Those Who Mourn— Series on the Mount #3

Let’s Pray…

We talked last week about Matthew 5:3 and the importance of humility as we come to God. We are going to do a deep review this week because we really need to get Matthew 5:3 in order to understand Matthew 5:4.

It is when I see my own brokenness that God’s holiness becomes most clear to me, and the necessity of His continuing grace, His unending faithfulness becomes easily understood.

I asked you last week to search yourselves and more importantly to pray that God would reveal to you the unresolved sin in you that has been hidden — or ignored in your life and to then take that sin to the cross in confession followed by repentance.

As I said last week, I was confronted with a hard truth about myself when preparing for that sermon.

My wife and son had taken an overnight trip to see her friend in Ohio, and I was left with a higher than normal sense of detachment, and loneliness.

I rationalized that this was an admirable trait. After spending half of our lives together, I still long to be with my wife and I feel the pain of separation, even in short bursts apart.

But as I went to God in prayer, He made it clear that I have often been away from his Word for more than a couple 24 hours. Where was my longing for Him?
Where was my heartache for the Spirit?
Why is it that I sometimes have to remember to pray, but I think of my wife and anticipate opportunities to talk with her throughout the day?

Don’t hear me wrong. It isn’t sin to love my wife or my son. They are gifts from God to me. They bring me joy beyond words. The issue is, are they ultimate? Are they trumping God for my affections, my attention and my devotion?

Jesus makes this kind of priority setting clear in Luke 14: 25-26
25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate (read: love less than God) his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

As I sat there praying and these hard questions came at me, grief came with them. Sorrow flooded in and I couldn’t help but cry as God revealed the truth.

I cried out to God. Through tears I confessed my double minded nature. And I repented.

And, to the best of my abilities today, I am focusing in on the wonders of God’s work in my life personally, and in the world around me, because when I focus on God’s great love for me, my focus is directed back to the source.

Now that I’ve shared, we’re going to go around the room and I want you to all tell us where you’ve failed this week.

Just kidding.

But, I hope that you have been doing some introspection this week.

Have you found some issues you thought had been resolved, but that just keep coming up?
Have you finally come to terms with a reoccurring sin that seems to own you that you had not wanted to admit?
Or, has your struggle been with trusting God and knowing that He can save even you?

Whatever is going on between you and the Lord, our passage this week, continues through this painful, but fruitful area of our faith walk.

If we have searched, or are still in process of searching and digging into the impoverished areas of our spirit, Matthew 5:4 tells us what to expect once we find it.

Please read it with me
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

• blessed — As we said last week the blessing is that happiness that doesn’t fade with one bad moment, it is the happiness that is found in the Lord. So,

• blessed are those — those are the ones who have come to a realization that they are poor in spirit. We said last week, that once we get to that place, where we see our sins in contrast to God’s holiness, we are at the beginning of growth. And this realization will elicit a response.

• Blessed are those who mourn — Mourning is an outward sign of our inward grief and sorrow.

So, are all mourners comforted? I’d say no.

The rich man in Jesus’ parable in Luke 16 mourned not because he had a separation from God, he mourned his consequences of that separation. (Luke 16:19-24) Then, he went on to mourn for his family. (Luke 16:27-29) But, He never mourned for his sins or for separation from the Lord.

He also mourned too late. We have a patient God who has given us more time than we deserve in order to turn to Him, I pray that everyone here would be sure of their salvation now, because tomorrow, and really the next movement of the second hand on the clock could mark our last moment on earth.

If you have been waiting for something to happen before you accept Jesus as your lord and savior, I pray that you would be given a sense of urgency by the Holy Spirit and do it tonight.

So the mourners who will be comforted are the mourners who have faith in Jesus Christ and who come to that faith in this life.
The mourners do not only mourn for our own sin and inequity, but also for the pain that we deal with in this broken world.

We mourn those who have gone to the grave before us, we grieve over the sickness and poverty that is rampant throughout the world — whether it is our friend who has cancer or the hunger and disease seen in a third world country.

We also mourn the sins of those around us, for our family and our nation and our world. Sin is sin and what grieves the Lord, grieves His children.

But here is the bright side.

We have been coasting at bottom for two weeks and there is a wonder in all of this. Remember that we who are poor in spirit and we who mourn ARE BLESSED!

After the mourning they (we) SHALL BE COMFORTED!

When we see our sin for all of its ugliness and we grieve for our lack of gratitude toward our father in Heaven — He comforts us with his unending faithfulness, love and grace.

If we come to him in tears, He tells us, “My grace covers it.” Just stop abusing the grace.

When we come to Him with the grief of loss or the mourning that comes from seeing others suffer and when we come to Him with that powerlessness and sorrow, when we come to Him mourning over the way His name is dragged through the mud by the wretchedness of our culture today, He lets us know that all of this is temporary, that there will be a day when all sin, sickness, pain and tears will be wiped away. (Revelation 21: 1-4)

I hope that these first two passages of the Beatitudes have brought you comfort tonight. Just remember, God brings conviction to lead to humility and repentance.

Once we are there, He can bring us into healing, he can comfort our spirits and then He can send us out to proclaim the gospel.

God does not need people out there who are proud of themselves he needs people who are bold in Christ.

Likewise. We will never be able to share the Good News if we only dwell in the sin.

The Good News is that Jesus is our REDEEMER. He saved us even when we were in that state of rebellion.

As we go out tonight, and as we live in the world this week, pray that God make you ever aware of the areas where sin still holds you and when He does, don’t laugh it off, don’t hide it somewhere until later, face it, feel it and give it to Him. As Jesus told the adulterous woman in John 8:11, “Go, and sin no more.”

Live in His grace and represent His forgiveness so that you, so that we, may draw more into the fold.

Lets Pray…

Poor in Spirit

(Series on the Mount #2)

Let’s Pray…

REVIEW: Last week we began a series on the Sermon on the Mount and we said that, by looking at the end (Matthew 7:24-29) we can see that the teachings are a “new house” for us to live in, and that if we are to run our race well here in this life, we must build our house on a solid faith in Jesus Christ, and no longer build only on relationships that might fail, careers that might end abruptly, or anything else that is of this world.

We said that the Sermon on the Mount was a Spiritual building process that would produce tangible results, which would be visible to those around us and to us.

We also said that if we study the Sermon on the Mount without faith, we will be amazed by aspects of the teaching, but we won’t know the joy and understanding that is there for the believer who hears the words of Jesus “and puts them into practice” (Matthew 7:24).

Now we will begin digging in.
Jesus goes into the Beatitudes after setting down to teach and after the disciples came ready to hear {Matthew 5:1-2}, (by the way, this is a great position to take when we come to the Word. We should quiet our minds of all the rubbish of the day and the distractions that we entertain while we are idle).

In our NIV translation the word blessed is used to introduce 8 concepts, which make up the Beatitudes. We’re going to read and explore the first Beatitude tonight. Please read it with me in Matthew 5:3.

Now the word blessed is often translated to “happy,” but as the English Standard Version study Bible explains, this is not the way we think of happy today. It’s not that kind of happy that can seem wonderful until some little thing comes by and knocks us off our rhythm. No this is the kind of lasting well being that is reserved for those in a savior/saved relationship with Christ.

So that’s the deal with the word blessed.

Now, remember what we said last week — I’ll try to point this out each week of the series. The Sermon on the Mount is counter to most of the things we are taught in society today.

For example, the world tells us to pursue happiness as the ultimate goal and the beatitudes show us that true happiness springs out of things that seem like anything but happy-motivators.

Like, how does being “poor of spirit” make us happy or blessed?

Being “poor of spirit” simply means that we see and acknowledge the brokenness and wickedness of our soul. The darkness of our hearts and the evil that creeps around in our minds behind the curtain.

This subdued darkness points to our emptiness that can only be filled by the Spirit of God.

Now, our culture is hyped up on building self-esteem. On the talk shows and even in our own families, they would often look at the ‘poor in spirit” piece and decry it as self-abuse.

But, there are multiple examples in Scripture where God was okay with letting us shed all of that self-confidence in order that He might be glorified.

Old Testament:
Moses: Born an Israelite, raised as royalty, grew up and found himself on the outside of both cultures, ran away and became a shepherd for something like 40 years. Then one day God comes to Moses and tells Him that he is to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Beaten down by time and trials and bad choices, Moses asks, why Me? In other words, "I'm not sure if I'm qualified or even a worthy choice for this task." (my interpretation)

Does God Answer: “Now Moses, you stop talking like that, you are good enough and smart enough and dog gone it, people like you.”
No, He says, rely on Me, I am good enough for both of us. (Exodus 3:11 & 4: 10-12)

Isaiah: was a mouthpiece for God to communicate to His people. He was God’s guy among the people. But, when He came face to face with the Lord, Isaiah knew exactly the state of His spirit: Poor and wretched — unclean. (Isaiah 6:1-5).
Does God tell Isaiah to stop being so hard on him self when he expresses his low self image? No, it is that point where true transformation takes place. (Isaiah 6:6-8)

A good friend of mine preached on loving one another and he chided people for praying for pain to come on people if that is what it takes to bring them to a point where they can turn to the Lord.

I say if we are to take this passage, this Beatitude, seriously, we have to pray that God’s Will would be done whether the lowering of self comes easy or hard, so long as it happens.

Our prayers should be a petition for God to grace our brothers and sisters with faith, so that once they “hit bottom” — if that is what it takes, that they would then turn to Christ instead of succumbing to the ultimate darkness that is the alternative.

The beauty is, that once we come to terms with our impoverished Spirit, we can then begin to serve the Lord with the humility that He asks of us. It is in that Humility that we find our Blessing and it is on the narrow road of faith, paved with humility and a right understanding of who God is, that we will travel to the Kingdom of Heaven that is promised at the end of the verse.

So, what’s the status of our spirits tonight? While preparing for this sermon, God showed me in stark terms where I am still a double minded man. And it’s amazing how much it hurts to admit that, “Yes God, I am still holding back from you. I trust you with everything else, but this part is MY life. I am living in rebellion here and I’m not ready to let go.”

When we know — not just how powerful God is — but how much He sacrificed to restore a relationship with us, it is heartbreaking to realize our sin.

But again, once we see our own brokenness. Once we see that we are completely broke spiritually, bankrupt in our hearts, that is when we see the undeniable need for God’s grace, love, strength and guidance. Our pride is smashed and we can lay down the paving stones of humility.

The challenge that we face as we build this wall is to BEG God to reveal where we are poor in spirit so that we may begin to grow in His light and by His might.

Another challenge that I have seen a need for in my own life is to stop hindering my brothers and sisters in Christ as they build their walls of humility. How many times in church world do we attempt to comfort and maybe even fix a problem by telling a person that they were in the right and that they need to believe in themselves when really they might be just at that edge of finally giving it up to God and follow him without the chains of “self”.

Let’s comfort the poor in spirit, not by enabling self, but by leading them back to Christ and the real happiness that is found in complete dependence on Him.

Let’s pray…

A Firm Foundation

(Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount)

Lets Pray…

Please turn to Matthew 7: 24-29. Let us read God’s word together.

Have you ever felt like the world is slipping out from under you? I have.
— Sometimes from daily pressures that just kept building up, and up and up.
— Other times there were life-altering moments that just stopped me dead in my tracks and it seemed that everything I knew was crumbling.
— Death of my brother
— My Dad’s serious illness
— Maybe for you it was a divorce, or losing that job, or maybe you made a decision that seemed to be harmless, but caused everything in your life to change.

The point is: there have been times in all of our lives when the world seemed to fall apart.

And whether we lived through those times, or if we are barely surviving through the fallout right now, Jesus speaks in to my life and your life through today’s passage.

He tells us that, regardless of what we used to build our life upon, regardless of the mistakes and false hopes that we have suffered under, He can give us a new and everlasting foundation, which will not only shore up things here in this world, but will also prepare us for eternity.

So what’s he talking about?

What is the foundation?

What words must we hear and put into practice?

Well, we get clued-in by asking, “What is the “Therefore” in Verse 24 there for?
This passage begins by looking back over the entire Sermon on the Mount.

The “words” that He tells His listeners (readers) to put into practice begin in Matthew 5 and continue through to the end of Matthew 7 — three deep chapters of Scripture.

Now, we are obviously not going to get through the entire Sermon on the Mount in one night. We are going to camp out on this mountain for several weeks.

Just to give you a broad-brush summary— in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us:
— How to pray
— What we should pray for
— He tells us the importance of forgiveness
— He teaches that there ARE times of trouble and struggles in store for believers.
— How to interact with one another, whether we are interacting with friends or foes or family.
— He tells us not to be judgmental.
— He tells us that we are to hold fast to the Laws of the Old Testament, but with the understanding that Faith is the Key to salvation. (Learn from the Pharisees good and bad examples)
— Jesus tells us to FLEE from sexual sin and to honor our marriage covenants.
— He tells us to watch out for false teachers who are not leading us on the path of Righteousness
— And he makes it clear that if we are part of His family, we will produce the fruit of righteousness.
— Again, that’s just the broad-brush pass at the Sermon on the Mount.

I would encourage you to read over the Sermon on the Mount this week, and read it over and over throughout this series.

And, when you are reading, notice how all of the teachings focus on creating a more complete relationship between the Lord and us.

Also,
Remember that it is IF we “hear the words and put them into practice,” it makes us into that house on the solid rock that won’t fall.

It creates a house around us that is a bright reflection of the light of God into our dark, dark world.

It takes away the old walls like selfishness, resentment, fear and dishonesty and replaces it with the Godly attributes like perseverance, hope, honesty, selfLESSness and more.
If we rebuild our lives, our view of the world (our houses), to the best of our ability each day, into this new structure, in accordance to Our Master Architect’s plans, we will be hard to miss.

We will be counter-cultural.

Some people will be put off. They will retreat from the light.
But others, who are hungry for God, who are being led by the Spirit of God into a relationship with God, will be drawn from the darkness to the light that we reflect.

Remember though, before we build that house that Jesus talks about, we have to make sure we are building on the solid foundation.

Jesus talks about a house with two contrasting foundations. The foundation that washes away could be many things in our lives. It could be:
— Depending on our own abilities and talents and intellect to support us.
— Depending on other people, parents, spouse, kids to provide us with a purpose for living or as the crutch to lean on in times of trouble.
— Depending on the things of this world, our government, our popular culture, to shape our frame that we look through to see the world.
— The sand that washes away can even be the church or religious activity, if that church or that activity is what we find our purpose in, or what we count on for our salvation.

The Rock is different. The Rock never moves. It will never wash away. The rock was there before the rains came, before the streams rose and before the winds blew.

Jesus is the foundation. Jesus is the rock.

And so before you build your house, even with all the right materials, make sure you are on the rock. Make sure you are right with God.

Now, that’s between you and God, if He is prompting you and you are ready to turn your life over to God, we’d love to walk you through the process.

If your not a believer and your not sure yet, that’s fine. We just ask that you keep coming back.

We will say to the non-believers that there are many principals that work in life whether your are one of us or not, but, there are other things in the Sermon on the Mount that will seem insane, naive, and maybe even offensive to you if you have not yet surrendered your life to God.

Just take it all in.

Some people come to faith through a sudden earth shattering moment of clarity, while others have to marinate in the Word for a while before one day, it all just clicks. So just hear us out. Maybe it will “click’ for you tonight.

Turn with me and read Matthew 5: 1-2 and we’ll just reinforce this point a bit further through the text that starts the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus saw the crowds, then he went up on the mountainside and HIS DISCIPLES came to Him. We are told that it was first and foremost Jesus’ followers that were given this message, at the end of the teachings we see that The crowds were amazed, so again, This is first for those who have submitted to Jesus, but even if you are just part of the crowd that wants to hear more, you will be amazed by what God has to say.

In closing, I encourage you read this and read it again and again in the weeks to come. Take it all in, get the big picture like we are doing tonight, and begin to ask God where specifically, He is trying to grow your faith in this text.

The bottom line is hearing a guy talk up here once a week, is not the entirety of a spiritual walk.

Begin tonight to study the Word on your own, begin this week to talk with other believers in your neighborhood about the things God is showing you.

And begin to pray continuously and meditate on his word.


So that’s it, Faith in Jesus Christ is our Foundation. And, like a master architect, He has drawn up the plans for a wonderful new house to replace our shacks that were destroyed in the storms of life before Christ.

Let’s go out from here and shine bright for Him.

Let’s pray…