Mourning

[0:00] And today we're going to continue our series on the Beatitudes that we found in Matthew, chapter 5.

[0:11] And today we're going to talk and we're going to learn all together about the second Beatitude. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

[0:32] How can someone who is mourning be more than happy? Because of the promise that we see here, because they shall be comforted.

[0:49] One of the saddest experiences that humans can feel is being separated from someone who will really love the departure of a husband, wife, son, daughter, or friends at the airport, or whatever, to other places, bring some pain and even grief to our hearts.

[1:14] My loss are living in Scotland in the 9th of August and I know that that will be a really sad experience. Nevertheless, there is some hope in knowing that at some point we will be comforted by their presence, by having a meal together, even a cup of tea or some barbecue, but just enjoying the presence of friends and family with food, with just sharing our love to each other.

[1:48] That's a really good experience. Someone like being reunited with those who love vanishes, all pain and mourning.

[2:00] In the same line, the experience of being reunited with those who we hurt or those who hurt us removes all pain and grieving.

[2:17] Comfort means to rest in the chest of those who bring comfort and love, and that is family and friends.

[2:30] However, one of the most saddest experiences that we can experience is the loss by death of those we love.

[2:44] I will never forget seeing my cousins mourning the death of their dad. A 3 AM heart attack took my uncle's life when my cousins were just 9 and 10 and 15 years old and my auntie was pregnant.

[3:02] I will never forget the lament, the mourning of my cousins just saying, Daddy, Daddy, that was really, that was a really sad experience.

[3:15] Death brings mourn, even 5 days ago. Another auntie just passed away just one day before my birthday of my cousin.

[3:27] So the question is, who can bring true comfort, but the one who is the life himself?

[3:38] That is God himself, the God who took human nature, the God who is the life himself, and in his human nature, he died.

[3:53] And through his death, we have life. And the question is, who will dare to be a rebel against the God that gives life?

[4:11] And sadly, the answer is we. And this is a serious problem. When we sin against God, we are being, not just because we are broken people, but because we are being rebellious against him.

[4:28] We are sinning against the one, the only one who brings true comfort to our life. So this is a serious problem. And there is a situation we seem unaware of, sorry.

[4:43] And that is the lack of mourning among us as Christians. The lack of, let me put it in this way.

[4:57] The lack of a gracious and not legalistic mourning. The heart is pierced by the love, sorry, by the loss of someone who really loved.

[5:11] The heart is pierced because we know that the fellowship was broken by death. And the result of this is mourning.

[5:21] However, sometimes our hearts are so indifferent to our spiritual condition, so indifferent towards our neighbor.

[5:38] Because there is not poverty of a spirit as we learned last week. There is no spiritual and true mourning.

[5:48] Who in the world could be indifferent when friendship, when a friend died? No one's right?

[6:01] Who in the world could be indifferent when someone is between life and death because of some illness? No one. And why we are so indifferent regarding our cold sometime, spiritual life?

[6:19] Why we're so indifferent in our relationships towards others? Why we're so indifferent regarding our relationship or fellowship with God?

[6:34] And that is sadly because of the condition of our hearts. There's no mourning because of the hardness of the heart. So why are Christian lives sometimes seem to be so dull and dry and we are just living in a kind of a circle that sometimes even when we think that this could be the last Sunday in this place, why we're living in this way because maybe we are not experiencing the reality of being blessed.

[7:15] And this is because we forgot how and why we have to mourn. And finally, sometimes our Christian living is becoming so dry because we do not consider the promise attached here to those who mourn.

[7:36] And that is true comfort. So this night I would like to talk just about two things according to this text about the necessity of true mourning, about the nature of true mourning in order to experience true comfort here on earth and in heaven because they shall be comforted.

[8:04] So the first point is the nature of true mourning. That are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

[8:16] What's the meaning of mourning? So in order to understand this beatitude, we should remember that this is not isolated.

[8:27] The beatitude should be read as a single message or body. Each beatitude is better understood in connection with the others as we learn from Corey and Eric.

[8:41] In this case, this beatitude is connected to the previous one. Blessed are the poor in the spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[8:53] Poor in the spirit. We just learned this last Sunday. To be poor in spirit is a continual declaration of the necessity of the only one who can satisfy my heart and that is God himself.

[9:09] It is to feel and to be conscious that I am a naked bankrupt person that has nothing to offer or to give to God.

[9:23] But by the work of the Holy Spirit, it's ready to receive every grace upon grace from God. So the result of this declaration that we are poor in spirit from the deep of our hearts at some point brings pain and sorrow.

[9:45] In other words, mourning. But why? Because we recognize that we are not only this naked bankrupt person, but also broken and rebellious people.

[10:01] People that offend both God and our neighbor. People that offend both God and our friends. And because we are conscious of this reality, we mourn.

[10:18] We don't have a party or a celebration because we are offending God and our neighbors, but we mourn. Mourning, the meaning of this word is related to the deep pain or grief over loss.

[10:35] That's why mourning is connected to the feeling when someone passes away. We mourn because we have lost the fellowship of that dear person, the greater the loss, the greater, the greater the mourning.

[10:54] And let me ask you this. What was the greatest loss of humanity? And that is the loss of fellowship with God as a result of Adam's sin.

[11:11] Due to Adam's rebellion, he broke this covenant between himself and God, breaking this fellowship with God, this friendship with God, thus losing the enjoyment of God.

[11:29] So the opposite of mourning is enjoy someone. But keep thinking about this. How can we, someone who is mourning, be blessed?

[11:43] That is more, absolutely more than happy. So sin impacted the relationship with God and also with creation.

[11:57] Sin affects our lives to such an extent that there's, and this is so, this is the ugliest thing about sin.

[12:09] That sin affects our life in a way that we don't feel even pain when we hurt someone. That's, that's, that's the result of sin, that we are doing something so bad that we are sinning against God, the God who brings true comfort, the God who uses others to comfort us, and we are so blind sometimes because of sin that we don't feel any mourning.

[12:45] That's a tragedy of sin. This is indolence.

[12:57] Sin is so awful that blind our sense of mourning and make us indolent people. At the same time, sin is so terrible because it depel us a false mourning, false mourning, because I'm trying to talk about the true mourning.

[13:17] And we'll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But if we talk about true mourning, therefore there's some false mourning. What is this false mourning? It is the pain we feel for losing things that glorify our names and not God.

[13:36] In other words, when a man, when a person cannot satisfy his idolatry. What do I mean by this?

[13:48] When we live for creative things that sadly will never satisfy the thirst and hunger of our hearts.

[13:59] You know what I'm talking about. It could be money, a career, fame, reputation, whatever, ministry. So when that idol is gone, when we cannot satisfy even a secret, sinful desire, we get frustrated and we mourn.

[14:28] Remember the story in the Old Testament, when someone was yearning for a vineyard. I have mourning for Nabot's vineyard.

[14:39] And he laid down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. Because he was so desperate for getting just a single vineyard.

[14:54] And because he couldn't, he just mourned. This is a false mourning. This false mourning lead us to run even to seven worst idols or sins.

[15:09] It is to mourn for the absurd. And you can think, but Israel, why are you talking about this? Because sadly this is the reality of sin.

[15:20] We are mourning for the absurd. It's like mourning for the death of the one who tortured and oppressed us. Thus, there's a lack of true mourning.

[15:34] So let's talk about the nature of true mourning. When we read the prophet about the prophet Isaiah in chapter 6, and when we saw and when he had this vision of God, and the seraphim, one called to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

[15:56] The whole earth is full of his glory. What was the response of this prophet? He just declared, woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

[16:18] So first in true mourning, there is a pain, a mourning for having sinned against God. Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips.

[16:33] Here we can see a recognition of three things. The first is this declaration, woe is me. Woe is an expression of grief and despair because of the recognition of God's curse or wrath above him, above me.

[17:02] So again, this is not a time for a party, but for mourning. The prophet here, he is conscious of God's judgment because he is before the one who is thrice, holy.

[17:18] And he's declaring that he is a person, he's a man of unclean lips.

[17:28] He's conscious of God's judgment. He's aware that he's a lost person, and that is that he's lost or ruined. And this is an echo of a poor in spirit.

[17:43] This is being poor in spirit again, that we have nothing to offer, but at the same time we are just declaring the reality of our condition.

[17:56] Why is this? Why this man of God is declaring this because he is a man of unclean lips? This is important because this is not just a general confession of sin.

[18:12] And maybe we should pray in our time of the liturgy when we confess our sin. We should pray to really, in a real way, confess our sins.

[18:27] These are not just one or two minutes of repeating or responding to what the leader said. It's a confession of spiritual illness.

[18:40] And here we don't see a general confession. We see a specific confession of sin.

[18:52] And this is done because of God's holiness, because of God's holiness and light that reveals everything, even every secret thought, every disposition, every act.

[19:15] Probably, probably, sometimes we do not consider the ugliness of sin or in an old-fashioned way the sinfulness of sin, because we don't have a clear vision of God's holiness.

[19:37] This prophet, this man of God, confessed that he was a ruined, broken, that he was a ruined, broken, and a rebellious person.

[19:55] Do we mourn because of our sins? Do we mourn because of the destruction that sin brings to our hearts?

[20:09] Do we mourn because we are grieving the Holy Spirit when we run after idols? Do we mourn because of the lack of true mourning?

[20:22] Do we mourn for the excess of a legalistic mourning?

[20:34] So number one, in true mourning there's a pain mourning for having sinned against God. Number two, in true mourning there's a pain for having sinned against others and because of the sin of others.

[20:47] So here, this prophet, I say, was a man of, not only he was a man of unclean lips, but also the people. Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

[21:10] We mourn, we sorrow because we envy others, because we are envy, or with our pride, we destroy relationships, friendship.

[21:28] We mourn because we see the city, our city, playing with the worst disease. We mourn because we see them as a ship without a shepherd.

[21:47] There's no place for indifference here. Thus, there's a pain, a mourn for the consequence of sin in every sphere of life and society.

[22:01] This mourning is real because it comes from God's work in our hearts. That's why those who mourn are blessed. But what's the nature of this beatitude?

[22:14] Blessed are those who mourn because, as we saw, we see the reality of sin bringing death to every sphere of life, among friends, among families, among churches.

[22:35] And we mourn for that. But why those who mourn are blessed? So that's the second point, the blessing of true mourning, and that is true comfort, both here and in heaven.

[22:53] Every people mourns. Some people with a true old first mourning, as we saw. But what makes the difference? That is the blessing upon the mourners.

[23:07] Even when they are mourning, even when we are mourning, we are more than happy people because we have God's blessing upon us.

[23:23] So just remember the last sermon. It's about God's benediction. It's about God's blessing upon us. It's about God's favor upon His people.

[23:39] It's about God's friendship. It's about God giving Himself to you, saying to you, saying to us that He is the promised land, the true honey and milk that can satisfy and nurture your life, and why we are blessed because it's all about God's grace from being an enemy.

[24:07] The king of the universe calls you, my son, through the Son, Jesus Christ. So when we consider this mourning has a different meaning and purpose because of the following reasons.

[24:24] So quickly just to go to finish. Four reasons why we are mourning.

[24:36] We can be blessed both here and in heaven. The first reason is because we are blessed because we understand that it is God who produces this grief, this pain, and at the same time this compassion.

[24:54] We got a real picture of our situation that is not molded by our traditionalism or by our ideas or agendas, but by God Himself.

[25:06] We have a picture of our sin not according to our ideas, but according to God's holy word. We mourn not as professional and very emotional mourners of Jesus' time, but we mourn even as Jesus did.

[25:29] Jesus wept because of the bed of his friend Lazarus. So in the Old Testament you see like professional mourners that they were just mourning for money.

[25:45] But Jesus is calling us to true mourning. And Jesus wept because of the death of Lazarus.

[25:55] There's a true mourning because Jesus knew and loved his friend and he knew the condition of his friend. So for true mourning there must be a true knowledge, not just in our heads, but a relational knowledge.

[26:15] In this case was between Jesus and Lazarus. So there's a true mourning because Jesus knew and loved his friend and he knew about his condition.

[26:25] So we are truly blessed when God illuminates our heart and convinces us about having sinned against him, against our friends, against society.

[26:41] So true mourning lead us to true comfort. Now the second point of this, we are blessed because we are comforted here on earth.

[26:52] We know that there is a promise for the future. They shall be comforted. But also we can taste a little bit of that here while we are pilgrims.

[27:08] God not only show us, as we said, the ugliness of our sin, but also the beauty of true comfort.

[27:21] So what is comfort? Let me ask you, what is your only comfort? Both in life and death.

[27:31] Let me just pause here before answering what is comfort. Let me say that the reformed tradition is not a mere intellectualistic tradition because it is rooted in the word of God and anointed in the Holy Spirit.

[27:51] This reform teaching or preaching must impact the whole man and this involves the mind, the affections and the will.

[28:04] So we cannot be kind of cold, presbyterian people. No, not at all. So when someone asks you, A, what is reform theology?

[28:16] Why are you a member of a reformed church? Just remember the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism and also the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism.

[28:31] Very affectionate answers we see in those Catechisms. The first question is about the glory of God and because it's about the glory of God, we glorify God when we enjoy Him forever.

[28:47] And at the same time now here, when we enjoy God, but also it's about comfort. So what's your only comfort both in life and death?

[28:59] And this is the essence of comfort. So please, I'm just finishing right now that I am not my own, but I belong to Jesus Christ. So think about this.

[29:10] True comfort is about possession, not about imagination. So comfort, an old preacher said, its very essence is therefore the strengthening, satisfaction of man's heart in the face of any evil.

[29:31] So it is this satisfaction in the face of every or any, even in the midst of a bad day. And how is that because we are possessed by someone who is the goodness himself, the beauty himself and the truth himself, because we belong to God.

[29:55] As Corey preached to us on this ago, about these three virtues, about the beauty, about truth and about goodness. So in God, we belong to God, to God, the one who is the very, the goodness himself, the beauty himself and the truth himself, as Jesus declares of himself.

[30:18] So comfort is about to whom we belong. And in this case, or try on God.

[30:29] So dear brothers and sisters, friends, amigos, we do not belong to our sins. You are free. You are free, not because of something that you have done, but you and I, we are free people because of what Jesus did for us.

[30:51] Because of what Jesus is doing right now for us, praying at the right hand of the Father. We are free people, free people that belongs to the try on God.

[31:02] So we do not belong to circumstances, sins, temptation, people, agendas and so on. We belong to the most beautiful and blessed being and that is God himself, a blessed being that is above the universe, that is bigger than the universe.

[31:21] The universe is just a single cell compared with our God. The beauty of the universe is nothing compared with the beauty of our God.

[31:37] And that being that God is yours. You do not belong to your secret sins, your temptations.

[31:49] You and I, we belong to God. A blessed being that is above the universe, but at the same time so close to us, even more than our skin or every single cell of our body.

[32:05] We belong to the try on God. So this help us to avoid a legalistic mourning. That is to live with faces full of sorrow all day long.

[32:19] I know that I emphasize sin in order only to emphasize God's beauty and God's grace. But if we think that true mourning is just to live every single day with a poker face, with a sad face, that's not true mourning.

[32:39] That's a legalistic mourning because it's according to your own standard and not according to God's holiness. The holiness that reveals not only your sin, but also the amazing grace of God.

[32:54] So third, we are blessed because we are comforted. And this is so important. We belong to your try on God. And here you see our try on God because we are comforted by the Holy Spirit.

[33:09] So the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son as the love that comforts every mourning heart. So the Holy Spirit, this is what the Holy Spirit does.

[33:23] The Holy Spirit presents to our hearts the blessedness of God, bringing true joy to our hearts in the midst of difficult days, in the midst of our mourning.

[33:38] The Holy Spirit shows us in a more degree every single day, especially in our bad days about the work of Christ, the one who we are united with.

[33:52] The Holy Spirit shows us the true man of sorrows. That's why the Holy Spirit is the best preacher in bad times because he presents to your heart in an intimate way about the person and work of Christ, the man of sorrow, the one who wept for his friends, the one who just who didn't have a place to lay down his head to rest.

[34:27] The one forsaken by his friends in the most terrible context, the one who on the cross cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[34:39] Here is the man of sorrows that brings true comfort and freedom and joy.

[34:50] The Holy Spirit inflames our heart with joy when he shows us that Christ is full with the Spirit. So think about this, the Holy Spirit presents to your heart our Savior, full of the Spirit, the same Spirit that in this very moment is filling our hearts with a conviction of sin, but at the same time with the glorious hope of the gospel.

[35:16] The Holy Spirit presents you Christ, a Christ that has a heart full of the same Spirit that is here with us right now.

[35:34] That brings true comfort. In that way, the Savior, the Holy Spirit, shows us not only our sin, but also the grace of Christ.

[35:48] Those, the Savior, lead us more closer to the Father's heart, in the heart of Jesus. It is in the heart of God where we find true comfort, in which context, in the midst of adversities.

[36:05] So we are blessed because we are comforted in the midst of the wilderness in order to be fully blessed and comforted in life, in heaven, sorry.

[36:17] So we are blessed finally because we are sanctified to be fully comforted in heaven by the beatific vision of God. But I don't want to expand on that because blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

[36:33] It is not another sermon, not for today, but only remember that in heaven, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes because we will see God.

[36:49] God will look at your eyes to wipe away every tear. And you will see the eyes in the human nature of Christ.

[37:01] You will see the eyes of the most beautiful person in the whole universe. And you will see the hands that were pierced for you in order to be truly comforted, blessed, and happy forever.

[37:18] Let's pray together. Amen. Father, God, help us to have a clear picture.

[37:29] First of all, of who you are, of your holiness. And we ask this because this is your word and you said that blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

[37:52] Help us to mourn because of our indifference towards others.

[38:02] Help us to mourn for our sin. Help us to mourn because sometimes we are not living according to what we believe.

[38:19] And this is about your grace so help us to mourn in this very moment. And this is not about being emotional.

[38:30] This is about true mourning. To have pierced heart in order to have healed hearts by your grace. And for that help us to see your holiness.

[38:43] A holiness that at the same time, in a holiness that help us to see also your grace. If we, and finally, just pray that if we have been living as Christians, but maybe we haven't rest upon your heart.

[39:11] Holy Spirit, living breath of God, we ask that in this very moment and during the rest of the week, help us to rest upon the Father's heart through your Son Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

[39:31] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.