Sermon for Sunday, January 19, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[Isaiah 61:1-4 ESV] 1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion– to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
New Testament Reading:
[James 4:1-10 ESV] 1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Gospel Reading:
[Luke 6:20-23 ESV] 20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
Sermon Text:
[Matthew 5:4 ESV] 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Introduction
Newspapers… remember those?…often had headlines designed to capture your attention.
Sayings that had “shock value.”
Here’s some examples I’ve come up with:
Headline: “Your favorite product may slowly be killing you.”
or
Headline: “Man lives happily on 1 dollar per day.”
These headlines cause you to “read on.”
Likewise each of the beatitudes this statement has shock value, grabbing the attention of Jesus’s listeners as they come to hear his Sermon on the Mount.
These Beatitudes are indeed shocking:
“Blessed are the poor in Spirit.”
And now “blessed are those who mourn.”
Woah. These seem at first sight counter-intuitive, even contradictory. But they are not.
There is shock-value in these sayings, but also profound truth.
So HOW CAN those who mourn be blessed? How can they be happy? Things don’t get much worse than those times of mourning. How can those times possibly be happy times?
There is some debate on this verse as to what type of mourning Jesus is referring to.
Some say that it is the mourning of the death or ill-fortune of other people.
But others say that this is referring to mourning over our own sins.
I believe both of these can reasonably be in view here, and so will address each in turn.
Our first point will be “Mourning Death.” And the second point “Mourning Sin.” Before finally looking at the great “Comfort of God.”
I. Mourning Death
Most generally “mourning” is expression of grief, lamentation, deep sorrow.
And that expression commonly occurs upon the death of a loved one.
Mourning death is what usually comes to mind when we think of mourning. And indeed most, but not all, scriptural reference to mourning are in the context of death..
For example, in Mark’s Gospel in the 16 chapter, when Mary Magdalene went to tell the disciples that Jesus was Risen, she found them “as they mourned and wept.”
It is natural and good to mourn.
The event (the death) that causes the mourning is itself not a good thing. Death is the enemy. But mourning a death is a good and honorable thing.
How sad it would be if there were no mourners at a person’s funeral.
How sad it would be if a person was not remembered and wept over.
We indeed are in a blessed and happy estate as Christians, but in this world, that does not prevent from rightly mourning a death. Isn’t the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” And the context in John 11 is the death of Lazarus. When Jesus saw Mary, the sister of Martha weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. Then, it was when he saw the deceased Lazarus that “Jesus wept.” What a great passage to remind that Jesus was fully man.
And it reminds us that mourning is not sinful. If Jesus mourned, and Jesus never sinned, then mourning is not sinful.
So Jesus shares that type of mourning with us.
But there is another type that that he never had of himself – mourning over sin. Surely he could mourn the sin of others, but not the sin of himself, for he never sinned.
II. Mourning Sin
So there is “mourning death” and then there is “mourning one’s own sin.”
The first is what what Matthew Henry calls “a sympathizing mourning.” But the second — that mourning over our own sins — he calls “a penitential mourning.”
So there a sympathizing mourning and a penitential mourning.
And a case could be made in this passage that the primary reference is to that penitential mourning over sin.
We read: Matthew 5:4 [KJV] Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
But it is not the case that all who are mourning the death of a loved one shall be comforted; to say that would be to preach universalism. The enemies of God will not be comforted; they will condemned.
But the people of God will be COMFORTED! Comforted both in our mourning over death and comforted in mourning over our sin.
We should explore this idea more about “mourning over sin.” I suspect this might not be a familiar subject to all Christians.
We can start by looking at an example:
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul says:
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn?
What are they to mourn? Not death, but sin!
And then James in chapter 4 says:
[James 4:8-10 ESV] 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
The mourning, again, is connected to sin, not death.
Granted, death and sin are related. The wages of sin is death. You might even put these together and say that we should be mourning over a fallen world and self; having both sin and death as its consequence.
Do you mourn over your sin?
You better not say, “those were just mistakes I made in the past.”
Sin is greater. Sin is against the most holy God.
It is not a sin when you trip on the sidewalk, but it is a sin when you trip someone else on the sidewalk.
We all truly sin. And we sin far more often than many realize.
So we are to mourn.
Mourning over our sin looks like this, asking:
Why did I do that?
Why do I keep doing that?
And saying:
My sins haunt me.
My sins have affected my life.
Oh lord, save me.
That is mourning sin.
Do you mourn over your sin? All Christians mourn, lament their sins.
If you are not mourning your sin, that you are painfully unaware of how bad it is.
Your sin is leading you to destruction, to death, and to hell, if not for the saving work of Jesus Christ.
But those who mourn their sins are blessed.
Those who mourn their sins know that they are sinners in need of a savior.
So mourning sin leads to looking at Christ. And looking to Christ brings comfort.
III. The Comfort of God
So we turn to the comfort of God. And, having that comfort, we (even though we mourn) are blessed.
This comfort has a “now” aspect and a “heaven” aspect.
A. Comfort now.
Here and now, on your very worst day, with chaos all around, even though you are in the depths of mourning, you can be happy. Why? Because of the hope of Jesus Christ.
Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that we do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope.
But here and now we remember the promise of Jesus Christ. We remember salvation in him. Forgiveness of sins. And the resurrection to eternal life, just as he was resurrected.
To say this all another way, the hope of Christ TRANSCENDS our mourning.
There are some good things about mourning:
1. In mourning the death of another you remember their life. And thank God for the time you had.
2. In mourning over death, and especially in mourning over sin, you are taught humility and brought closer to God; brought more into dependence on him.
And so there is comfort.
Without God there is no comfort.
The atheist has no higher power to go to. And in that he takes pride.
But the Scriptures tell us: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
We have comfort knowing that God is with us. Christ came to live with man, and following his ascension into heaven he sent the Holy Spirit, who is also called … the comforter.
The Holy Spirit gives us comfort.
I described what mourning sin looks like. Now I want to describe what this comfort looks like.
It is a cheer in the heart, an encouragement, and a relief of grief … knowing the comfort of the truths of salvation. The weight upon you — the burden of sin and of death — that weight is dropped as it is taken up by Christ. .
So we have comfort in looking to the promises of God.
Then, there is the final comfort that is to come.
B. Comfort in Heaven.
In heaven we will have comfort, fully complete.
[Revelation 21:1-4 ESV] 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear 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.”
Our confession, summarizing the Scriptures, says: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory.
And, I think, in the glory of God, everything else falls at the wayside.
In that blessed state we are comforted, even more, we are in comfort, no longer concerned about our sin (because, by the grace of God, we will no longer sin in heaven.)
And death will not threaten us, because we will be made forever alive.
Much of the blessedness, much of the comfort of heaven we must admit to not knowing about in detail.
How is it that we will not worry about loved ones we knew on earth?
How is it that all the former things will pass away, and yet God sustains his people.
Now we know in part, someday we shall known fully.
Application: Beware the error of blessedness by self-imposed misery.
Just as last week I noted that poverty is not to be sought after
So now we must see that misery is not to be sought after.
There was this error through the centuries in the Christian church, that made it seems like the more misery you are in, the closer you are to God.
It takes the name “self-flagellation.”
People would intentionally harm themselves is some sort of perverse penance.
Self-flagellation actually refers to flogging oneself with whips.
No doubt this is an error.
We are not to seek misery.
We are to have joy despite the troubles that afflict us.
You are not more blessed, the more miserable you are.
You are blessed despite difficulty. And you are blessed despite the mourning of death around you. And you are blessed even though your sin causes you to mourn.
There is certainly no need to seek misery.
Conclusion:
Finally, let us have comfort in the Lord.
Let us seek out the Lord’s comfort in our difficult times, recognizing the truth of Psalm 321:
“Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven.”
And remembering that statement of the Heidelberg Catechism.
“My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own, but belong–body and soul, in life and in death–to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.…”
Our only comfort.
And that is true comfort, in the arms of our Sovereign Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be the glory.
Let us pray.