The Beatitudes Series #2

"The Blessing of a Broken Heart"
Matthew 5:4
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." - Matthew 5:4

I heard about a man who went to a restaurant after church one Sunday. He ordered a steak well done, but when they brought it to him and he cut into it, it was rare. It was still bleeding. He waved the waitress over and said, "This steak is too rare." She took it to be cooked some more. When she brought it back he cut into it again, but now it was overcooked. Again he waved for the waitress. "Come here. This steak is burnt to a crisp!" She took the steak, went to the kitchen and got him another one. She stood there as he cut into it, and thankfully it was just right.

The man then cut into his baked potato and found a black spot in it. Turning to the waitress, he said angrily, "Look at this potato. It’s a bad potato!" The waitress, who had just about had it at this point, picked up the potato and said, "Bad potato, bad, bad, bad!" spanking it as she did. She put the potato back down on his plate, said "If you have any more trouble with that potato, just let me know," and walked off. He said that was the last time he ever complained in a restaurant.

Now I don’t want to be a judge about proper behavior in a restaurant, but don’t you think that Christians ought to be able to act a little better that the rest of the world, especially after church on Sunday morning! We can, if our attitudes within change.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus stood on a mountainside near the Sea of Galilee. As his disciples gathered to listen, he delivered some of the most challenging statements we’ll ever hear. We call them the Beatitudes, and they are recorded in Matthew 5:1-12. They all begin with the word "blessed," which means "happy." Today I want to continue the sermon series "Don’t Worry; Be Happy!" by looking at these steps to happiness found in the Beatitudes.

Last week we looked at the first beatitude: "Blessed (or happy) are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God" (Matthew 5:3) and saw that the first step in finding happiness through Christ is to be humble enough to recognize how much we need God. It is only when we surrender to God, acknowledging our total dependency, that we become open to what God desires to do in us. This humility is the first step toward a lasting happiness. 1

Today let’s look at the next beatitude, one that again seems at first to be a contradiction: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." (5:4) If the first step toward happiness or contentment is to have humility, the second step is to mourn! To understand this, we need to ask what Jesus meant by "mourning." After all, people mourn - or grieve - in many ways and for many things.

One kind of mourning is what I’ll call human mourning. The death of a spouse, a parent, a child, or a dear friend can bring overwhelming physical grief. A tragic injury or a debilitating disease can do the same. Losing a possession, or a pet, or your standard of living, or a spouse or child through divorce - all can bring tremendous physical grief. This kind of mourning can seem like a dark, never-ending tunnel, and you wonder if it will ever end. While others go on merrily with their lives, you wonder if your life will ever get back to normal. All you want is to escape the pain that you feel. If only you could just fly away and be at peace! In Psalm 55:6-8, David lamented over his troubles and then wrote, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. Indeed, I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."

Most of us have felt that way at some point. Certainly God offers us comfort in these situations. Paul wrote in 2 Cor.1:3-4, "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, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." Often it is those moments of deepest pain that we sense God’s love most clearly. When we are grieving over the loss of someone of something in our lives, we can find great comfort and peace - even happiness - knowing that God is with us watching over us, loving us always. "Blessed (happy) are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

While God’s comfort is certainly offered to us in times of human mourning, Jesus may have had something else in mind as well. I’m speaking of another kind of mourning which the Bible calls godly mourning. Paul spoke of this in 2 Cor.7:10-11 when he wrote, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. For look at what earnestness this godly sorrow has produced in you." What Paul was referring to was a sorrow over sin that leads to repentance. It is a sorrow that can ultimately free us from sin’s bondage and bring us happiness. "Blessed are those who mourn [over their sin], for they shall be comforted."

I wonder how concerned we really are about sin in our lives. Taking sin seriously means that we truly mourn over our sinful condition. This is what Paul meant by "godly" sorrow. It is the cry of those whose heart is broken as they realizes that they have sinned against God. Listen to David in Psalm 51:3-4: "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee and thee only I have sinned and done what is evil in thy sight." David had sinned and he knew it. Rather than try to justify or excuse his sin, he mourned over it, not because he had been caught, but simply because he had committed the sin at all. It was an affront against God, and the knowledge that he had sinned against the God who loved him so much broke David's heart.

The prodigal son went through much the same process. He looked at his life and recognized that what he was doing was wrong. He began to mourn over what he had done, and in that godly sorrow he found honesty. His sorrow led him to repentance: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son" (Lk.15:21). His godly mourning over the sin in his life led to repentance, which in turn led to his finding a forgiveness that led to happiness.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Just as we physically mourn over the death of a loved one, so we should mourn over our sin so that God may apply his forgiveness to our lives. Think about how seriously God takes sin. In God's sight, sin is so serious that nothing short of Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross could take care of it. Let there be no doubt about God's opinion of sin. The questions is, how seriously do you take sin? When you realize all the pain that sin brings into your life it’s hard not to take it seriously. A wise preacher once told me, "Sin will always take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to give." Those words are still true today.

"Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." John said in 1 John 1:8-9, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our ns, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all sin." When you know that your sins have been forgiven and that you now have a chance to live life a better way, it will bring great joy to your heart. This is the comfort promised to those who mourn over their sin. It is the next step toward happiness.