The Beatitudes

Have a bible, you want to take it, turn to Matthew Chapter 5, where you can read along on the screen. And our reading is going to be the the beatitudes once again. Matthew 5, 1 to 12. Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.

He said, blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Bless are those who mourn for they will be comforted Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Bless are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they will be filled.

Bless are the merciful. For they will be shown mercy. Bless are the pure in heart for they will see God. Bless are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Well, good evening everybody. My name is Chris Tilly.

I'm 1 of the members here at Cornerstone Church. Very warm welcome if you're tuning in from home as well. Let me pray as we get into the next part of the beatitudes. Further, please do help us now. Please help us to calm our minds, to focus, to concentrate, and to receive what it is, you have to say to us, the challenges that you have and the encouragement that you have in equal measure.

So we do we do pray for these things now on then. I want to start by asking, what's the overriding emotion that everybody wants to feel? Not what you'd feel the most, what would you feel the most often. But given a choice, what's the emotional state of being you would choose to be in? Is it sadness or is it happiness?

Blace Pascal, he was a seventeenth century theologian. He wrote this famous quote about human happiness. He said, this, all men seek happiness, all humans seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.

The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object this is the motive of every action of every man. Now, that's a fairly meeting quote, but essentially, what he's saying is that the reason underpinning all of our choices is that we want to be happy. That happiness is is what we go for as our ideal state of being. That's kind of the way we're we're made.

Is is really what he's saying. We we want happiness. Who doesn't want happiness? If you don't want happiness, there's something very wrong going on. Happiness is our natural natural state to pursue.

And so, it logically follows on that anything that makes us unhappy needs to be avoided and suppressed at all costs. Right? That that logically follows on. Now, I know that many of you have probably seen the film inside out It's an animated movie. It's probably made about 10 years ago.

And it's about a young teenage girl and what goes on inside head. Now, it sounds awful when you just say that, who would want to watch that movie, but it's it's brilliant. And her emotions are characterized so there's joy who's just sickeningly annoyingly happy and wants everything to be wonderful all the time. There's there's anger who just wants to hit the nuclear button and meltdown at every possible opportunity. There's there's fear who's just hyphenly hyperanalyzing every single situation and doing a risk assessment on everything and is terrified of what might happen and there's disgust, you know, she's trying to be cool.

She doesn't wanna be seen as not being cool. She's disgusted with all sorts of things. And then you have sadness. Now, none of the others really understand sadness. And actually, they spend most of the movie trying to suppress and stop sadness.

From doing anything. To the point where at 1 point joy even draws a circle on the floor and says, right, sadness, this is where you live. You stay there, don't touch anything, don't do anything, don't say anything, don't think anything. This is sadness's space. Now, of of course, you know, as the movie goes on, we we we find out the reason for sadness, and we find actually how important she is to a to a healthy balance.

Because I think we know that without any sadness at all, we know how unbalanced that could make a person, because some sort of crazily happy over the top person all the time. It's too much in some ways. If we're expected to be in a perpetual state of happiness, where we're always living our best lives. Then what happens when things don't go? According to the happiness script.

What do we do? Where where are we then? What massive, massive pressure? And we, you know, we see this in our society in all kinds of ways. We see it, for example, in our young people.

And the struggle that social media brings along with it, where your whole life is constantly laid bare for all to see. And the anxiety that that can bring with it and so on and so forth. We see it in the struggle for people to prove themselves in their jobs and to be happy in their work. Everyone wants to be happy in their jobs. They want a happy life at home.

They want happiness. They want happiness. They want happiness. But what do we do when we are unhappy? What do we do when sadness comes?

We know that the reality of life is actually a bit of a mixture of the 2. Now, why am I talking about happiness and sadness? Well, the verse that we're focusing on today says, blessed are those who mourn. Blessing is a happy state of being and mourning, I think we'd all agree, is a sad state of being. So, it's almost as though Jesus is saying here, happy are those who are unhappy.

And you're thinking, what? And I'm sure the disciples were thinking, what is he talking about? That makes no sense. It's an oxymoron. It's a total contradiction.

It's nonsensical on the surface. But actually, what we're hopefully gonna gonna see in this verse is that the 2 things go hand in hand, they're inextricably linked. In fact, that the root to happiness lies through sadness. It lies through mourning. In fact, hopefully, the argument is going to go that the greater the sadnesses, in some sense, the greater the joy and the happinesses.

It's like a contrast between the 2, that the more we understand the 1, the more we understand the the other as well. But in order for us to get there, we we we need to go through the sadness. And so we need to know what what Jesus actually means. What is this sadness and what What is this happiness that we're trying to get to? What are those 2 things?

Now, at this stage, I'm going to give you a fair warning that that we're going to need to wade through a fair amount of sadness and mourning to get there. In fact, we're going to wallow in a mud bath of mourning is what I wrote down here in probably 1 of my slightly weirder moments. So yeah, that's what we've got coming up this evening, but but It's so that we can wash ourselves off with the comfort that comes after it, and we can wrap ourselves up in the robes of comfort at the end, and how much better that's going to be for seeing this for what it is. So that's by way of by way of an introduction. And we have 3 points tonight and there are 3 very easy points to follow because they are the 3 key words, blessing, mourn, and comfort.

So, 0.1, blessing. Now, This should hopefully be a very, very short point because Tom spent a fair amount of time talking about Blessing and his series introduction last week. And if you remember, what he was saying is that the sermon on the mount of which the beatitudes are the opening statement, if you like, They're like the essence of Jesus' teaching and therefore the essence of Christianity and the beatitudes are like the essence of the essence if you if you get what he means, if you remember that. So so it's like the reduction that the chef makes was Tom's illustration. All the flavor reduced and concentrated, and the name of this reduction that you've got at the end is blessing.

It's a blessing source. It's a blessing reduction. That's what we've been boiling or the beatitudes boil down for us. And, essentially, that's what it is to be a Christian. To be a Christian, to be a follower of Christ, is to be blessed That's essentially what it is.

Now, the definition of of blessing is a slightly tricky 1 in in the English language, but last week, where where Tom got it to was something along the lines of perfect rest, coupled with perfect bliss. You've got perfect rest coupled with perfect bliss. So a happy state, right? That's a happy state for 1 to be in. Well, as we go through each beatitude and we look at each of them in isolation, we get a slightly different angle on what blessing is, each time.

It's like looking at the various ingredients and method of preparation for each ingredient. Is what the beatitudes are in a sense. So you could say that in order to prepare a portion of blessing, you need the sum total of the ingredients listed and the methods of preparation found in the beatitudes. Or more simply put, the definition of blessing is the sum total of the beatitudes. Let me illustrate.

So tonight, our ingredients the flavor that we're looking at is comfort. That's our flavor. And the method of preparation is morning, That's what we're looking at this evening, which takes us very, very smartly onto our second point, which is which is morning. So what type of morning is Jesus talking about here? That's that's the question we need to ascertain.

That's what we need to know. And what are the blessed mourning for? In today's world, mourning is something that only happens. When someone we love dies. That's what it is.

That's what it's all reserved for. We mourn for them. We go into a period of mourning, don't we? And that's completely right. That's absolutely 100 percent correct.

That's the correct response to someone we love passing. Absolutely, it is. Jesus mourns when lazarus dies. David mourns when his child dies. This morning when people die all over the old testament part of the bible.

And it's always the right reaction. It's always a right response. That's not that's not in question. But is that the type of mourning that Jesus means in this passage? Is that what he's talking about?

Well, I think there is a link and we'll see that, but that isn't what he's talking about. He doesn't mean morning as though someone's died, although he kind of does. It's confusing. Right? In fact, it cannot be what he's really talking about ultimately Because remember, who is this sermon being preached at?

If you go back to verse 1, his disciples came to him. His disciples came to him. So he's preaching to he's preaching to the converted, he's preaching to his followers, he's preaching to the blessed. So it follows that the morning that Jesus is talking about here can't possibly be mourning for the dead. Because everybody mourns for the dead.

Christians and non Christians alike. Basically, every single person that's ever more ever lived has mourned. Right? So they can't. It can't be that type of mourning, because that would mean that everyone on the face of the globe is a follower of Christ.

And sadly, we just know that's not the truth. We know that even in Kingston Burrow, there's tens of thousands who don't call Jesus their Lord and Savior. And yet they mourn. So it can't be mourning for the dead. So if not mourning like we mourn for our loved ones, then what?

Well, the word that Jesus uses for mourning is is it's the strongest possible version of that word that he could have chosen in the original language. It means to deeply mourn, it means to constantly and can assistently mourn. It's like being in a state of mourning. It's a state of being. It's an attitude.

Who wants that? Right? Anyone wants some of that? You wanna find yourself in this permanent state of mourning. No takers.

What do you want blessing? Well, that's the route through. And that's what we're going to be looking at. So what does he mean? What's he talking about?

You go via mourning to get to comfort and equals blessing. So what Jesus is talking about here isn't just mourning. He's talking about the cause of it. He's talking about the cause of death, which is sin. He's saying, you need to mourn your sin.

He's not talking about mourning the the dead. He's talking about mourning the living. Morn those who are still living is what Jesus is saying here. And then here's the link with death. Right?

Sin causes it. He's getting underneath the hood. He's going underneath the issue and saying mourn the cause and mourn the living because they're the ones, who are going through this thing here. It's the 1 and only reason people die, is it not? Sin?

What has anybody else ever died of? What's what's the COVID death toll, 0, sin, a million, 2000000, who knows how much it's going to be? How many people have ever died of a heart attack? 0. How many people died from getting hit by a car?

From having stroke from any 1 of a number of illnesses. No one's ever died from any of those things. Everyone's died from sin. Everyone has died, because we are we are sinful people in a sinful world, and we know that the wages of sin is death. So Jesus says, mourn your sin.

And mourn the living. Because that's the number 1 problem. Now, we get quite a few examples of how this plays out and all fits together in in the old testament. And in fact, when people died, the method of mourning was exactly the same as when people mourned for sin. So the exact same behavior happened, the exact same response was given.

They would they were put on sackcloth, so they would really dress down and ashes, you know, they would ashen themselves up. And they would fast, they would stop eating and drinking. They were in a state of mourning when someone they love died. It's almost like it's almost like you're dying yourself. You know, it's a picture of your just deeply, deeply distressed state of being.

And the same happens when people mourn sin. Exactly the same behavior. So here's some examples. So don't worry. Don't I'm not expecting you to read all of that.

It's an example. So this is Ezra. When he learns of the people's unfaithfulness by marrying into the surrounding cultures and and into their detestable practices as he puts it, and they bring them back with us. And when Ezra learns about this, because they were supposed to be separate and faithful to God, he mourns He Look, he tears his tunic and cloak. He pulls hair from his head and beard and he sits down appalled.

Because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, because of their sin. And then later on, because he continued to mourn over the unfaith oness of the exiles. It's it's the same thing that happens in Geneva when Jonah goes and preaches judgment to the city of Ninevilla. In 40 days, judgment coming, you'll be overthrown. And what do they do?

What's their response? What's their response to when their sin is exposed? They put on sackcloth. They humbled themselves. Even the king rises from his throne and puts on sackcloth and sits down in the dust, he humbles himself.

And so the judgments abated. God has mercy. They're comforted. Because they mourn their sin. It's even Ahab.

We've just been learning about Ahab and what a shocker he was. And even Ahab when he learns about the judgment coming when he learns about the fate of what's going to happen to his family. Even Ahab mourns and puts on sackcloth and fasts and goes around meekly and so look, God says, have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself, I mean, Ahab's mourning the the the result of the judgment. He's maybe arguably not mourning his sin. But there's still some sort of comfort as a result of that.

You see how this starts to work. You see the examples. When we mourn, we should mourn for our own sinful selves. That's what we're being told here in this beatitude. Do you never feel that frustration inside of you?

Do you never feel that frustration at your own sin? Like, you're trapped in this flesh that just doesn't want to listen. That doesn't do what you want it to do, that does things that you wish it never did. It's like it's like it's like being in a it's like being trapped inside this this organization, this body is like an organization. It's like this organization that's completely bent and committed and dedicated to its own destruction and dedicated to rebellion against God.

Do you ever feel that frustration? This heart that's just constantly like coming up with new ways of disobeying God, Coming up with new ways of serving itself, this brain is like a management team, calling the shots, making the decisions. Don't listen to God, listen to yourself. Listen to that thing. Do this.

You do that. Let's organize this. With no consultation on what God thinks is right or wrong at all. And these hands just carry out the commands. And these feet just run swiftly towards whatever nonsense.

They wanna run towards, and these eyes look at what they shouldn't, these ears hear what they shouldn't. This mouth says the most appalling things, and it's frustrating Should we not mourn that? This is By the way, is this is the difference between the world's definition of what's right and wrong and what's actually sort of sinful and Jesus's. The world says things like, look, You're still okay because it was just a thought. You didn't actually do anything.

You just it was just a thought in your head. That's not simple. That's not what Jesus says. Jesus says, by looking you've touched, by imagining you've done it already. According to the rest of the sermon on the Mount here, which directly follows the beatitudes.

I I am a coward. I am a criminal law breaker. I'm a murderer, an adulterer, a promise breaker, a revenge taker, I'm ungenerous, I'm proud, I'm self centered. But don't worry, I'm not alone because you all are too. It's what it says.

There's a way to lose your audience immediately. Shouldn't we mourn our sin? But if you noticed in the Ezra passage, the morning extends beyond just our own sin and to the sin of the world around us, doesn't it? He mourned for the sin of the nation. He was cut to the heart by what was going on around him.

We should be mournful for the state of our country. We should we should mourn the state of our society and of our of our culture, and there's just so many things that are wrong. It's hard to know where where to even begin. How many examples? How many things could I pluck out?

And and used to show. I mean, we were hearing we've been hearing some recently. I mean, you could pick on divorces, basically acceptable now. It's just a normality. I think, I don't know what the statistics are, but if it's not already, it soon will be that more marriages end up in divorce than actually survive it.

I know it was close last time I checked, but even I worry people bother getting married if they're not followers of the Lord Jesus. Why would you, it's just a legal contract that's likely to fail? But, that's where our culture's at, and that's okay. It's actually okay to do that. People are encouraged to do that.

It's a normality. Abortion, the train wreck of abortion. Look, we know there's people suffering within these things. But that's the whole point, isn't it? This is a confusion.

It's a lie of the evil 1. It's a genocide. It's a genocide against the disabled, and it's encouraged. It's actually written in our laws. People with down syndrome are being screened out of this world.

We think we're better than Hitler? It's going on today, and we sanction it, and we're okay with it. It's in our culture. Shouldn't we mourn that? I could pick on a load of other things, and I know that there's so many of that struggle in so many ways.

And there's so much being rammed down our throats that we need to mourn about. And more deeply about. Pete's question last week was, what have we done? What have we done asking of his generation? What the what the heck did we do?

How did we end up here? And the question rolling around in my mind has been, because I'm a generation behind Pete, is what are we doing? What are we doing? Are we just accepting this? Are we just gonna sort of water down things and go along with it?

Are we gonna compromise? Are we gonna Are we gonna be okay with this? Or are we gonna be cut to our hearts about this? And are we gonna stand? Are we gonna stand on a principle and and not give inch, standing up for God's word, fearlessly rebuking sin in a world that is increasingly hostile.

That calls God irrelevant and outdated and backwards. And God just, you know, he doesn't understand the issues of today. It doesn't understand what our young people are dealing with when no 1 even knows anymore if you're supposed to be a boy or a girl or if there is even any biological sex. He doesn't understand those issues because God's word is a God's word of yesterday. It's not for today.

Who do we think we are to say that we understand the issues of today better than God. He wasn't the god of just 2000 years ago. He's the god of today, and every tomorrow to come until he decides this world ends. And we think we know better than he does. My goodness, we should mourn for our country and our culture.

Or we could just be cowed into submission, allow ourselves to be canceled out, no platform. Maybe that's coming. Maybe digitally online, we will be no platformed. Maybe because of the views we stand for and that God says, this is his way. Maybe we will be canceled out.

But hey, I'd rather be counseled outstanding for God's word than to compromise and go along with that. We should mourn My goodness, we should we should mourn. Now, please hear me, to anyone, I mean, as I said earlier, we struggle with all sorts of things and all ways many of us do. And many of you, I've spoken to you personally, and so you know me on these things. I hope that's the case.

When we attack these things in our culture, it's because it's a sin of our age that needs to be rebuked, so it can be exposed so that we can speak truth into the situation, and it's with all compassion to people who are caught up and ensnared by these things. Because that is the trap of the evil 1. He's the deceiver, he's the confuser, he's the liar, and he's the murderer. And that's what he wants for you. This is just the latest fad.

This is just the latest thing. Paul's beaks really well on this subject, because he writes strong words to the church in corinth, and he says, Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I don't regret it. Though I did regret it, I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while, yet now I am happy not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended, and so we're not harmed in any way, bias. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets but worldly sorrow brings death.

Do you see why he tackles the sins that they're dealing with? He rebukes them to bring them to repentance. To save them. Sometimes sometimes, you've got to crack some eggs to make an omelet, I think Paul is saying, to put it bluntly. The bottom line is we are all terrible, terrible sinners.

And in each person, it just works its way through slightly differently. But in the end, it's all the same, isn't it? Why mourn for sin? Because a mournful state over your sin brings you to a place of personal repentance and relationship with God, and it brings you to a place of compassion on a lost world around you. I did warn you.

This wasn't going to be an easy listen. There was going to be some pretty tough stuff to get through here. But, here's the thing. The contrast makes it worthwhile. The more you see the morning, the more you delve into the more you get to grips with the sin in your own life and in the world around you.

Well, my goodness, how much better the comfort is when that arrives. And that's our third point comfort. It's our ingredient. It's what we're looking at. It's the ingredient of blessing that we're looking at tonight.

So What is it? What is the comfort? If mourning is repentance is basically what we were looking at. The method of preparation is repentance. What is the comfort that we experience as a result of mourning sin?

Well, if mourning sin is equivalent with repentance, then the comfort has to be forgiveness, doesn't it? That has to be the blessing to know that you are forgiven that you are forgiven past, present, and future, that you are free of sin, forgiven that it's done, dealt with. Surely, that's the comfort. When you know that, your heart leaps for joy. You're unburdened.

You can move forwards. By way of contrast again, if you don't know that comfort, then what are you left with? Uncertainty, anxieties, doubts, fears, surely that's what you're left with. Listen to this, this is a donker of a quote from a bloke. I mean listen to this, he had no comfort in life, sadly.

Strange. He says, that I came into this world with nothing. And now, I'm going away with this stupendous caravan of sin. Wherever I look, I see only God. I have sinned terribly, and I do not know what punishment awaits me There's no comfort there whatsoever.

That is a hopeless situation to be in. Even though he understands, he holds this sin. There's still no comfort. Why? Why is that?

Well, the Rangzeb, he was he was a devout Muslim, and he was the mughal ruler over India back in the seventeenth century. And he did not know the God of the Bible. That's the key difference. That's why he has no hope. He carries to his grave, his sins in life, not knowing if he's done enough to unbalance those with the good that he's done.

He goes to a God who has no mercy. He certainly doesn't acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ. Which means to him that the cross is purely weakness. Do you see the only place you can take your mournfulness over your sin is directly to the cross, because there and nowhere else's forgiveness found. And you see the difference.

You see the difference in people who know that. Look at look at some of these old quotes from old hymn writers. I think these guys really got it the best. I mean, this is my favorite hymn. There is a fountain filled with blood.

Drawn from emmanuel's veins, and soon as plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. What a sentence? How can that not make your heart leap for joy? And this, I mean, we're gonna sing this in a minute, which, you know, why we're singing it. But Look at this verse, says, my sin.

Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. You can hear this guy.

It's just bursting with joy. That's a battle chance. That's a victory cry. That's an up yours satan. Jesus has done it.

If that brothers and sisters. If that doesn't make your heart wanna burst out your chest, I don't know what will. Those are words that come from places of deep frustration, but deep gratitude and joy at the forgiveness they know in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm running out of time, but I really want to share this. A few of us between lockdowns We went and we managed to get out for a day, which was nice.

And we went and visited Highgate cemetery because that's how we roll. And Solomon actually sanctions that because Solomon says that the wise will go to the house of mourning and it's better to go there than the house of feasting. So we went to a house of mourning and actually we were blessed we we were deeply deeply blessed by that visit because looking around the old part, I mean, if you know anything about highgate cemetery, it's an old Victoria and Semetry. And so a lot of the guys that were buried there were buried in the time of like Wickliffe and spurgeon and that kind of thing. But these gravestone of these guys that were buried back in like 18 50 and stuff.

They were full of hope. They were full of joy, actually. You read it and you were smiling because of the whole gravestone, the whole thing was, like, covered with just hundreds of words of, you know, blessed of those who die in the lord, and we will rise again at the resurrection. Felt like these guys were gonna hop up out the ground and give you a hug, and we were like, really, I'm going, brother, sister. 1 day, we're gonna be with you.

This is fantastic. And by contrast, you go to the newer part of the cemetery where like your Karl Marxes are buried and stuff like that. Well, he's about the same time actually. But there's newer ones who have just been buried this year. And there's nothing on them.

He had 2 dogs. He was a nice bloke. 1 just said, Chris, But it was depressing. It was utterly depressing. I guess they hadn't ever read what Paul writes to the Church in Rome, that therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

He set you free from sin and death, and they don't know that joy, and it's heartbreaking. We've been freed from sin and death to live free lives for God now, which which by way is life to the full. Don't let anyone tell you it's boring. I don't know a more boring life than the life I had when I wasn't a Christian. Compare that with life.

I mean, it's just incomparably better. But it's not just now. Our comfort is in the future as well. It's in the resurrection day. It's in eternal bliss.

It's in eternal sinlessness, perfectness, where we'll be with Christ forever, where we'll get to be with each other forever, but we won't have any of our sin coming along for the ride with us. What what a fantastic message that is. That's what this beatitude means. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted, or to put it another way, blessed are those who repent for they will be forgiven. Friends, deal with your sin, whatever it may be, before it deals with you.

Father, we thank you for the words we've heard tonight. We thank you for speaking to us so powerfully We thank you for this amazing these amazing words. Lord, we thank you that We've had explained to us that we should mourn over our sin. Please, lord, would you grant us the gift of repentance? Lord, may we be comforted, may we be forgiven.

Lord, especially if there's anyone here who says these words with Paul for I do not do the good. I want to do but evil but the evil I do, not want to do, I do. I keep doing it. And Lord, who who also says these words, what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death. But thanks be to God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We thank you for the hope that we have in Christ. We thank you for the forgiveness that we have in him. Lord, we thank you that that is our hope. That's our ultimate hope. And so we give you praise and thanks for taking all of us in, not just in part, as that song says.

But the whole. We thank you that it was nailed to the cross. That Jesus bore it in our place. Help us to rejoice, and revel in that, help that to be the way we repent. In Jesus' name, we ask all these things, amen.