Sermon Cloud

Beatitudes

Matt 5:4

 “Mourn”

Introduction: Two places that people are often most uncomfortable are a hospital or a funeral. Both places are associated with what we are born and conditioned to avoid. Pain, misery, age, death! I remember one of my first funerals and the family was by and large not religious or Christian. I heard that day true weeping and whaling. Maybe you can think this morning of a time of great pain in your life. A time when you could do nothing but let it out. The loss of a loved one or a disappointment that just gripped you and you expressed your grief in an outward way. That is the picture that Jesus is painting today In Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn.” Trench says that this word to mourn, “to grieve with a grief which so takes possession of the whole being that it cannot be hid;” the πενθοῦντες of Matt. 5:4 are οἱ μετʼ ἐπιτάσεως λυπουμένοι, those who so grieve that their grief manifests itself externally. Thus we find πενθεῖν often joined with κλαίειν (2 Sam. 19:1; Mark 16:10; Jam. 4:9; Rev. 18:15);^[1]  

2Sa 19:1  Then it was told Joab, "Behold, the king is weeping and mourns for Absalom."

 Mr 16:10 She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping.

I. Blessed are those who mourn

           A. Mourn over your sin

 Jas 4:9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

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

           B. Mourn over the sin of the church and the world

Lu 19:41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,

 42 saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.

 43 "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side,

 44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

II. You will be comforted

          A. The word for comfort

 Lexicon def.

 Joh 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name,

          B. The time of comfort

 “Will”

 Isa 40:1 "Comfort, O comfort My people," says your God. 2 "Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the LORD'S hand Double for all her sins."

Conclusion:

We need to value the quality of mourning

1.  At the end of every day – What have I done, what have I said, what have I thought, how have I behaved with respect to others?

2.  We need the confronting finger of Nathan the Prophet to David in his sin with Bathsheba and the murdering of Uriah.

2Sa 12:7 Nathan then said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul.

Ps 51:16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.

 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

3.  Know God

 Isa 6:1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.

 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

 3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."

 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.

 5 Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."

^[1]Trench, Richard Chenevix: Synonyms of the New Testament. 9th ed., improved. Bellingham, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2003, S. 238