.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. That comfort is in part now. Secondly, though, this comfort is not fully realized till the end of this age.

Friends, this is an age of groaning. But a day is coming when

Jesus will say to us, literally say to us, this is from Revelation 21, weep no more.

Because we will be fully and finally free from our sin and our corruption. Revelation 21 verse 4 says this,

He will wipe every tear away from their eyes. And death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore.

For the former things have passed away. Today is an age of mourning.

But we go to that age where mourning will be no more. Thirdly and finally. So gospel mourning is real contrition.

Gospel mourning. Secondly, results in comfort.

And then thirdly, we look at our text and we think about this grand reality.

Gospel mourning is reflected in Christ. And here's what

I mean. While you would not be able to say that Jesus is ever poor in spirit, as it were, you would be able to say that there is a connection with this one.

Isaiah 53 3 says that he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

So think about this for just a moment. Our Lord Jesus, the Bible says, is a man of sorrows.

Has any man mourned the reality of sin and its effects more than Jesus?

Hebrews 5 7 says it this way. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears.

Jesus was filled with more joy in the Father than any person who's ever lived.

And yet, though he was filled with this great joy in the Father, the

Bible does not have one record of our Lord Jesus laughing.

Anywhere in the New Testament now. Don't get me wrong, I think that Jesus became fully human, which

I think that he experienced laughter. I think that that's true, but the

Bible doesn't record that, at least explicitly, because we don't need to know that information.

But what the Bible does explicitly record is that our Lord mourned sin.

He wept over Jerusalem. He didn't mourn.

This is the difference, of course. He didn't mourn his own sin. Because he is the spotless

Lamb of God. But the greatest weight of sin was fully felt when

God laid our sin upon his son. And Jesus cried out

Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Is this not why Jesus and how Jesus is able to comfort his people?

Because he doesn't just conjecture what it's like to feel sin.

He doesn't just think about, well, I know I'm the creature and you're created, and so I bet it's really hard.

He, in a mysterious way, knows the reality of sin. Not because he was a sinner, but because on the cross, the

Bible says that he became sin and he carried our sins in his body on the tree. And so he understands it being an affront to God and its effect on our lives.

And when we mourn sin, we're like Christ. And Jesus is able to bring us comfort through gospel mourning.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Are you brokenhearted tonight over sin in true gospel mourning?

You know what the Bible says about the brokenhearted, right? This is Psalm 34, 18, right?

The Lord is near to who? The brokenhearted. His own heart was broken for the sin of this world.

And he is able to comfort us when we're broken for our own sins. So let me ask you tonight, why would we neglect these gospel promises?

Why would we not work to see sin in the way that Jesus sees it? Why would we not cry out for more brokenness?

Why would we not plead with God for gospel mourning, knowing that a true and everlasting happiness awaits only those who mourn?

And why not, above all, would we not trust and rest in the sufficiency of the grace of God shown to us in Christ?

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the beatitudes. We thank you how they teach us what it means for the

Spirit to be working in the hearts of people. We pray we would receive this rightly and well.

We'd be a people who mourn sin and rest in the comfort of our