"People think that they should be content all the time, every moment of every day, and not suffer any sort of depression or unhappiness."
[This sermon is one of a series entitled "Sermon on the Mount, Concentrating on the Beatitudes," which is being preached on Sunday mornings by Pastor Tim Senter.]
Last week we discussed the “poor in spirit.” We found that those who are poor in spirit are not individuals who are in a constant state of depression. They are not people without material means. These people do not walk around all day moping and displaying self-pity or some sort of self-destructive behavior because they feel worthless. These people are not mentally disturbed in any way. In fact, those who are “poor in spirit” actually have a right view of themselves when compared to that of the Lord. These individuals see their souls as a bankrupt empty hole within themselves that needs to be filled. They see their inner most being as a dried up desert wasteland that is parched and without nourishment. We realized that one must come to the place where they recognize that their heart is beggarly, knowing that it is without any means of sustaining its own life, and therefore seeking that which can sustain it – Jesus Christ. We learned that, just as we must be poor in spirit to be Christian, recognizing our empty and dead soul condition, Christ Himself emptied His soul and submitted Himself to the Father, and in this way submitted Himself to the limitations of man. He submitted Himself wholly to the Father. Christ’s soul in His humanity was “poor in spirit.”
Today we open to the second of the beatitudes. We open to a section where we should find, again, that all believers exist. Please look at Matthew 5:4. Many confuse the beatitudes and their call for emptiness with a perpetual grievance, a mental depression, or an instability – a loss of operability such that the individual is at home, in bed, in a state of never-ending or continual doldrums. This could not be farther from the truth. The Beatitudes describe spiritual recognitions, spiritual assents of man to truth, spiritual descriptions of man’s realization concerning his true position compared to an all-powerful perfect and demanding God. These spiritual realities, recognitions, and assents have promises attached to them.
Since the beatitudes discuss a contentedness, a happiness, or a blessedness that we should enjoy in the Christian life, we should discuss those things for a moment. In our scriptures, we are faced with the complete antithesis of the world. In this antithesis, we find what God says we are supposed to be, not what our world claims we are supposed to be. We do not necessarily claim full and complete non-conformity with the world, for we are directed to obey the laws of the land as they were given for the right and proper governance of society (Rom 13:1-5). However, we are more beholden to God in our witness and life (Acts 5:29). Therefore, we should look at our world today and the ideas affiliated with contentedness that we see.
In our society today we have legislators attempting to legislate happiness. People have attempted this on earth throughout time. Unfortunately, the happiness that people attempt on earth is normally an internal personal vision to which everyone else must conform. One such vision was developed by Karl Marx, called Communism. Marx figured that if everyone had the same thing, everyone would be content. In this fashion there would be no one seeking to better themselves, only to do what is right and just for the state or government. If everyone did their part, everyone would be happy. This philosophy, unfortunately, goes against everything that man is – independent, self-interested, self-promoting, and self-reliant. Man also tends to want to keep what he produces. Man does not want be told that he has to share. Instead, he wants to make choices on his own, for his own happiness. Man wants to determine his own desires, fulfill them, and seek success in his own way. In other words, man’s will is not naturally submissive to anyone, let alone an uncaring tyrant who is not himself willing to conform or reduce his holdings to that of every other person. Man knows and naturally rebels against elitism.
Tolerance is the new movement of today, and with it comes the varied and ever-changing label of “hate speech.” Happiness in this environment comes first by our having to accept everything that society puts forth regardless of how offensive it may be. On the other side of this is the inability of those being pressed for tolerance to express their concerns with the lack of moral direction. They are concerned that such unbridled exploration of man’s depravity simply destroys society as we know it. Calls for hate speech by some organizations have lately been directed at publishers, such that they attempt to change or eliminate whole sections of the Bible in order to exclude parts they have decided are hateful and harmful. In our nation, freedom of speech has now been subordinated to the right to seek happiness. We should note–our constitution does not guarantee happiness, it guarantees the right to seek it. On the other hand, it does guarantee the right to free speech, not the ability to fight for it.
We also see happiness being sought through medications. Individuals seek pharmaceutical help to cope with everyday issues. People think that they should be content all the time, every moment of every day, and not suffer any sort of depression or unhappiness. People should always feel comfortable in every endeavor. This is as untruthful as the thought that man controls his own destiny. Drug legalization is part of this, where people seek a false, drug-induced utopia that they feel gives them freedom. It is a false and temporary freedom in ecstasy that fades quickly. This leads to seeking increasingly greater sensations, and eventually the abuse of the body makes miserable and destroys the life of the individual experiencing the euphoria and supposedly getting pleasure.
The entertainment world works hard at providing some level of contentedness. They provide a wide variety to choose from in order to be content. Games, movies, amusements, and any number of musical presentations are available – all so that people can feel happy or content or at ease and enjoy themselves. Many deviant things have developed within this industry, and these things are gaining more and more acceptability. There are also those who have addicted themselves to luxury and self-indulgence, frequenting extravagant salons, spas, massage parlors and other places that breed lust and sensuous desires.
There is the “everyone is going to heaven” movement or Unitarian theology that is continually being preached to put everyone at ease. This ignores the sense of justice and judgment that God Himself calls for in His word. It is developed to assuage consciences because man truly knows where he stands with God, and man knows it is not good. To hear an authoritative individual give false comfort provides the same thing the medications do – a false sense of utopia that eventually wears off because only truth can hold its own ground. As an individual commits to and submits to more sin in their lives, they eventually see the emptiness of the false Unitarian promises.
Next, we find negotiations with and concessions to criminal activity. We see more and more child molesters and murderers being released after only serving a few years of a sentence that should bring capital punishment upon them. We are now also inviting the very terrorists into this nation who would be glad to engineer another 9/11 disaster. We are promising them life and refuge here in some Chamberlain-like naïveté that is supposed to give them happiness such that they do not destroy us. These pseudo-utopian mindsets, the “kumbaya” environment, or the “live and let live” thoughts of the immature fail to contemplate ultimate outcomes and look only to individual happiness.
Not one of these naïve thoughts is present in the theology of Jesus Christ. We read in fact in Luke 6:25 that Jesus pronounces “woe to those who laugh.” This is not a denouncement of laughter as in happiness; it is a denouncement of laughter in foolishness, laughter as a cure, laughter as a focus in life, or laughter as a way to escape reality. This escape will only produce mourning. When reality does strike, it will then strike hard and fast. Reality will be vicious, uncompromising, and deadly. Let us then look at a spirit that is more attuned to reality, a spiritual existence that is exercised in the true life of the Christian. Let us look at the spirit given of God which mourns, and then is comforted. “Christian mourning mirrors that of the Savior, but the Savior provides comfort.“ Comfort is a normal response of our great God of salvation to a mourning spirit in this sense. Because of the exposure to the evil of the world, “We see mourning perpetually as an unhealthy self-esteem; but it is Christian.”
How do we find contentedness, blessedness, or happiness in our mourning, and what would this mourning have to do with Christianity?
I. Contentedness in Mourning
What is this mourning in Matthew 5:4, and how can one be contented with it? First, we must recognize this mourning follows the poor in spirit– that one who is saved and knows Christ Jesus as their Savior. This individual has come face to face with the greatness of God. They see their person, their very being in a place that needs God’s grace to even exist, let alone survive in His presence. Next, we see that these people mourn personally for those who do not seek God, but they exist in a contented state knowing they have His comfort. Third, there are those who seek fellowship with other believers. They seek this as a wonderful time to enjoy the Savior, worship God, and be with others who love Him as well. They mourn though even in fellowship because there is lack of some presence – those whom have been introduced to the Savior, yet still do not submit to Him. They mourn over independent spirits who will not submit one to another in this fellowship. However, in their own submission, these people are comforted one with another in fellowship. Fourth, the church itself too mourns over those it cannot reach. We see our efforts collectively as mission-oriented. When we walk out the church doors, we seek to provide Christ to all those who come into our paths. We mourn though over the empty state of the church overall in the world. There are great gaping holes in faith and there are great false teachings leading many away from Christ. The church mourns, but again is comforted in the Word and the promises of God that are presented therein. Finally, our Savior mourns. He mourns, as we have mentioned, every day for the lost, for those who have not and will never accept His salvation. Our Savior though is comforted in knowing that His sacrifice is not for naught, for many will come to know Him, and He knows His sheep. His comfort is not in His present state in heaven, His comfort is in knowing that His children will all be protected from the judgment, and that this judgment will be complete and true. His comfort is in His own surety.
We will consider the mourning person, fellowship, church, and Savior. We should look carefully at these groups and consider them. They are all, as we have established, poor in spirit. These are marks, therefore, of the Christian. Those who mourn, then, mourn in Christ.
A. Mourning Personally
We can first consider personal examples of people who mourn regularly, and for what reasons they mourn. Polycarp was said to have heavily-calloused knees as a result of his prayer life. Polycarp loved the Savior, and prayed for and regularly sought intervention for the souls on this earth before Him. A true Christian, one with the Savior in their lives, prays continually and instantly for a number of things; however, the one element that should be foremost upon the mind of the saved is salvation for the lost. We mourn, therefore, over those who we know are condemned. We mourn continually for family who do not know the Lord. We mourn in our hearts for all those we see walking about in this world who are destined for eternal judgment. Every believer should mourn for salvation for every non-believer or lost soul.
Another aspect of this mournful behavior is the recognition of the false happiness we discussed earlier. The believer should bemoan, should lament, should grieve over those of the world who seek false and temporary happiness and escape in the things of the world. Those who hide themselves in drugs, those who are lost in the voyeurism of pornography, those who are lost in alcoholism are not just lost physically and mentally–they are lost spiritually. They lack any sense of the scripture that tells us “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matt 16:26) It is for this reason we are instructed to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matt 22:37). Believers know the fate that awaits those who refuse God, those who attempt to run from Him, those who would seek the ways of the world alone for their contentedness. Believers mourn in their hearts for every soul that runs from the salvation of God.
The believer’s mourning, just as all mourning is in this beatitude, is closely connected to all the other aspects of the believer’s life. This is no less so with fellowship.
B. Mourning in Fellowship
When believers come together, they know they see brothers and sisters in Christ to whom they are to subject themselves. This accountability one to another is an aspect of life that is not only accepted by the believer, but also sought. Every believer, knowing first that they are “poor in spirit” (that their spirits are first “desperately wicked”) and that they have earned “the wages of sin” which result in spiritual death-these believers seek and covet fellowship. Believer’s fellowship is to be strengthened in spirit in the tenor of the priesthood of the saints (1 Pet 2:9). Believers see their subjection one to another as a form of continual subjection to the Savior. I have mentioned before that the word “submit” is referenced a number of times in scripture. It is used 38 times in the New Testament alone. We find Romans 8:7 telling us that the carnal mind, the mind of man, the mind given to the things of the world does not submit itself to the law of God, and in fact it cannot do so. We mourn, therefore, in fellowship because we see this independent spirit attitude among our fellow man, and we know it is going to receive the judgment of a great, gracious, and merciful God who made provision for forgiveness and reconciliation. We mourn in fellowship at opportunities to witness that have been unfruitful. We mourn at the lack of submission for sinful conviction of the world of man. We mourn because of Romans 8:20, where the entire creation is submitted to this vanity of false promises of salvation. We know that in verse 21 the whole of creation is being crushed under the weight of the decay and bondage of sin. We mourn because we know that man is not going to seek the hope and release, but has instead chosen the way of hard bondage and sin-filled lifestyles that suffer even greater pain (Rom 1:18-32). We mourn in fellowship because it does not have to be so. We have to endure this sinful creation, but we do not have to dwell such upon it that it reduces us to individuals without a hope.
Even so, our hope is born of the promises in scripture. In Luke 17:20 we read that we should not rejoice in the power that God has over the things on the earth as much as we should rejoice that our names are written in heaven. This is the comfort we find, therefore, even though we mourn for all those things that are evil in our world. We are comforted in the hope in Romans 8:20 that the creation itself will receive release and freedom (21). This hope, this release, this promise of redemption, life eternal, and the things of God are what we find in Romans 8:25. This is the great hope of our salvation, and in this we find the comfort in fellowship one with another.
If we therefore mourn personally, and we also mourn in our fellowship, we also find our church in mourning.
C. Mourning as a Church
At a variety of times throughout the history of man we find brilliant Christian lights of witness. Though we should glean hope from them, we also mourn at the loss in such horrid fashion. We see those who have come before us that were persecuted for Christ, the martyrs of the faith, and we mourn them for the necessity of their dedication which was taken to the last full measure. The church mourns that those who reach out to the lost are not fully successful. The church mourns that they know they too will some day undergo the persecution that those who have come before have faced themselves. The church, therefore mourns because it is full of believers who mourn for the lost souls of man. Tertullian said once of martyrs that “the blood of Christians is seed.”[1] Today we find in religion a more inclusive atmosphere, an atmosphere that provides for tolerance, an atmosphere that would incorporate the pagan and Christian. This atmosphere is provided in much of what is known as New Evangelicalism and ecumenism of today. The church groans at this loss of uniqueness from the world. The church feels the strains of man to become synergistic. The church suffers because of these attempts at Unitarianism, which is actually under the guise of Christianity. The church sees these tolerances and relativism as breaks from scripture. The church (made of true believers, beholden to Christ and only to Christ) sees the excuse that “everybody sins” and the relativism of “your sin is not my sin” as cop-outs. The church of believers in this world finds these tolerances and the “entertainment church” of the day as dark spots upon Christianity as a whole. As D. Martin Lloyd-Jones put it:
“Now probably that is the main explanation of the absence of this characteristic of mourning in the life of the church today. It is this superficiality, this glibness or joviality that is almost unintelligent.”[2]
The church is not to be superficial, but biblical and Christlike in its operation. The church is not to be like, but unlike the world in its operation, its function, its worship, its appearance, and its witness. The church, unlike the world, is not supposed to be worried about pleasing the people who come to it. It is to be concerned about pleasing the Lord and Savior who is its head. The church serves God, not man; and through the church, man serves God not the church. Church is not about Sunday morning entertainment, or about going to see your favorite rock band perform. It is equally not about going to sing your favorite hymn–contemporary, traditional, or otherwise. The church is to be a place where we find the Savior, and Him glorified. Believers mourn because the church is not what it is supposed to be, that the church has fallen into a contemporary mindset – contemporary being “of the present time, modern, or, characteristic of the present.” The contemporary church is the church of today in the world, not the church of Christ in modern day. Therefore, the church mourns at the hollow testimony of those organizations that claim Christianity, yet teach, and testify that you can be just like everyone else, and still be a Christian. This is a false teaching. We are to be changed into His image, not change Him into ours. The Church of God in Christ Jesus therefore mourns that man has so distorted His gospel.
If believers mourn, if the fellowship is filled with mourning for the lost and the opportunities to witness, and the church mourns because Christianity has become synergistic and contemporary instead of Christlike and Godly, then Christ, the Head of the Church too mourns.
D. Mourning Savior
Consider the Savior as He walks among the world during His earthly ministry. Souls surround Him that are destined for eternal damnation. A whole nation that was set-aside for Him, rejects Him. Now consider Him as He sits at the Right hand of the Father in heaven and watches the world “evolve.” Souls are born every day that He sees need His salvation; however because they are not taught right and wrong, but relativism, they see no reason to seek Him. Man has seen fit to exclude God from the basic instruction for children in our nation. This grievously erroneous and satanically-controlled activity is the largest contributor to the population in Hell that man could possibly permit. Why does the Savior grieve? Because He died for every soul on the planet. He died for every person who was born before Him, and every person born after Him. He died for the most heinous of sinners, murderers, robbers, and pedophiles, and He died for the moral, just, and upright. Yet, all those souls are now indoctrinated into the satanic intellectualism that is evolution, which teaches that man is but an animal. Jesus is mourning these teachings, which produce Pekka-Eric Auvinen of Finland who in November 2007 stated,
“I am prepared to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection. I am just an animal, a human, an individual, and a dissident… It’s time to put natural selection and survival of the fittest back on the tracks!”[3]
And we wonder why God mourns. Man is steadily declining and devolving back to the barbarism that was found in the first century, and through the dark ages.
Why does God mourn? All those who seek Him and call unto Him must continue to suffer the temptatious and vile world in its current cursed condition – a condition with which He has personal knowledge and experience. His soul was sorrowful even unto death (Matt 26:38).
Why does God mourn? Sin abounds in the world. Christ, just as the Father, hates sin and desires to eradicate it from the earth. Sin grieves God. He looks forward to judgment and a reckoning for all those who have blasphemed His name, the Father’s name, and the Holy Spirit. He looks forward to a just and proper correction to man’s sin-filled heart.
Why does God mourn? Jesus mourns because sin breaks the relationship between Him and others. Sin separates us from God (Hos. 9:15). God loves us and wants to be able to commune with us; however, the sin of man precludes any such relationship (Ex 23:22; Is 63:10). The effect upon man is equally as devastating. Man does not want to be around God because of sin. Adam and Eve used to look forward to walking in the garden with God. After they sinned, they hid from Him. Sin, therefore, does not only force God to separate from us, it creates an anxiety within us that seeks to separate us from God. Any parent would mourn when their children reject them, when they reject their wise counsel, when the child takes a trek of their own choosing which the parent knows will lead to destruction. God has felt that pain billions of times and it gets no easier for Him. It is new, fresh, and piercing just as it was with Adam and Eve. And we wonder why God mourns.
We mourn because of the lost, the fellowship mourns together and encourages one another to witness, the church mourns because of the failure of the church to be sanctified to Christ, and Christ mourns for all those who reject Him and His gospel. There is much pain, suffering, sorrow, and sin to mourn about. How then are we contented, how then are we comforted?
God mourns therefore because of what man teaches. That’s God mourning. I do not know that we can mourn or that we can ever be comforted until we understand God’s mourning, until we grasp God mourning as He sees these great atrocities taking place.
II. Contentedness in comfort
When a believer places their faith in Christ Jesus as their Savior, they receive the comfort of the Holy Spirit– something Abraham had to wait until his death to receive. We see within the believer a being, the Paraclete, the One who comes to comfort us in our times of tribulation and trouble. The word “parakaleō” is the word we find here translated “comforted” and it is the verb form of our word “comforter” in John 14:26, which describes the Holy Spirit who brings to our remembrance the promises of God–the Holy Spirit who instructs man in all things concerning Christ and what He taught us.
We are also comforted in knowing the scripture is true, that God will wipe away all the tears in heaven. When the time comes for all things of old to pass away, to see a new heaven and a new earth, Jesus Himself will comfort us as He provides for our future eternally.
We know that God will provide us the strength to persevere, and that we can rest in Him, as He is our portion. We see God therefore as the one who gives us that which we need. God gives us life, sustenance, abilities, refreshment, and a constant companionship through Christ and the Holy Spirit to maintain our lives. We have reason for constant contentment in the spirit with the God of all ages living within us in the person of the Holy Spirit. The future glorification of our bodies and spirit is our hope in the redemption we have in Christ. The current life and sustaining strength is the promise of an all-perfect, loving, and gracious God.
We mourn, but we are comforted. We mourn in fellowship, but we comfort one another. The church mourns, but is comforted by our Savior. The Savior mourns, but He knows justice and judgment will prevail. God will win, and we are on the winning side with Jesus.
We considered today what the mourning of the Christian is. We found that it was not some emotional state that ends up putting us into some state of depression so deep that we only want to lounge around, watch television, and sleep. It is not a mental condition that results in our seeing everything as depressing. It is not some emotion that is focused upon failure or some sense that all is lost. Mourning is instead, recognition of those around us in the world who need the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives, and the mourning Christian yearns to reach out to them and give them the Savior. This recognition and desire, an unction to share the gospel with every person we meet, is the driving force for the Christian. The indwelling Holy Spirit is the driving force in fellowship as well, as believers get together and share the work of God in their lives, the opportunities God provides for witness, and the great strength in fellowship of encouragement one to another. This translates into the church as well, where the church itself carries out the great commission in the world, and within this fellowship Christians receive great strength from one another to carry out God’s commission to us. Though the church mourns for purity, it rejoices in the ability to spread the gospel wherever it goes. The church is comforted even in persecution because the promise of the Savior is that God will and does provide for all things therein. The church, filled with believers bent on serving God and not themselves, rejoices every day they can be together, worship together, and commune with God in His house. We seek the hope of all things in His Word together. Though mourning is ongoing throughout Christianity because of the depraved state of man, and the continually declining state of humanity world-wide, the Christian finds hope in the release that will come when he is brought to glory by a great Savior. Be comforted my dear mourning Christian, for God will keep His promises.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you are not mourning for other souls, if your heart does not mourn for the salvation of the lost, if you do not mourn with others for opportunities to witness, if your heart does not mourn at the church’s lost purity, you have a heart problem. Above all folks, if you cannot comprehend the mourning of our Savior, if you have no concept of His great grief at man’s rejection of His salvation, you may not know Him at all. If your heart does not yearn to witness because of a recognized salvation by the Savior, you may not know the Savior. If you cannot mourn as our Savior mourned at the rejection of the gospel, you do not know the Savior, because His love is not in you. If you cannot mourn as the Savior mourns for every lost soul going to hell, your soul does not belong to Him. If your soul belonged to our Savior, His love for others would be in your heart.
[1] Tertullian Apologeticum 50 written c210 AD was addressed to the Roman Magistrates. The full quote in his Apology 50 was “the more often we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”
[2] Lloyd-Jones, D Martyn, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, One-volume edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 44.
[3] Quote is from 1:1 Answersupdate, vol 16 iss 3, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, Shooter at Jokela High School, Finland November 7th, 2007, on a You Tube post Auvinen made just before he shot and killed 9 people, including himself.
