Sermon Notes

Radical Red Letters

Blessed are those who Mourn (Week 3)

 

 

“Today the younger generation continues to search for a place they can be at home. They feel alienated by the prevailing culture. If today’s young people are looking for the right things (meaning, love, reality), they are looking for them in the wrong places. The first place they should be able to turn is the one they normally ignore—the church. For too often what they see in the church is not a new society which embodies their ideals but another version of the old society which they have renounced. No comment could be more hurtful to the Christian than the words, ‘But you are not different from anybody else.’ For the essential theme of the whole Bible from beginning to end is that God’s historical purpose is to call out a people for Himself. This people is a ‘holy’ people, set apart from the world to belong to Him and to obey Him; its vocation is to be true to its identity, that is, to be ‘holy’ or ‘different’ in all its outlook and behavior.”—John Stott (The Beatitudes: Developing Spiritual Character, p.5)

 

The Beatitudes: Eight radical declarations of kingdom living resulting in contentment in the midst of the chaos

 

“When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” – Matthew 5:1-4

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “MOURN”?
 

“It expresses loud crying, as if someone is wailing in agony over sin, suffering, injustice, and human tragedy. It describes a person whose heart is broken by what breaks God’s heart.”—Derwin Gray (The Good Life, p.49)

 

Biblical definition of mourn—a brokenness before God born out of truth revealed through my fellowship with Him

 

“Repentance comes deep in the soul of a man when he realizes all God has in mind for him and how little of it he has appropriated. When he begins to understand what God wants to do with, for, in, and through him, and he looks at what has not been achieved, his heart breaks.”—Stuart Briscoe (Now for Something Totally Different, p.28)

 

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE IN MY LIFE PRACTICALLY TO LIVE AS “THOSE WHO MOURN”?
 

Conviction

 

“…God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”—1 John 1:5b

 

Compassion

 

Question: When you see the chaos in the world, what is your heart response?

 

“The man who is truly Christian is a man who mourns also because of the sins of others. He does not stop at himself. He sees the same in others. He is concerned about the state of society, and the state of the world, and as he reads his newspaper, he does not stop at what he sees or simply express disgust at it. He mourns because of it, because men can so spend their life in this world…Indeed, he goes beyond that and mourns over the state of the whole world as he sees the moral muddle and unhappiness and suffering of mankind and reads of wars and rumors of wars. He sees the whole world is in an unhealthy and unhappy condition. He knows that it is all due to sin; and he mourns because of it.—Martin-Lloyd Jones (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p.59

 

“Christians should be leading the movement of social reform. And they should be there from a heartfelt love for humanity and from an acute awareness of the horror and destructiveness of man’s sin.”—James Montgomery Boice

 

Compassion = weeping for the way things are + working towards the way things ought to be

 

WHAT IS THE PROMISE CONCERNING THOSE WHO MOURN?
 

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”—John 14:16-17

 

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.”—Romans 8:18-25

 

WHAT ARE THE HINDRANCES TO MOURNING?
 

A lack of fellowship with God
 

A lack of understanding God’s ultimate desire for my life
 

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”—Matthew 6:10

 

A lack of coming to grips with the severity of sin