Good morning. It's great to be back with you
all, brothers and sisters, to share from God's
words. We're gonna be in the Gospel of Matthew
today, looking at the second beatitude. I'm gonna
be reading, for the sake of context, Matthew
5, 1 through 12, the opening of Jesus' Sermon
on the Mount, but we're gonna focus on the second
beatitude today, blessed are those who mourn.
And just by way of introduction, I'm not really
going to argue this with you, but there's different
ways that people interpret the Beatitudes. But
kind of the path we'll be taking today based
off of some people brighter than me in biblical
studies. And I can refer you to their books if
you're interested in a late summer rabbit trail
of theology. But the Beatitudes are Jesus inviting
us into his way, his vision of what the really
good life looks like. What does the deeply happy,
truly flourishing kind of Psalm 1 life look like?
That Jesus gives us a part of a distillation
of his teaching on what that is in the Beatitudes
as countercultural as they are. And especially
the one that we're looking at today is a very
countercultural one. But that's kind of the standpoint
from which I'm interpreting these Beatitudes
that Jesus is giving us. his wisdom, his invitation
to live the truly good, the truly happy, the
truly flourishing life in and through him. This
assumes the good news of his gospel, that Jesus
has come on the scene proclaiming earlier in
Matthew chapter four, and of course that comes
to its apex, its culmination in his death, his
resurrection, and his ascension. So hear God's
word this morning from Matthew five. I'm gonna
be starting at verse one. Now when Jesus saw
the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and
sat down. His disciples came to him and he began
to teach them. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be
comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will
inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they will be
filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will
be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God. Blessed
are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are you when people insult you, persecute you,
and falsely say all kinds of evil against you
because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great
is your reward in heaven, from the same way they
persecuted the prophets. who were before you.
Please pray with me as we come to God's word.
Let's pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we
thank you that you have not left us in the dark
about who you are, but that you have spoken to
us so that we can know you, so we can be rescued
by you, so we can love you, so we can grow in
our love for our neighbors, for our church family
around us. We pray that you would open our hearts
and our minds to your word today by your spirit.
And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, as was mentioned in Peter's introduction,
and I might have mentioned, if you're in Sunday
School, my REF update, I think I kind of forgot
to talk about my family. Just dived into ministry
update. But my wife Ashley and I have five kids.
Our oldest is nine. Our youngest will be two
in November. And it's kind of hard for us to
believe now, but a few years ago we had fewer
children. But a few years ago we had, you know,
I mean, we started out with none, right? You
know, losing my train of thought. We started
with one. Anyway, but I have a scene in my mind
of a very memorable dinner a few years ago when
we had fewer children. We had three children,
and we were sitting at our dinner table. And
one of the things we had enjoyed in this season
of life, which was, I think, sometime around
2020, because it was before our... second youngest
now, Charlotte was born in 2021. But we had been
enjoying this family of cardinals who had made
their nest in a tree kind of behind our house.
And you had the daddy bird and the mama bird
would be. buzzing around, taking care of the
babies, making their happy chirping sounds as
anxious parents, but trying to take care of the
little hatchlings. And our kids followed. We
saw the nest, and we saw the eggs, and we had
a couple of baby birds hatch. And that was exciting
to see and exciting to hear. The young babies
start to chirp, and the cacophony of sounds of
this happy bird family. And one night we had
this very memorable dinner where we kind of had
that in the background, but the cardinal voices
sounded kind of strained. You might see where
this story is going to take a dark turn. But
the anxious sounds of the parents were not the
anxiousness of providing the food for them, but
something was clearly going wrong. And so this
interrupts our dinner. We all go to this back
window to see what is happening here at the nest.
And the parents are flying around in distress.
And we had this little tree where the nest was
by our AC unit in the back. And this snake has
slithered its way up the tree and is aiming for
the nest. Now, my wife is like, of snakes, doesn't
even want to see a picture of them. I can be
kind of okay observing snakes if we're at like
a zoo or something and I can see them behind
glass, but I try to gin up my courage and...
Isaac, our oldest, was around four at the time,
and we go to the backyard and try to find a brick
or a shovel to see, okay, is there something
we can throw at this snake to get it away without
having to get really close to the snake? Eventually,
I think I threw some bricks at the snake. The
snake goes away, but we can see probably at least
one of the eggs has been eaten, and there is
a baby bird who had been damaged. Like it had
fallen out of the nest in the course of everything
that happened once we make sure that the snake
is away You know we take the shovel we get the
baby bird back into the nest and You know kind
of wait to see what happens now Unfortunately,
you know the the next day we go we go back to
like look at look at what's happening and we
hear the mournful sounds of the mama Cardinal
and And we can see that baby bird who had been
wounded was no longer there anymore. And it makes
me tear up thinking about the story because we
were, of course, sad for this little bird family
that had been destroyed as much as we get used
to as humans, the reality of death in the natural
world and the animal world. But it was also one
of our kids' first very close -up encounters
with death and grief. That we had this little
bird family that we had enjoyed seeing their
life come together. And now there's the sadness
of the reality of death. And I remember Isaac
Rubin and Liza, who were starting at four and
younger, were crying. And here I was as a young
father, like, man, I'm tearing up. What do I
do with myself? But this moment of bringing my
kids in a different way into the reality of death
and of grief and loss. And of course, we read
from Revelation 21 of Jesus' promise to make
everything new and to wipe away every tear from
our eyes. But that story kind of draws you in.
You can surely think of experiences with grief
and loss. not just of animals, right, but of
people, and the reality of death, the reality
of sadness in our world, and is in precisely
only this world that we live in, whether it's
the unexpected or the expected loss and suffering,
it's only in this world that Jesus comes in with
the Beatitudes, and he says this, the one that
we focus on today, Blessed are the mourners,
for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the
mourners, for they shall be comforted. And we
think, how can you say, Jesus, that the deeply
happy, truly flourishing people are the people
who mourn, the people who grieve? Well, of course
it is connected to the promise that it's exactly
and only those kinds of people who will be comforted.
But I think we have to wrestle with this. If
you think about the different places you can
approach grief and loss and sadness from so often
in our American culture today, we tend to deny
our sadness, whether it's about death or just
the things that we are suffering with. We want
to deflect. We want to press things down. Sometimes
that can take us and the people around us into
places of despair. We try to detach from them.
In the culture of Jesus' day, it was an interesting
dynamic with suffering and loss, because on the
one hand, unlike our culture, they were more
comfortable with visible displays of grief, whether
it is at death or at suffering, at a time of
calamity. They're much more comfortable with
that than we are in our culture. And yet, in
some pockets of the Jewish culture of Jesus'
day, people might say, well, like the man born
blind. If you are suffering, if you are disabled,
if you have lost someone, doesn't that mean that
you've done something wrong? Doesn't it mean
that you have, who sinned, Lord, this man or
his father? There was that kind of response so
often to the grief and the brokenness of the
world around them. Sometimes today people might
say, well, suffering, we can just overcome it
through our... our power, like the Buddhist,
we just need to detach and then we can find this
inner peace in this nirvana. If we just watch
these Instagram or TikTok reels or follow this
self -help guru, we'll be able to be okay in
the face of what's gone wrong within us and what's
happened to us and what is going wrong outside
of us. And instead of all these different paths,
Jesus instead invites you and me and y 'all together
as a church family to do something different.
He invites you to grieve with him in the sure
hope of his comfort. Jesus invites you to grieve
with him, looking to the sure hope of his comfort.
And we're going to break down three different
dimensions as we take this passage in light of
the rest of the Bible of what Jesus invites you
and me and y 'all together to grieve or to lament.
And the first of these is this, that there's
an invitation to lament sin with Jesus. There's
an invitation to lament your sin, y 'all's sin,
other people's sin with Jesus. As Jesus' ministry
opens in Matthew 417, what does he do as he begins
his ministry, but he declares, repent for the
kingdom of heaven has come near. Turn from the
way that you've been going and embrace me and
embrace This fulfillment of all the Old Testament
that it talked about of a reign of righteousness
and forgiveness and peace that it has come and
it's been embodied in the person and ministry
and work of Jesus himself But that that ministry
as we confessed and our confession sent earlier
For it to matter at all has to start with you
and I being reminded of the reality of our sinfulness,
that we more than we have realized have fallen
short of God's perfect standard of holiness and
love and thought and word and deed by the things
that we have done and by the things that we have
left undone. And the thread of the ministry of
Jesus so often is encountering people who are
in the midst of their sin and in the midst of
their sin offering them forgiveness, right? As
they repent and turn from it. But to receive
the comfort of Jesus's forgiveness that is based
solely on who he is and what he has done for
us. It starts with us saying, yes, I'm Josh and
I'm a sinner, right? That I need to be able to
grieve my sin to be able to look to the Savior.
Jesus comes as the suffering servant who, as
Isaiah says, bore our iniquities for us. And
so as you think about your sin today. It's like,
well, isn't that a pleasant thought? But isn't
that part of why we come to church? Because we
realize that we are sinners. We realize that
we are messed up and we need a savior. So it's
a good place to think about it. But what are
the places of sin in your life that Jesus is
calling you to grieve today? Are there places
in your life with your sin, whether it's... pattern
of outward sin, whether it's a thought pattern
or a pattern of desire in your heart, is there
a sin maybe that you've become too comfortable
with, that you think, you know, yeah, you know,
I kind of, I do that every now and then, but
like how bad is that? Because part of the gospel
prick of repentance is us being soft in our hearts
towards that sin and not being comfortable with
it. As one of the Puritans said, to be killing
sin, or else it'll kill you, right? That we need
to be able to bring to God our hearts, and to
say, God, I need your help with this. I need
your forgiveness. Don't leave me where I am,
but also lift up my eyes to you and to the reality,
Jesus, of your blood and righteousness that is
given for me that is my only hope. What are the
places of sin in your heart? Maybe that you become
comfortable with the Jesus is instead calling
you to grieve. It might be really deep, persistent
patterns of sin that you invite someone else
into. It might also be the awareness of situations
where you've just become too comfortable with
it, that pops up in your everyday life, and it
could be a great check. You need to ask if your
marriage, your spouse, or a roommate, or someone
who is in your life a lot, Hey, where am I comfortable
with my sin? Where am I, when you're bringing
things up to me that you notice, where am I hard
-hearted and reactive? I'm glad I never do that
as a husband. Glad I never that way with my wife
when she points out my sin. But where, where
are you like that? And where is Jesus calling
you to turn from that sin and instead to look
away from yourself and to embrace the comfort
of his forgiveness? I wonder what difference
it could make to think about the cultures that
y 'all create, the communities that y 'all create,
and that all of our churches create, if our churches
could grow more as places where we openly talked
about, you know, this was the sin I was dealing
with last week, or last night, or even this morning.
That as we have, as good Southern people, the
banter about Clemson football, or in Charlotte
we banter about, a lot of people who like Clemson
football in Charlotte, by the way, as you probably
know, the rain is extended across South and North
Carolina, but we banter about sports, we banter
about the weather. What could it look like for
us to more openly talk with each other about
our sin, so that we can point each other to our
savior, and so that we can move towards each
other as we struggle and we fall, so we can mourn
our sin together. I think it's one of the coolest
opportunities I've gotten as a pastor in campus
ministry sometimes is both to sit with people
in what's really hard and really sad that has
happened to them and outside of them, but also
to sit with people who are really sad about their
sin and to point them to the good news of the
forgiveness of Jesus as they look to that. And
that's the invitation to you and to me today,
as you are convicted of your sin, to really grieve
it. This is not the way that it's supposed to
be. It's not God's best for us. We have an even
greater Savior than your sin or my sin, who lived
the perfect life that you and I did not live,
who looked at the world around him, who looked
at the temptations of the devil, and instead
trusted in the good word of his Heavenly Father,
and never fail. never fails, but he offers his
blood and his righteousness to you and to me.
Will you talk to God about your sin? As you grieve
your sin, will you look away from yourself to
the hope and to the power of Jesus and to his
forgiveness? Will you grieve your sin? Will you
lament your sin with Jesus? Will y 'all do that
with each other? The next invitation we see is
an invitation to lament brokenness with Jesus.
To lament brokenness with Jesus. Brokenness encompasses
a wider lens, the way that often as an outgrowth
of sin, yes, but the way that things are not
the way that they're supposed to be. They're
not the way that creation was originally intended
to be. And we think of this, if you follow the
news at any point, and I hope you detox the news
to the extent that you can, but so many stories
in the news, while there are great things in
the world that are not reported, So often the
things we hear about and the things that you
and I experience at our jobs, with our neighbors,
looking at our communities, are things not being
the way that they're supposed to be. You look
at government, you look at business, you look
at education, you talk to someone down the street,
and it's the trickle trickle of so many stories
of brokenness, of things being bent, of people
abusing their power, of people being hurt. and
not only culturally, but we look at the situations
that so many of you and so many people travel
through, right, with illness, with chronic disease,
with physical maladies and hardships. We scan
the globe, the stories of suffering, of people
being in dire poverty. There's so much loss throughout
our world that it can be easy for us to just,
want to try to block it out. There's a reality
in which we can only process so much of it. But
you look at the minister of Jesus, and he did
not stay an arm's length from suffering. Even
though Jesus had all power, all dignity, all
glory in and of himself, as Paul talks about
in Philippians 2, he didn't account equality
with God, something to be held onto. But he emptied
himself for you and for me coming into our world
of suffering and sadness and brokenness as he
comes and you see throughout the ministry of
Jesus that he Moves towards those who are poor
towards those who are outcasts towards those
who are disabled towards those who are dying
As we'll get into later those who have died that
Jesus does not hold himself in an arm's length
to our pain but instead he enters into it. And
because Jesus enters into it, he offers us the
comfort to be able to engage the pain of your
suffering and my suffering and the suffering
of the world around us. How do you respond to
the deep pain that's in your life? How do you
respond to the place, whether it's a thread of
persistent suffering, of being hurt by someone,
whatever that thread is in your life, in your
story of deep hurt and deep unease of experiencing
this is not the way that it should be, what do
you do with it? Sometimes I think we can try
to numb out our pain. Are there ways that, someone,
one author talked about the difference between
taking a break, from our pain and our suffering
and numbing out that, you know, maybe taking
a break, a little escape is, you know, one glass
of wine versus when I've had five or six glasses
of wine to numb out. Story, you know, with a
lot of younger people maybe is the trite example
of, well, I'm going to watch one show versus
I'm going to binge watch a whole season of a
show. Sometimes that can be numbing. But what
does that look like for you? Are there places
you go to instead of God? to receive comfort
for your pain. And we can think about with the
reality of our need for rest, especially depending
on the season of suffering that you might be
in, it's good to take a break to get renewed
from that pain. But the numbing invites us just
to kind of push the pain down. And we can't actually
bring it out for healing. And what Jesus is saying,
instead of Looking to other places for your comfort
and for your hope as you grieve as you lament
Your suffering and things not being the way that
they're supposed to be What could it look like
for you? To lament with Jesus to bring your suffering
To bring what is weighing you down to Jesus and
to his comfort? There's such a beautiful opportunity
is As Peter was praying the pastoral prayer for
the opportunity as believers to one another,
each other, to look out for each other, to bear
each other's burdens and cares. It's such a great
opportunity of the body of Christ as we share
the things that weigh us down. So often that
is when God speaks his word of comfort to us
is through other believers. Is there something
weighing you down that you need to share with
someone else to be able to receive more of God's
comfort? for you through his people. As it came
up earlier in the service, it's always cool when
there's these providential connections, right?
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1, praise be to
the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles. Isn't that
amazing? He comforts you and me in our troubles?
Don't take it for granted. The God of the universe.
wants to comfort you in your troubles. But even
more than that, he doesn't waste the troubles,
but what does he say? So that we can comfort
those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves
receive from God. That one of the beauties is
you process where you've been and what God has
done in your life is that even if somebody doesn't
have the same situation of suffering and loss
or hardship or sin struggle that you had, as
you receive God's comfort for your pain, it frees
you up more to share God's comfort with someone
else in the midst of their pain. It's amazing
how God works out all things for the good of
those who love him and are called according to
his purposes as we look to him and to his purposes,
as we bring our pain and our sadness to him.
The last thing we've seen is kind of the thing
that I headlined with the opening illustration,
right, is. the invitation to lament death with
Jesus. To lament death with Jesus. Of course,
some of the biggest wounds and feelings of loss
and feelings of something is missing here or
something really hurts in this room are the wounds
of death, right? Some of the biggest wounds in
the lives of the people that we live with and
we want to share the good news of Jesus to. Paul
calls death the last enemy, right? I think it's
so beautiful as you look at the life and the
ministry of Jesus, the story of the account of
Jesus being moved by the death of his friend
Lazarus in the Gospel of John, right? That even
as Jesus knew that he was going to raise Lazarus
from the dead, Jesus wept at the death of his
friend. Jesus, even though he knew he was going
to be the one who would finally defeat death
in principle through his resurrection, who will
return to finally erase the sting of death for
the people of God for all eternity, that still,
Jesus, as he encounters death, he weeps, he grieves
that the loss is a loss, that this is not the
way that things are supposed to be. And it's
in light, of us being able to encounter those
tears and that pain, that the glory of the resurrection
is even greater. But it's only as we travel through
the journey that the pain actually matters, that
the loss actually matters. So like I asked you
to do with your sin and with suffering, is there
a loss in your life and your story that maybe
Jesus is inviting you today? to bring to him
for his healing, for his comfort. Is there a
loss that you've experienced? Maybe God has given
you a lot of healing from over the years, but
that you still need to be able to talk about
and to bring to other body of Christ people to
experience their comfort. What might God be laying
on your heart today with those wounds of loss
and pain? Maybe you don't really have one of
those on your mind today, but... This passage
is a great opportunity as you think about grief
and mourning to be able to ask yourself, are
you ready to die? Are you ready either for the
reality for all of us in this room is that either
things will end when we die or Jesus comes back,
whichever happens first. And this beatitude in
the wisdom of Jesus invites us to ask ourselves,
are we ready for that? And can we say, that our
only comfort in life and in death, as we face
the reality of the uncertainty of our lives,
the uncertainty of the world around us, is in
Jesus Christ, in his blood, in his righteousness
given for you. Wherever you might have been with
loss, wherever you might be with the fear of
death, where is God calling you today? To bring
that to Jesus, to know his comfort, to know his
power, that he comes and he says, I am the resurrection
and the life. As we land this beatitude, it invites
us to look to the triune God, to look to the
one God who is three, the three who is one. To
him alone is the consoler of your heart and mine.
We see the different persons of the Trinity work
in different ways to comfort the people of God.
As Paul has already said in 2 Corinthians 1,
you have a father who is the father of all mercies.
To look to him. for your sadness over your sin,
your suffering, your loss. Jesus, the eternal
son made man, is the man of sorrows who bore
our grief and our sadness and is yet the one
who is the resurrection and the life. The Holy
Spirit is the counselor, the comforter, who comes
to guide and to console you and me, the people
of God. The one who Paul says in Romans 8 helps
us to pray. When in the midst of our sin and
our suffering, we don't even know what to pray,
but God gives grace upon grace to come alongside
of us, even when you don't know what to do. And
I've asked you questions to consider on your
heart as you respond to life, but the beauty
of God is that God comes alongside of you and
me to comfort us, to console us, and to guide
us, even when we don't know what to do. And what
he invites you to do, even if you don't know
what to do today, even if you can't think. of
what the next step of faith is, is to cast yourself
on this God, to cast yourself on this living
and reigning and returning Jesus who says, blessed
are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Will you look away from yourself? Will you look
away from your circumstances? Will you give yourself
and your circumstances to God, looking to him
and to his comfort in Jesus and Jesus alone?
Please pray with me.