Sermon: Those Who Mourn

A Contrite Spirit
#1648-PM
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 22-Apr-22; 79 minutes

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As you might guess, officiating at a funeral is probably the most difficult of the minister's duties. Maybe equal to that is visiting a hospital where a member is dying. Those are two things that most ministers I know would rather not do. It is heart wrenching and like almost everybody else in this world, except those with extremely soft hearts, a minister has a hard time knowing exactly what to say to a person who is grieving or a person who is dying. Or if he should say anything at all. It is very hard to figure out what will be comforting and what will be helpful.

Even quoting Bible verses, which in normal times we think that they offer some comfort, but sometimes in those situations just quoting a verse comes off flat and unhelpful. Because maybe at that time for that particular person, it offers very little comfort to them, whether they are a grieving widow or children of someone who is dying or best friends. And that might just be in the moment because of the way things are and maybe later those verses would be helpful.

But ministers have the ability to stick to their prepared text and that is often just the best thing that they can do. Otherwise, they just remain silent but available for those who have a need for comfort if that is possible. I know I try to read the room, read what the people are going through, whether they seem to be extra-emotional or not. And I know that if I say something wrong it might tip the balance and cause more pain than comfort. So it takes some experience and I cannot say, thankfully, that I have enough experience to know what to say when, at the right time.

But during those times when grief is sharp and fresh, it is difficult to think beyond that moment, the very present. It all depends on the emotional state of the survivors, of course. Some are more stoic, they are more put together, and they are easier to talk to because they have a greater command over their emotions. And you can feel comfortable saying something to them about the deceased or whatever and know that they are not going to fly into a fit of of wailing.

But others' emotions, though, are a lot more volatile and you have to be more careful. You can tell they are at their last scintilla of restraint over their emotions and they could go into an outburst of grief or anger or hopelessness at the drop of a hat. It is just not easy to figure out. It is very difficult to watch at times because you want to help but know that you have very little to give in that particular time. And sometimes when somebody does break down, it opens the floodgates and it breaks down others who are trying very hard to keep it all together. Then the floods come and it can be quite emotionally grievous.

You know that after a loved one dies, it takes some time to start thinking clearly. Some need a few days or weeks. Others need months or even years before they can even consider themselves even close to back to normal, whatever normal is. That is why grief counselors recommend to widows and widowers not to make major decisions—things like selling a house or getting remarried or making some major financial move—for at least a year after the spouse dies because they are just not thinking clearly, or they may not be. Death and grief can be so destabilizing that facts get skewed in your mind. Your feelings are magnified and your impressions of things are not normal. You see things more acutely, more sensitively. And so we find that this period of grief can be kind of destabilizing until you can get a handle on your thoughts again.

For a few, grief never fades. It remains raw and open until they die. They look at their loved one's death as the end of their world and very little that happens after that can bring them away from that feeling that it is never going to be the same again. Obviously it is not going to be the same, but they do not have any hope that it could become any better.

Now, personally, this is just me, I have a hard time understanding that kind of grief because frankly I do not believe I have that kind of emotional range. My emotional range is about this much and it tends to be very much leaning toward optimism and things are going to get better, I know. (Well, not in the world.) But I just feel that I have just been a very optimistic person for most of my life.

But people are wired differently. Some people are more negative or some people are more sensitive or some people are more cynical or some people are more happy and it is just how you were raised. What your genetics are like, what your brain waves do to make you the way you are. So we do not act and react in the same way to these kind of situations. And that is what makes it difficult for people to relate to things like this. It does not have to be just a death. It could be actually something very joyous and people react differently even to that because of the way they are wired and the way they were brought up.

However, I am talking about sorrow. That is a difficult thing for us to relate to, whether it happens because of a severe trial, whether it is a death, whether it is just bad times. We can go through periods of grief and not really understand how to act and react to them.

You know, the Bible has a great deal to say about grief, sorrow, mourning. And the reason that the Bible has a great deal to say is because human life is full of it, full of terrible, tragic things. Human life is full of death and adversity, and calamity even. Children and mothers die in childbirth, diseases ravage millions, famine, even in our time of plenty, is always a threat. Look what happened in Ukraine. It is the breadbasket of that area of the world and it affects us because we are all globally connected. Animals attack, accidents happen, natural disasters wreak havoc.

Here we are, living in North and South Carolina, where we are under hurricane watches a good part of the year. And if it is not hurricanes, it is tornadoes, and if it is not tornadoes, it is earthquakes, and if it is not earthquakes, it is probably something else—snakes, spiders. You know, we have a new spider coming into upstate South Carolina and into North Carolina. It is supposed to be a big one and it flies, it floats with the webs that it puts out, the wind can actually take it. So beware.

And we should never forget power struggles and crime and war. Those are things that we all face and they all can cause us a great deal of suffering and grief.

For most of human history, life has been extremely difficult for most of humanity; a hand-to-mouth existence. And as bad as it is as we talk about, "oh, things are getting worse here in the United States," this generation alive today may have the least experience with suffering and death. We have coddled our children. We have been coddled. We live in a nation of prosperity where wars and those things happen elsewhere, where we have a medical system that is able to keep women and babies alive after childbirth. We have gotten ahold of certain diseases so they do not ravage us like a smallpox epidemic or something like that, cholera or what have you. We live very good and blessed lives where we are. But every once in a while we have to deal with death.

If you will please go with me to Job the 14th chapter. We are going to begin here because we know Job is a major downer when it comes to life. So here, while he was going through his suffering, he is expounding how bad it is in the world.

Job 14:1-2 "Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does not continue."

That is human life. Brief-blooming and you are dead. That is: the grass comes up it, withers, and that is the end. (Psalm 90, if you want to add that to your notes.) The view that we get in the Old Testament is that man's life is so brief and full of trouble that death and sorrow are going to be par for the course.

Let us go to chapter 27 where Job speaks again. He is talking about the wicked here. But because just about everybody in the world is wicked because they sin, it is talking about everybody.

Job 27:13-23 "This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage of oppressors, received from the Almighty: If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword [That is encouraging. Have lots of kids. They are going to go to war and die.]; and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. [There is not enough food to go around.] Those who survive him shall be buried in death, and their widows shall not weep.

Though he heaps up silver like dust, and piles up clothing like clay—he may pile it up, but the just will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver. He builds his house like a moth, like a booth which a watchman makes. The rich man will lie down, but not be gathered up; he opens his eyes and he is no more. [just once, and he is dead] Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest steals him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. It hurls against him and does not spare; he flees desperately from its power. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place."

That is Job's perspective on the life of people, normal people who do not know God. Not very encouraging, is it? But under his suffering that he was going through, that is what his mindset was. There was nothing good, everything was bad. Death was just lurking right around the corner. Life was short and hard. And it is a real blessing for those of us who have not had to contend with severe hardship and suffering and death very often. That is a blessing from God that we can have joy and happiness and peace.

But eventually we all must deal with those things. Whether it is a parent's death, or a sibling's, or spouse's, a child's, or a dear friend, we all are going to experience the loss of somebody at some point, if we have not already, because such is the cost of living in a sinful world.

Let us go to Lamentations now and hear more bad news. The book of Lamentations, if you remember my sermon series from a few years ago, opens up with Jerusalem being illustrated or depicted as a princess who had it all. But now she is widowed and she has become a slave and of course, because of what has happened in this case, Jerusalem has been destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. All her people are dead, or most of them are, and her life, as it were, was just consumed by death, the death of her people.

Lamentations 1:10-16 The adversary has spread his hand over all her pleasant things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom You commanded not to enter Your assembly. All her people sigh [the word should be groan], they seek bread; they have given their valuables for food to restore life. "See, O Lord [she says], and consider, for I am scorned. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought on me, which the Lord has inflicted on me in the day of His fierce anger.

From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it overpowered them; He has spread a net for my feet and turned me back; He has made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions was bound; they were woven together by His hands, and thrust upon my neck. He made my strength fail; the Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand. The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst; He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord trampled as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. For these things I weep; my eye, my eye overflows with water; because the comforter, who should restore my life, is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed."

Now we know that her sins are what brought on this disaster. It was judgment from God because she would not repent. And so as a result, all her people are either dead or in captivity. And even the survivors, she says, are starving and miserable. They have nothing because they have bartered it all for what little food there is.

So she, Jerusalem, is in a state of deep grief. It is the kind of mourning that occurs just after the calamity strikes. It is a time when a person cannot think straight. It is impossible for them to think straight because of what has just happened. Nothing makes sense. No one and nothing can bring comfort because she is still shell-shocked. She is reeling from the disaster that has just struck and she cannot piece together the reasons. Not quite at this point. It is only later in the book, when you get into chapters 3 and 5, that the narrator (maybe it was Jeremiah, who knows?) begins to find perspective and writes that perspective in the book here and begins to acknowledge the lessons that God wants His people to learn.

But that is just how grief goes. That is its pattern. We understand from modern studies that grief is a lengthy process. It is not just something that happens and goes away. It is something you move through and you go into different stages that each takes a bit of time so that the grieving person can get a handle on what he or she is feeling and how that affects their lives. It takes a great deal of time to come to terms with what has happened.

We are not too far away from Ecclesiastes, so let us go to Ecclesiastes 7. We often read at least part of this in our funeral sermon. But this is one of Solomon's "better than" statements and it is good to have this perspective, this comparison where we have a wise man telling us that this is better than that. And so this is what he is talking about here in terms of good and bad. Mostly in terms of whether it is to be joyful and feasting and have a lot of mirth, or whether it is better to be grieving or to learn from grieving. So this series of "better than" statements that encapsulates the Bible's teaching on learning the right lessons from life.

Ecclesiastes 7:1-5 A good name is better then precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth. [That seems a little shocking. You are dead. How can that be better? Well, he is not talking about necessarily your day of death, but we are to learn from others days of death.] It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better [it improves]. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools [though] is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.

This is all of a piece where Solomon is getting a principle across to us, that we do not tend to learn a whole lot from good times. It is a sad thing, but it is part of our human nature that we just, like the grasshopper, get our fiddle out and dance away the summer. And even though it is prosperous and all that, we are just thinking about having fun or being joyful rather than thinking about the future and lessons that we need to learn.

So good things bring a lot of joy and contentment and that is good. But it is not as good as when we allow the bad things to teach us valuable wisdom about how we need to live life. It is a well known principle in our culture, probably because of the Christian influence and things like the book of Ecclesiastes, which people knew in time past and it became part of part of the way we think.

I am going to read you a very short poem. It is called "Along the Road" and it is by a poet named Robert Browning Hamilton. I am not exactly sure when he wrote this, but I think it was more than a century ago. It goes like this:

I walked a mile with Pleasure; she chattered all the way, but left me none the wiser, for all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow and ne'er a word said she; but oh, the things I learned from her when Sorrow walked with me.

Sorrowful things give us a correct perspective. They bring us back to zero, if nothing else. They help us to understand and live right before God if we have that motivation. Sorrow, grief, mourning those things teach us the value of life and the value of living uprightly. And the value of things like time and health and the priorities of life. Because death comes to all eventually and we have to learn, we have to have it sometimes beaten into our heads by death, that we need to take action now before it is too late, because we could die tomorrow. We do not know when we are going to die. Like I have said before, we could go out on the road and get hit by a bus, if God would allow it. We do not know. We could be eating tonight at a nice restaurant and cut a piece of meat too thick and get stuck in our throat and die. I hope that does not happen. God forbid that it does.

But those are the vagaries of life. You never know. We do not have any insurance, no guarantee that God is going to let us live a minute longer. We need to think about things these things while we have the time because there is no time to lose. So it becomes imperative that we learn these lessons when they are given and make the most of them.

Now, probably many of you have guessed that I have decided to continue talking about the Beatitudes and the second beatitude that is given is Matthew 5:4, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." As I finished last week's sermon on poor in spirit, I mentioned that poor in spirit was a facet of lowliness or humility. And mourning too is a facet of lowliness or humility. It is the attitude of being contrite. It is a heartfelt feeling of remorse, sorrow, and unworthiness. We will see why this is a necessary and valuable mindset for a Christian to have, how it changes the way we approach things.

Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

It could be, "Happy is the man who mourns, for he shall be comforted" or consoled.

The focus word, obviously, that we are having to look into is the word "mourn." In Greek, it is the word pentountes from pentheo. That is Strong's #3996 and it means, "to lament, to be sad, to mourn." One of the interesting things about this word is that it may be translated more strongly as bewail, which is a very strong form of mourning. It is a kind of shrieking or keening, or a kind of passionate grief that everyone can see.

So whether it is just mourning or being sad or even as extreme as bewail, nonetheless, it is a deeply-felt grief, something that goes all the way to the bone. It is not a brief passing one, like one might have for say, an acquaintance that dies. You might have a momentary kind of grief that the person has passed from the world, but it does not linger. This kind of grief that Jesus is talking about is one that sticks with you, that affects you very deeply. So it is not ephemeral at all, not momentary, but it is a grief that is an abiding, continuing sadness, one that cannot be shaken because its causes are too present to simply shrug off.

And that is an important thing that we understand—that the causes are still present. That it is not something that we can shift our focus away from because it has passed and go on to something else. No, the problem still remains. And so we are continually grieved over the fact that the problem still remains and it is taking such a great effort to overcome.

So, this mourning is a a meaningful, persistent mourning over wrong, over something that is not right, something that is not good, but that wrong, whatever it is, is not defined here. Jesus does not tell us what necessarily we are grieving over. He just says, "Blessed are those who mourn," who have this deep, very personal grief.

Generally, commentators are of three minds about what the wrong is that we are grieving over, that Jesus wants us to mourn over.

The first, as the commentators put it, is the result of personal bitter experience. Let us say, somebody very close to you dies. It could be something along the lines of the extreme thing that Job was going through, his sorrow over the loss of his children and all his wealth and status. I mean, that is a pretty a terrible thing to happen to a person all at once, for his whole world to just disappear and all he had was a wife who nagged him, who tells him to curse God and die. It was not a nice situation for him to go through it all. And of course we see the effects of it. It made Job say things that he really did not mean. It made him question God.

But this one, this wrong that we are talking about, is the grief of loss and of many powerful negative shocks to the system. It is the grief, as I just mentioned, of one's world falling apart. We could call it common grief. That is, the kind that everybody seems to end up experiencing at least one time in his or her life because of someone dying that is very close.

Let us go to John 11 and just see an example of this kind of grief. If you know your chapters, you know John 11 is the resurrection of Lazarus chapter. We are looking at the grief of Mary and Martha here.

John 11:17-19 So when Jesus came [Remember they were in Bethany, Jesus was away.], He found that he had already been in the tomb [that is Lazarus] four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.

John 11:28-31 And when she had said these things [that is, Martha], she went away and secretly called Mary her sister saying, "The Teacher has come and is calling for you." As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to Him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met Him. Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, "She is going to the tomb to weep there."

We do not have to go any further. This is just a quick example of the kind of grief that we are talking about, the wrong that had happened that turned into grief in Mary and Martha. This is the common grief we have when some loved one, very close loved, one dies.

Let us move on to the second thing that commentators often say that Jesus is referring to, this wrong that causes the grief. The second one is that the sorrow comes from realizing all the suffering, destruction, and death in the world. This is the next step beyond a personal evil that has happened at death. This is all the evils out there that cause suffering and death in the world. People who grieve for the terrible evils all around the globe have a soft heart for people, even people they do not know. They see suffering and they want to help. They have a soft heart for people's devastating trials and want to give aid if they can. Such people care for others, but are weighed down heavily by the sheer amount of woe experienced by humanity worldwide. And we can see that. We have got instant communication all over the globe and we see pictures of terrible things that are happening here and there, whether it is war or famine or infighting, civil war, what have you, that causes just death and destruction on a large scale.

Let us go back to Lamentations. We will see a little bit of this in chapter 5. This is a prayer that makes up this whole chapter. But it describes all that has happened in this scenario and he is giving this to actually remind God about what had happened. Not that God needed reminding, but he is setting the scene for what he says toward the end of the chapter. He says,

Lamentations 5:1-15 Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us; look and behold our reproach! Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, and our houses to foreigners. We have become orphans and waifs, our mothers are like widows. We pay for the water we drink, and our wood comes at a price. They pursue at our heels; we labor and have no rest. We have given our hand to the Egyptians and the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their iniquities. Servants rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.

We get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness. Our skin is hot as an oven, because of the fever of famine. They ravished the women in Zion, the maidens in the cities of Judah. Princes were hung up by their hands, and elders were not respected. Young men ground at the millstones [that is women's work, that is why it is so terrible here]; boys staggered under loads of wood. The elders have ceased gathering at the gate, and the young men from their music. The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance has turned into mourning.

So, from the author of Lamentations, we have basically a dirge telling us how bad everything is. Everything is bad! Life is hard, there is no hope in sight. Their lives are terrible. All they see is work and famine and hunger and death. They do not see any kind of rescue in their future.

Let us see another one in Ezekiel 9.

Ezekiel 9:3-5 [very well known to us] Now the glory of the Lord of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He [the Lord] called to the man [angel] clothed in linen, who had a writer's inkhorn at his side; and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, and through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it." To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity."

This passage illustrates a more intense and spiritual morning for the abominations, the perversions, the cruelties, and the sins that cause suffering, destruction, and death in society. And we can see that easily ourselves, all the things that are happening in this world that are perverse, things that God does not smile upon, things that He actually curses. God says He will spare those who grieve over the depth of sin in the world and the havoc it causes.

These kind of people show an empathy for those who suffer from it, and an expectation that only God can cure the ills of society. And they are sad, they are mourning for the state that the world has come to. And they know that the only answer to the problem is for people to repent, but they also know human nature and they know how people cannot repent unless God grants it to them. And so these evils go on and they affect more people and just a terrible cycle of just horrible things go on in this world.

So that is the second one: the woes of the world. Those are what people mourn over, the woes, the terrible things that happen in the world.

Let us go back to where Bill [Onisick] was in his offertory in Psalm 51. We will just pick up a few verses here. This is my introduction to the third reason for sorrow commentators talk of. This is David's prayer of repentance. You can go back into II Samuel 12 and read how devastated David was after he found out about the sin that he had committed. It was what was causing all the problems.

Psalm 51:1-5 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. [He says] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

He is saying, in a sense, that he has been around sin all his life and he realizes the sin that is within him.

Psalm 51:14-17 [he asks God] Deliver me from from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.

Here this beatitude is mentioned in this final verse as one of the sacrifices of God that He accepts—the contrite spirit, the broken heart. That is what we are talking about in Matthew 5:4. At least that is the third one of the things that may be present there.

This wrong is spiritual in nature and the sorrow is likewise spiritual in nature. It is a kind of contrition or remorse. Those who mourn like this are desperately sorry for their own sins and unworthiness. This is different from what we have seen before. The sorrow in the first one was a personal sorrow for somebody who has died. The sorrow in the second one is for the bad things, the woes that are in the world. This one, though, is pointed directly at one's own heart, in which we see great sin and we know that because the sin inhabits that heart, we know we are unworthy.

These kind of people are grieved at how much they have contributed personally to the evils of this world. They have a sense, like David, of sin in themselves and how deeply rooted it is, and they are very unhappy that it is there. It goes beyond sad. It is that abiding sorrow that it is there and they are mad at themselves, in a way, that it keeps coming out when they want to be clean, they want to be rid of it. But it keeps popping up because of their own weakness, their bad habits, and their rebellion. They want it out and they work to try to get it out and it keeps showing up, like a stain that you just cannot get out of a fabric. It looks good, you think, okay here it is all all wet and soapy and you think it is out and then you let it dry and it is there still.

Let us go to the book of Daniel 9. We will see an example of this from one of the great prophets, one of the most righteous men in the Old Testament. He says this broadly as a spokesman for the people of Israel, but I know from what I read here that he felt it himself about himself.

Daniel 9:3-15 [Daniel says] Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. [He went the whole nine yards here to show God his remorse.] And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land.

O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us, shame of face, as it is to this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You. O Lord, to us belong shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out against us, because we have sinned against Him.

And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly!"

Daniel 9:19 "O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name."

That is an attitude of contrition. A mind ready to repent, already having repented, seeking forgiveness for the terrible sins he sees in himself and in his people.

Let us see a New Testament version of basically the same thing in Romans the 7th chapter from the apostle Paul. A well known passage.

Romans 7:13-25 [he asks] Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. [a slave to sin] For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law [a principle], that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Paul and Daniel realized to the marrow of their bones that they were sinful, that they agreed with God. They wanted to do what is good. They had a will of steel, I am sure, that kept them from doing a great many sins, but they still sinned and they hated it every time they did. And so they were grieved deeply that they could not perform what was required of them because of that sin that is so deep-set within us as human beings. Because we are so selfish we allow human nature to lead us around by our noses and indulge ourselves when we should be sacrificing ourselves.

So, I believe that this third sorrow or the third wrong is what Jesus is advocating when He says, "Blessed are those who mourn." He wants the kind of sorrow that is grieved to our innermost being that we are not like Him, that we are full of sin, that we cannot ever seem to move beyond this carnality. We see it cropping up so often and we hate ourselves for it and we are sad at our weakness.

The other two that I mentioned have merit in the right circumstances. But this one, this third one, is always appropriate and applicable in our walk with God. It is that deep conviction that we are unworthy and we are upset about it. We have a grief that we cannot match the perfection of Jesus Christ. We always have miles to go.

Now, thinking about this third sorrow, remember that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that His first command in preaching the gospel is the word "repent." Let us go look at that. I want the version in Matthew 4 after His temptation by Satan. And he says in verse 13 that He left Nazareth and came to Capernaum.

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

It is basically the same thing that is said in Mark 1:15. Why is this His first public command? Because in His work that He was sent here to do He is concerned about preparing a people for the Kingdom of God. That was His job. He was to raise up a church—alongside the fact that He was also here to pay for our sins. The first thing those people that He is preparing need to recognize is that they are full of sin and need to repent of it. And if they are to do this cleansing properly, like we are shown that we need to do during the Days of Unleavened Bread, they have to have the attitude of grieving the fact that it dwells in them, that is, sin, and there is so much of it. The job that they have is so large and impossible to overcome by themselves.

So repenting is changing the mind. I talk about this a lot these days, metanoia. It is a change of the mind. They have to get to the point where they are not careless about sin. They have to change their mind to where they are broken up about sin. Before being called we were not all that careful about sin. It did not make the impression on us that it does once God opens our eyes to the fact that we have got so much of it and the fact that we need to get rid of it post haste. And so it becomes a subject of great grief to us that it is there and that it is taking such a long time to get rid of it and so much effort.

Let us go to II Corinthians 7. Here is another section that is well known within the church. We talk about this as being a passage on the subject of repentance, that is, II Corinthians 7:7-12. We are going to start in verse 1 and go through verse 11. Yes, this passage is about repentance and about the Corinthians' repentance. But I want you to see that the mourning that Jesus Christ refers to in Matthew 5:4 is what Paul calls in this section godly sorrow, and godly sorrow is a primary component of repentance. So just keep that in mind as we read.

II Corinthians 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

This is one of the things that makes us upset, makes us grieve because we are so far from holiness and we see so much sin in us and we feel like we are unworthy of the things of God because of all the sin that is there. So Paul says,

II Corinthians 7:2-3 Open your hearts to us. We have wronged no one [He is talking about the situation there in Corinth.], we have corrupted no one, we have cheated no one. I do not say say this to condemn; for I have said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.

That is how we are supposed to be in the church. Even when there is a problem, the ministry, in the person of the apostle Paul here, is there to help. He is there to give godly advice. He is there to make commands that are godly, if necessary. So in Corinth, with what we learned this morning about the man who had taken his father's wife, that was a grievous sin and Paul had to act very quickly and what they thought was very harshly. And so there was a bit of a conflict between the Corinthians and Paul because he had to take these measures. He is saying here though, that, "Hey, I had to do this. It wasn't done out of any kind of cruelty towards you. I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was trying actually to help you. I'm all with you. I want to be united with you."

II Corinthians 7:4-11 Great is my boldness of speech towards you, great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears. Nevertheless God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was comforted in you, when he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more.

For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. [He said his first reaction was that he regretted being so harsh. But then he thought about it a little more and he says, no, I do not regret it. Why?] For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance.

For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourself to be clear in this matter.

The apostle says clearly here in verses 9 and 10 that godly sorrow leads to repentance. Now, if you remember from Romans 2:4, he says there that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. Put these two together, and what we have is another one of those things where we participate with God to produce repentance. What does God add to this? His goodness. He gives us whatever we need to help along the lines of changing. But what do we supply? Godly sorrow. We are hurt and grieving to the core over the fact that we have sinned and that it is there.

So He contributes His goodness. We contribute godly sorrow to this process, this attitude of distress because of our guilt, our shame, and remorse for being so evil, and thus unworthy of God's calling. We are just broken down. We have a broken and contrite spirit, and we want it to change. What did David want in Psalm 51? He wanted joy, but he could feel no joy because of the sin that was hanging over him, because he was feeling such sorrow. But the sorrow led to good things.

In verse 11, Paul says that the sorrow does not remain sorrow. It is just a foundational attitude that gets you moving. It is a motivator. And the things that it produces are what he talks about there in verse 11. The godly sorrow moved the Corinthians in this example to do something. And so he gives us seven different attitudes that solved the problem.

What does godly sorrow produce? It produces diligence, he says. That is, a careful, steady, energetic effort to do something. It produces clearing. That is, an eagerness to free oneself from the wrong. And indignation. This is a kind of anger, a deep displeasure, not with other people, it is with yourself and the sin that still abides in you. He says it also produces fear. That is, the fear of God. It is a kind of proper dread or even terror of disappointing God and coming under sin's penalty once again. It produces vehement desire. This is an earnest longing to be upright, to be pure in God's eyes. It produces zeal, a fervor of spirit that wants to please God. And finally, it produces vindication. Literally, this word in Greek means vengeance. That is, it produces in us a readiness to be justified.

This description illustrates that godly sorrow is, as I mentioned before, the beginning, or the source, or the foundation of these other godly attitudes that work together to produce repentance. We go from changing our mind, that is, we go from prone to commit sin, which we all are at certain points, to eager to live like God does. Eager to be holy, eager to be righteous. So it is a foundational attitude like poor in spirit, something that must be present before these other attitudes can surface because it is the fire under them.

Nobody likes to be sorrowful, nobody likes to grieve and mourn. But if we are going to really get something out of it, we need to turn that emotion, that negative emotion of grief, into something positive. And that is the process of repentance, turning that negative emotion toward our sins into action that gets rid of them. And we should not forget the good living that comes after that, the proper, right, godly living, that comes after that. Usually grief or mourning does not produce good character by itself. It has to metamorphose into these other attitudes, the seven that we saw in verse 11.

So God gives grace to the humble (as we saw last week) because only the lowly and the humble, the poor in spirit, the sorrowful, can walk that path to salvation and eternal life. Because if it has got to start with grief over our sins, that can only really happen to somebody who is humble enough to turn that grief into real repentance. Only those kind of people, that is, the humble, the poor in spirit, the sorrowful are malleable enough for God to mold and shape into Christ's image because they are ready for a change. They are ready for improvement. They are ready for blue skies and sunny days rather than the terrible times that they are having in their sorrow.

Now, there is a corollary to the godly sorrow and contrition for our sins. (We might call this the three B. The other one was three A.) And that is grief over what we put Christ through to redeem us from sin. Both of these probably need to be as part of our grief, not just the grief over our own sins, but the grief that we put Christ through the suffering that He experienced on our behalf so that we can be cleared of sin, so that we can have redemption.

We realize that He had to die to pay for our sins to deliver us from the death penalty. We forced Him by our sins to suffer grievously. He was mocked. He was slapped. He was whipped. He was scourged. He was beaten. He was nailed to a tree. He was stabbed with a spear—shedding His blood the whole while to cover our sins and to provide forgiveness and justification.

Yet, if out of all humanity only we had sinned, He would still have paid that price for our sole redemption. But that was not the case. Everyone has sinned. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. But Isaiah 53 tells us what He went through in very a memorable passage here.

Isaiah 53:4-9 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

We could go on. But that is probably enough. We understand what He went through.

So, it should grieve us that our careless, selfish words and ways caused our God, our Creator, so much agony and anguish. Yet He endured it for us for our eternal good, for our salvation. So this grief that we have for what we did to Him leads to more good attitudes, just like the first one did. This grief of what we did to Christ leads to the joy of salvation. It leads to profound gratitude for His sacrifice. It leads to intense feelings of obligation that we need to do whatever He says we are to do. And it leads to a zealous desire to please Him in our way of life.

Let us go to Ephesians 5 and see Paul express some of this.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

Ephesians 5:8-12 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret

Ephesians 5:15-20 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

That all began because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as he mentioned in verse 2. The last part of the beatitude in Matthew 5:4 gives the mournful person a reward. Jesus says, "for they shall be comforted." All the rewards in the Beatitudes have a present and a future sense, that is, there is some kind of fulfillment in this physical life and a greater, far greater, more wonderful fulfillment in the Kingdom of God. To the Jews in Jesus' day the idea of comfort, or we could use the word consolation, would likely cause them to recall Isaiah 40:1-9. That is the passage that starts with, "Comfort, yes, comfort to My people!" and it leads in to an exposition about the Messiah, the coming of the Messiah. And perhaps also it would lead them to Isaiah 61. I am going to read that one.

Isaiah 61:1-3 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified."

The comfort of Israel, God's covenant people, was centered on the coming of the Messiah to turn their fortunes around. Unfortunately, to use that term again, the Jews thought of it in a physical nationalistic way, but God was speaking about sin being done away with, taken away by the Messiah. He was talking about good times. He was talking about peace and prosperity, all centered on the person, the Messiah, whom we know as Jesus Christ. If you care to look it up, Luke 2:25 calls Jesus Christ the Consolation of Israel. He makes the connection for us there.

As the Israel of God, His covenant people, we can understand what Jesus says in Matthew 5:4, "for they shall be comforted" more spiritually. It means that those blessed people who mourn shall receive the benefits of the Messiah's work in paying for sin and bringing salvation and then peace and prosperity to all His people.

But most of all we need to understand the great comfort in our present relationship with Jesus Christ. Because of the combination of God's calling and grace and our humble belief and repentance, we are now one with Him, we are part of His body. He is in us and we are in Him. He is with us all the time. He is only a cry or a prayer away.

Through His Spirit which has been given to us we have understanding and hope that though there is evil and horrible suffering because of the sins that inhabit this world, truly good, peaceful, joyful times lie just ahead. We can take comfort that with the coming return of Jesus Christ, everything will change for the better. And eventually, as is said in Revelation 21, all things will be made new in the Kingdom of God.

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