Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Lord, we thank you for today, and we thank you, Lord, for all that you do. We are blessed to be able to be here this evening and study your word together. We thank you, Lord, for those who have come, and they have taken time out of their busy schedule to make time to hear the word of the Lord and to grow in their walk with you.

We pray, Lord, that you bless them in a very special way because of the effort they have taken to be here, and pray that, Lord, our time together this evening would draw us closer to your presence. We're so grateful for your word. Our prayer, Lord, is that we would delight in your word more so than thousands of pieces of gold and silver, for your word is true, and all that it contains is life and gaudiness, and we are grateful.

In Jesus' name, amen. Take your Bible and turn to the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived, Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount. And notice how the Lord doesn't begin his sermon.

He doesn't begin with an opening illustration. He doesn't begin with an antidote. He doesn't even begin with an illustration that would cause the audience to laugh.

Think about that. Our Lord just dives right into it because he's the king, and the king is presenting the kingdom, and he wants those who hear to know how to get into the kingdom, and then how they can grow up in the kingdom. He gets right in or right down to business.

And what he says at the very beginning is important because he offers joy, gladness. He offers happiness. In the very first word he uses, in fact, he uses it nine times in the first few verses.

Blessed. And the audience, of course, is Jewish. So the Jewish audience would already be drawn to what their scriptures say.

And when Jesus would talk about blessedness, they would think of things like Psalm chapter 33, verse number 12, which says blessed. Blessed. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.

And they would think, well, here's the king, and the king is coming to offer a blessing, and we know that blessing comes to the nation whose God is Lord, and we are that nation. We are the nation of Israel. And blessing comes to the people that God has for his own inheritance, and we are those people.

We automatically have blessing. And they would be drawn to the verse we used last week, Psalm 144, verse number 15, how blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. And so they would think, well, we are the people of God, and he is our Lord, so we are a blessed people.

Israel, because of their inheritance, because they were God's chosen people, already believed that they were the blessed people. But when the king comes, and the king is offering his kingdom, he takes it in a whole new, different direction. The nation would even think of verses like Psalm 1, where it says, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

And they would think, well, we don't do that. We don't stand with sinners. We don't walk with scoffers or sit with them.

We stay away from those kind of people. We must be the blessed people. And the psalmist would say, but as the light is in the law of the Lord, and in his law, he meditates day and night, and he will be like a tree, firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers.

And they would think, yeah, I delight in the law of the Lord, but I'm not so sure I'm prospering. I'm not so sure I'm productive. I'm not so sure that what the psalmist says is happening in my life.

And they might even be drawn to a verse like Psalm 119, verse number 1, which reads as follows. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart.

And on the one hand, they would think, wow, we are a blessed people because we're God's chosen. We are God's inheritance. And then they would think, well, wait a minute.

My delight really isn't in the law of the Lord, and my way really isn't blameless, and I am not walking in the ways of righteousness. And there was a reason for that. And the reason simply was the fact that Israel had a hard time keeping the commands of God.

God would give them his commands. The Bible says that the oracles of God were given to the Jewish nation. Israel had the word of God.

The Gentiles nations didn't have that, but the nation of Israel, they had God's word written down because they were given to his people. And they knew the requirements of the law. They knew what God's word said, but they also knew that the standard was perfection, and they couldn't keep that.

And so they got to a point where they just continued to rebel against the authority of God's word. And God would send prophets, and God would send kings, and God would send judges to draw them back in, to repent from their ways, to understand the truth of the word of God. He would plead with them through these prophets because he wanted them to follow him and serve him and honor him because they were the testimony to a Gentile world who had no law, but Israel had the law, and they, if they don't obey it and they don't follow it, how could they present the God of Israel to a lost world? But Israel kept rebelling and disobeying the word of the living God.

So much so that God sent them into captivity, into Babylonian captivity. Things just got progressively worse. Jeremiah the prophet, Jeremiah's name means the Lord throws, right? And Jeremiah was thrown into Israel's disaster.

God took Jeremiah and threw him into the last few years right before Israel went into captivity to plead with them, to beg them to turn from their ways. And so he had a 40-year ministry where Israel never listened and never turned and never repented. Nobody ever said, Jeremiah, great sermon. I'm gonna follow what you said. Nope, nobody did that. In fact, Israel never turned.

And Jeremiah would lead them to the truth of God's word, but they never followed. They turned their back on the Lord and they went into captivity just as it was prophesied by Isaiah and by Jeremiah. As they went into captivity and they were there for 70 years, God gave them another prophet, a man by the name of Ezekiel.

And Ezekiel would prophesy during their captivity, trying to help them to understand the promises of God that one day God would deliver his people. And in the book of Ezekiel, the 36th chapter, Ezekiel promises what God's going to do.

And God's gonna do something for his own namesake. He's not gonna do it for Israel's sake. He's gonna do it for his own namesake. In fact, he says that in verse 22 of Ezekiel chapter 36 in verse number 23 and verse number 32, three times he says, I'm doing this not for your sake, but for my sake.

I'm doing this because of my word and my commitment. And for my glory, I'm doing this because I have made a promise. And he tells them that in verse 25, he will sprinkle clean water on them.

In verse 26, they will have a new heart and a new spirit. And in verse 27 says, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. He said, I'm gonna give you my spirit because you are unable to walk in my ordinances, but once my spirit is within you, it will cause you to obey me and follow me without exception because you're going to love me and you're going to serve me.

And the nation of Israel would hear the words of Ezekiel the prophet. And supposedly they would long for that opportunity. But way before Ezekiel, there was Isaiah.

And Isaiah said those very familiar words in Isaiah 61, words that we read, I believe it was last week, about what the Lord would say in the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4. When he said, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God and to comfort all those who mourn.

So when Messiah comes, he's gonna restore sight to the blind, he's gonna preach the gospel to those who are poor and afflicted, he's gonna release the captives. And they're thinking physical captivity, they're thinking physical poorness, they're thinking physical comfort, joy, that's what they're thinking. And notice what it says in verse number three.

To grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting, so they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified. Messiah's going to come, the Redeemer, the Savior. And the spirit of the Lord will be upon him.

And he's gonna preach the gospel. And those who are blind will be able to see and those who are poor, they'll be released from their affliction. Those who are captive will be set free.

And comfort will come. And a crown of gladness will come to you. And a mantle of praise. And you will be like thick, strong oaks. You'll be immovable.

The problem with that is that Israel misread that. They thought that their mourning would turn to comfort, their captivity mourning, their Babylonian captivity where they mourned and they wept and they cried because they had lost their city and they had lost their land and they were taken into captivity. And they thought that if they mourned, they would be comforted.

But you see, Israel, they mourned because of their captivity but they did not mourn because of their iniquity. That they mourned because of the consequences of sin but they did not mourn because of their sin. That was their problem. And that was always their problem.

So you jump to the New Testament and the king has already presented his credentials. Saw that in Matthew chapter 4 where he had already healed everybody. So the Messianic credentials have already been presented.

So there should be no doubt in people's mind that this is more than a prophet. This is more than just another individual with some kind of supernatural abilities but this actually is the Messiah. The Messiah has come.

And then he begins to preach and present the kingdom because he went throughout all Judea preaching the gospel of the kingdom because he so desperately wants people to be a part of his kingdom. That's why he came. Came to seek and to save that which was lost.

As the king, he presents the kingdom wanting people to enter into that kingdom to be children of the kingdom. Children of the king. So he's gonna give them the opportunity to understand entrance into that kingdom and then how they grow up in that kingdom.

So he begins with blessed. Makarios, inner contentment, joy, blissfulness. You want true joy? You want true happiness? You want true contentment? Not something that's affected in any way by that which is external because it's all internal.

We are so easily affected by our surroundings, right? We are happy or sad depending upon what's happening around us, right? If my team wins, I'm happy. If my team loses, I'm sad, right? If I get a raise, I'm happy. If they take my job away, I'm sad.

Everything around us is built around the external. And Christ says, I wanna give you deep, true inner joy that's unaffected by any circumstance because I want you to experience my joy because the kingdom of heaven is not eating and drinking. It's not defined by your physicality.

It's defined by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That's the kingdom of heaven. And those in the kingdom, those who are children of the king have experienced his righteousness because he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

So those in the kingdom experience his righteousness. And only those who are righteous before him are truly at peace with him. And only those at peace with him experience the joy that he gives to them because they've been forgiven of all their sins.

So Jesus comes and he begins to preach. Blessed are the poor in spirit, verse 3, for theirs, literally the text says, theirs and theirs only is the kingdom of heaven. And then he says, blessed are those who mourn for they, emphatically, they and they only will be comforted.

And a Jewish audience would be drawn right back to Isaiah 61, knowing that when the Messiah came, he would comfort those who mourn. But the question is, what kind of mourning is Christ talking about? And what kind of comfort comes to what kind of mourning? Grief is really natural to us, is it not? We are a grieving people. And in the midst of our grief, we want comfort.

Now, I'm a parent and I've got eight kids and I've raised those kids along with my wife, Laurie. And there were times where my kids would cry, right? They would mourn. And they would come to me for comfort.

That was always a bad idea. Always a bad idea. Because I would always say this, is there blood? No tears if there's no blood. Is it broken? No tears. Rub dirt on it, off you go.

But my wife, on the other hand, was the comforter. They would go to her and she would wrap her arms around them. She would kiss their boo-boos and they would be all better. Because she was the one of true comfort.

But whenever we grieve, for whatever reason we are grieving, we would love to be comforted. And so the question comes, what kind of mourning receives the kind of comfort that the king is offering? So we have before you an outline, hopefully you've received an outline. And the four main points are the same main points as were last week and they will be the four same main points every week because we wanna, number one, define, define the condition of what it means to mourn.

And then we want to describe the consequences to those who mourn. And then we'll detail the characteristics. And then we will simply determine our course of action from there.

So first of all, let's define the condition. Mourning. Blessed are those who mourn.

There are nine different Greek verbs to describe grief and mourning in the New Testament. The one that's used here is the strongest of the nine. So that should tell us a little bit about the kind of mourning that brings comfort.

If you recall the book of Ecclesiastes, it was Solomon who said these words in chapter 3, verse number 1. There is an appointed time for everything and there is a time for every event under heaven. He goes on to say that there is a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.

Solomon knows that mourning and grieving are naturally appointed times all throughout our lives, like dying and giving birth, like planting and uprooting that which is planted. There is an appointed time for every event under the sun and there is a time to mourn, there is a time to grieve, there also is a time to laugh. Oh, interesting fact, the Bible records no incident in which Jesus ever laughed.

Did you know that? Not one record of Jesus ever laughing. We know he rejoiced, but never did he laugh. Did he become angry? You bet. Did he cry? Absolutely. That's all recorded. But there is no record of Jesus ever laughing.

It doesn't mean he never did, he might have. I don't know, I wasn't there. And it's not recorded in the scriptures.

And yet he did grieve, he grieved quite regularly, quite often. He became angry, angry at sin and those who rebelled against him and those who would turn their back on his father. But never is there a record of his laughing.

I find that quite interesting because we don't know we love to laugh, don't we? We love comedies, we love sitcoms, we love to laugh because it gives us some kind of freedom emotionally. It's not a sin to laugh, it's not. It's just quite interesting that there's no record of Jesus ever laughing.

Maybe he laughed when he created you, I don't know. Some of you are pretty funny looking, so I don't know, maybe he did. But the Bible doesn't tell us that either.

But the point being is that grief is natural to life and we grieve for all kinds of reasons. We grieve amidst tragedy, rightly so. Abraham grieved when Sarah, his wife, died.

Well, you understand that, right? You have a loved one who dies, you grieve. You realize that Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, he wept, Jesus wept. John 11, shortest verse in the Bible, and he wept.

He wept over the consequences of sin. I mean, after all, he knows he's gonna raise Lazarus from the dead, why is he weeping? He should be joyous because he's gonna perform a resurrection and then proclaim that he is the resurrection and the life, but yet he weeps because of the consequences of sin and the devastating effects upon mankind, even anticipating his death on Calvary for the sins of man who, for the most part, would reject his sacrifice on Calvary. But he wept, he wept amidst tragedy.

We weep amidst calamities, and rightly so. If there is a disaster, it causes great grief. It causes great grief in people's lives.

Some people even grieve amidst their anxieties. They get so overwhelmed, so anxious in their thoughts, so anxious in what is going to happen next, they can't help but just burst out in tears and grieve. Some people weep because of their loneliness.

They're all alone. Some people weep for all the wrong reasons. Remember, Ahab in 1 Kings 21, wept because he was unable to obtain Naboth's vineyard.

Even Amnon, he wept over his lustful desires for Tamar, a very unhealthy weeping. But the Bible records all kinds of incidences of people weeping. Mothers who lost their sons, the widow's son at Nain, that widow, she wept for the loss of her son.

And Christ says to her, stop weeping, stop crying. Now, if you go to a funeral and your son's dead, you're crying, if I go up to you and say stop weeping, you're not gonna come back to church next week because you're gonna think I don't care about your life. I'm not gonna say that to you, but that's what Jesus said to the widow who lost her son at Nain.

But there are all kinds of reasons for us to grieve. And yet, none of that grieving brings the comfort that Christ is speaking about in Matthew chapter 5, verse number 4. It's a whole different kind.

Those are natural kinds of things which cause us to weep, natural things that cause us to grieve. But what kind of sorrow is Christ speaking about? Well, the answer is found very simply in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse number 10, which says for the sorrow that is according to Christ and according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. There's a sorrow that produces life.

It's a godly sorrow. It's a godly sorrow that leads you to repentance. Well, what kind of repentance? Well, he tells you.

For behold, what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, there is a sincerity behind it. There is an earnestness for that which is righteous and true. And then he says, what vindication this godly sorrow brings, a desire to be vindicated from all the things that you have done in the past.

What indignation, this godly sorrow. Well, what does that mean? That there's a hatred for the sin that you committed that you have to repent of. And then he says, what fear.

Godly sorrow produces fear. What kind of fear? Fear of God. What longing, what kind of longing? The kind of longing that relationships would be restored that were destroyed because of your sin.

What zeal, zeal for holiness. What avenging of wrong in everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. Ezekiel would speak about this way back in Ezekiel chapter 20, when he talks about Israel's restoration before he ever gives anything concerning the new covenant promise.

He says this, verse 43 of Ezekiel 20. There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves and you will loathe yourself in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done. You will loathe yourself.

This is a godly sorrow that leads you to repentance. The problem is we love ourselves, we don't loathe ourselves. And Ezekiel is giving a prophecy about Israel's restoration that they will come to a point that they will learn to weep and mourn because of the severity of their sin.

In fact, he says these words in the book of Zechariah. He talks about in Zechariah 12 and Zechariah 13, Zechariah 14, he talks about in that day. 17 times in chapter 12, 13, and 14, he uses the phrase in that day.

In that day is the day of the Lord. In that day is the day of tribulation. It's that day where Israel will be restored and Israel's enemies will be destroyed.

And in that day, he says, verse 10, I will pour out in the house of David and on the heavens of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication so that they will look on me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son and they will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. In that day, there will be great mourning in Jerusalem like mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo, like Israel mourned over the death of King Josiah. There will be weeping, there will be mourning, there will be bitter grieving.

Over what? That they killed their Messiah. They will look on the one whom they pierced and they will realize, what have we done? He was already here, we missed him. Now he's coming back.

He's been pierced and now they begin to realize that they killed their Messiah and they begin to grieve. And it says this, verse 12, the land will mourn every family by itself, the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves, the family of the house of Nathan by itself and the wives by themselves, the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves, the family of the Shemites by itself and their wives by themselves and all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves. And in that day, he says, I will pour out a fountain of blessing.

In that day, Israel will be restored. In that day, Israel will be saved, why? Because there will be a godly sorrow that leads them to repentance, that leads them to have sorrow for the sin. They will have loathed themselves to such a degree that they can't help but weep over their spiritual condition and how they could ever crucify their Messiah.

That's the sorrow that Christ is talking about. That's the mourning that Jesus is speaking about. It's the mourning that comes because there's been poverty of spirit, verse 3. That happens intellectually, which leads you to mourning, which affects you emotionally.

Now, each of the beatitudes intertwine one with another. We are taking them one verse at a time. We are tackling them one beatitude at a time. But in reality, they all flow together. They're all intertwined together because they all speak about entrance into the kingdom and how to grow up in that kingdom.

It's almost as if Jesus is mapping out everything line by line for the people that are listening. I want you to be a part of my kingdom, but it begins because you are utterly destitute. You are poverty of spirit.

You are so poor. You are so bankrupt. You have nothing to offer me.

When you get to that point, the kingdom of heaven is yours. But when you get there, you will mourn profusely because of your sin. You have nothing to offer because all you have is sinful desires, sinful attitudes, sinful actions, because all your righteousness, as Isaiah says, is like filthy rags.

All your righteousness is not worthy. And everything you want to offer does nothing. And you'll begin to weep.

You'll begin to cry and grieve a godly sorrow that's demonstrated by its zeal for holiness, its indignation against sin. It'll be characterized by your wanting to avenge all the wrongs that you have committed. There's this great desire to heal broken relationships.

Why? Because you have brought grief to the heart of God. And you've sinned against the holy one of Israel. And he's the king.

And because he's the king, you want to be a child of the king. And therefore, you recognize the severity of your sin. Those are the ones who receive comfort.

I love what Warren Wiersbe says. In his commentary, he says, we must distinguish between repentance, remorse, and regret. When my consciousness of sin rests only in my mind, then it is regret.

When it affects my mind and my heart, it is remorse. And remorse is a dangerous thing. But when my concern over my sin brings me to the place where I'm willing to turn from it and obey God, when my concern affects my will as well as my mind and heart, then I've experienced true repentance.

Think about Judas. Judas had regret. Judas had remorse.

But Judas had no repentance, did not turn from his sin. He went out and hung himself amidst all of his sin. Wiersbe goes on to say this.

You may remember the story about the Sunday school teacher who asked a pupil to define repentance. And the boy replied, repentance means sorrow for sin. That's right, said the teacher.

But then a little girl spoke up. She says, excuse me, but it means being sorry enough to quit my sin. She knew that repentance involves not only a change in my feelings and thinking, but also a change of the will.

If a person truly changes his mind about sin, then he will act completely different from here on now. Isn't that interesting? Have you ever got to a point where you repented of your sin? Or are you at the point where you just kind of regret what you did? And it might cause a little bit remorse because somebody's feelings got hurt. But there's no turning away from your sin.

With the church of Thessalonica, they turned to God from idols, right? They turned their back on their idolatry. They turned to God from their sin. They waited expectantly for the Lord's return.

They understood true biblical repentance. David in Psalm 51, after a sin with Bathsheba, wailed because of a sin. And he said, against thee and thee only have I sinned.

He understood that his sin was against God. Over in Psalm 32, the psalmist says this in verse number 1, Psalm 32, verse number 1. The psalmist says, blessed is the man. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and whose spirit there is no deceit. David says, when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.

My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

David understood repentance. And David was a major sinner, but yet he was a man after God's own heart. Why? Because David, although he was a major sinner, he was a major repenter of a sin and knew what it meant to confess and turn from his sin.

And that's why he was characterized as a man after God's own heart because he truly wanted to rectify all that was done wrong, knowing that he had sinned against his God and grieved his God. And so God would forgive him. That's why he says how blessed is a man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Because when I wouldn't confess my sin, God's hand was heavy upon me. My own vitality was drained from my body. I would soak my bed with tears because you see when you're a child of the Lord, he never allows his children to sin successfully.

He allows you to sin, but he never allows you to sin successfully and continually. His hand will be heavy upon you and you'll begin to weep and to mourn because of your iniquity. And as Ezekiel says, you will loathe yourself.

That's not a message people want to preach today in church. Hey, come to church and learn to loathe yourself. No, we want to go to church and learn to love ourselves, but loathe ourselves.

Who wants to do that? But you see, those are the only ones who receive comfort and that's the consequences. So let's describe the consequences to you. How is the Lord going to comfort you? How does God bring comfort into your life? This is just so important.

First of all, God himself is a comforter. Second Corinthians 1, verse 3, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? Blessed be the God who is the father of mercies, the God of all comfort. The God of all comfort.

Listen to what Isaiah says. Isaiah chapter 55, verse number 6, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord.

And he, God, will have compassion on him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon. Why are mourners comforted? Because they are the only ones who are truly forgiven of their sins. They are the only ones who experience the joy of salvation.

That's why they are blessed. The blessing doesn't come in the morning. The blessing comes in what God does in response.

To your mourning, he brings you comfort. And with that comfort, he brings forgiveness. He brings a cleansing from your sin.

He cleanses away the guilt of your sin. For once there is freedom, there is joy. There's the opportunity now to live a holy and righteous life before my holy and righteous God.

So first of all, God is a comforter. Number two, the Spirit of God is a comforter. Remember John chapter 14? It says in verse 16, I will ask the Father and he will give you another comforter, another helper.

The Spirit of God is a comforter. And the word for another is allos, another of the same kind, not heteros, another of a different kind. In other words, Christ says, I'm gonna give you another just like me, identical to me.

The Spirit of God is God, Jesus is God. And I'm gonna give you another identical just like me. That will be your helper.

That will be your comforter. That will be the one called alongside of you. The Bible says the parakletos, the one called alongside to bring comfort and joy.

That's the Spirit of God. That he may be with you forever. He goes on to say, verse 25, these things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Verse 26 of chapter 15, when the comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. Verse number seven of chapter 16, but I will tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the comforter will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you. The Spirit of God is a comforter. And the Spirit of God produces joy.

Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love. The fruit of the Spirit is peace. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, self-control, gentleness, meekness.

God's Spirit produces those things because he comes alongside of you. He dwells on the inside of you and produces nothing but the characteristics of Christ himself in you because he's identical to the Christ. And so you have God who is the shepherd, the savior.

And by the way, he says, David says in Psalm 23, thy rod and thy staff shall comfort me. The shepherd, the God of Israel, carries a rod which is that which is given to guard you and the staff is given to guide you because the staff would be used by the shepherd to move his sheep along and guide them in the right direction to make sure they didn't go off track. And so the Lord says, I'm your shepherd and I carry a rod and a staff because I'm into protecting you and watching over you so much so I go way beyond that and give you another helper, a comforter, the Spirit of God, who will actually dwell in you and bring you the joy and peace that you so desperately need because you've repented of your sin.

Oh, by the way, then it's the scriptures on top of that that bring comfort because without the Lord giving us his spirit to teach us the scriptures, we would be absent when it comes to comfort. So listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 119, verse number 50. This is my comfort in my affliction that your word has revived me.

Verse 28, Psalm 119. My soul weeps because of grief. Strengthen me according to your word.

Psalmist knew that when he grieved, the only strength that would come would come from the word of the living God because God's spirit always works in conjunction with the scriptures and the Savior gives us the spirit and the spirit uses the scriptures to bring comfort into our lives. Look what it says over in verse number 76. It says, Oh, may your loving kindness comfort me according to your word to your servant.

May your mercies comfort me according to as you've already spoken in your word. In other words, your word is true. I'm claiming the promise of your word about the mercies that come and comfort me because of what your word says.

And then over in verse number 92, if your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction. Verse 93, I will never forget your precepts for by them you have revived me. Verse 107, I am exceedingly afflicted revive me, oh Lord, according to your word.

So the psalmist knew that amidst my affliction, amidst my grief, amidst the need to be strengthened, it comes one way through the truth of God's word. Remember, we've quoted it over and over again. Second Thessalonians 2:13, that God's word effectively works in those who believe.

It doesn't work in those who don't believe except when it comes to convicting them of the sin and bring it into a point of salvation. But for those who believe, God's word is always at work in your heart. So when you read it, you study it, you memorize it, what happens amidst your grief, amidst your affliction, amidst your sorrow, amidst all the things that trouble you, God says, I will comfort you.

I will let you understand the strength of my word. That's why Romans 15:4 says, these things in earlier times were written for your instruction that through the encouragement and the perseverance of scripture, you might have hope. God says, I've written all this stuff down for you so that you can have hope, so you can read about the people who went through times of affliction and grief and know what it means to have my word to comfort you.

And then of course, outside of the Savior himself and outside of the spirit himself and outside of the scriptures itself, you have other saints. And over in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, it says these words in verse number 3, blessed to be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction. So we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. Paul says, the reason you go through your affliction so the God of all comfort will comfort you, but it doesn't end there. He comforts you so that you will be able to comfort those who go through similar afflictions.

And so when someone mourns because of their sin and they grieve over the fact that they have turned their back against God and they repent of their sins, other saints come alongside of them and they comfort them by explaining to them what God did in their life and God comforted them amidst their sin when they turn from their sin and they're able to be encouraged because they see what God did in fellow believers' life can happen in their life as well. But it's the God of all comfort who comforts those who mourn over their sin which really is a true godly sorrow, a repentance from their sin.

Number three, detail the characteristics.

Real quick, are you confessing your sin? Are you confessing your sin? That's a characteristic of those who mourned over their sin. There's this continual confession. You just don't mourn at the point of salvation when you turn from your sin.

There's always this consciousness of reoccurring sin and how it grieves my God that I've sinned against him and if we are the ones confessing our sins, 1 John 1 says, then God is the one who is continually forgiving us our sins. We are completely aware of the fact that we sin against God and so we ask ourselves, are we confessing our sins? It was Paul who said, oh wretched man that I am because he knew that he was a sinner. In fact, in 1 Timothy 1, he says he was a chief of all sinners. He understood that confession was good for the soul. You got to ask yourself, are you confessing your sin?

Number two, are you certain of God's forgiveness of your sin? You should be. Why? Because God is a God of truth and God pardons iniquity.

God forgives sin. Do you have the peace and joy that comes from forgiveness? Do you sense God's comfort when you go to him and confess your sins? Remember Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28, come unto me all ye that labor and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

Learn from me. But all those of you who are weighed down because of your sin, you're carrying this burden around that you cannot do anything with. Come to me.

My yoke is easy. It's light. It's kind. It's merciful. Come to me. I will forgive you.

Our God is a forgiving God. God holds no grudges. God gives no paybacks. God's a forgiver.

He is an avenger of the evil, yes. And by the way, there is no peace for the wicked. We understand that. Isaiah is pretty clear about that.

But for those who come to Christ and repent of their sins, there is comfort. Are you confessing your sins? Are you certain of God's forgiveness? Or are you concerned about sin even in your own life? That's number three. Are you concerned about sin even in your own life? But that is just so, so important.

Why? So many times we just pass over sin as if it doesn't matter. It's not that big a deal. But it is.

Because it offends the true and living God. And that should always grieve us. In Psalm 97 verse number 10, it says, hate evil you who love the Lord.

Do you hate evil? Enough to turn away from evil? And then lastly, are you crying over the sins of the world? That's a characteristic of those who have truly mourned. They cry over the sins of the world. Isaiah 53 says that our Lord was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

Not only did he weep at the tomb of Lazarus, he wept over the city of Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. If only, only if you had known on this day what had come to you, I would have gathered you together as a mother hen gathers her chicks.

But you were unwilling to come to me. It caused him to weep because they chose their sin over a savior. They chose their rebellion over a redeemer. That's how they lived their lives. And it caused our Lord to weep over the city.

This is Psalm 119:136. A river of waters ran down my eyes because they keep not thy law. And it's just amazing. When was the last time you cried because someone in your family didn't keep the law of God? When was the last time someone in your, you cried because someone in your church decided to not follow the law of God? When was the last time you wept because you live in a country that doesn't follow the law of God? There's a reason Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet because he wept profusely over the sins of Israel.

They would not turn and follow their God. So point number four, determining my course. What's my course of action? Number one, realize your condition.

Realize your condition. Poverty of spirit and sorrow because of my sin and my condition. Have you realized that? Have you realized that your sins have separated you from your God? God hasn't been separated from you.

Your sins have separated you from God. And therefore your sins are a barrier between you and your God. Have you recognized that? Do you realize that? Have you come to a place where you've mourned over your sin that your condition is ugly, destitute? I have nothing to offer my God because I'm such a wretched sinner and I cry out for mercy.

Lord, have mercy upon me. Forgive me of my sin. And that happens as you enter into heaven, but it's something that is habitual with those who are kingdom citizens.

They still don't think they're anything. They realize that they're nothing and that they are still sinners and they need to continually turn from their sin to follow the Lord. Have you realized your condition? Number two, research your condition.

Read about sin in the scriptures. It's always a good way to determine your course of action. Sometimes we don't recognize the severity of sin, but if you read about it in the scriptures, read about David and Bathsheba.

Just understand what took place and everything that he lost because of his sin and how it affected his family so devastatingly that the sword never left his home. You see, you don't mourn because of the consequences of your sin. You mourn because of the sin itself.

Those who regret what they did, those who have remorse, do so because of the consequences. But those who repent, repent because of the sin itself. It offends the true and living God.

Research sin in the scriptures. I was talking to a guy this past week. He came to Christ three weeks ago.

And he came to Christ three weeks ago reading the book of Ezekiel, the 36th chapter, verses 24, 25, and 26 about the new covenant. He read that and he realized, I need God's spirit in me to follow the Lord. I need a cleansed heart.

My heart's filthy. And he got down on his knees in his bedroom and he cried out to God and God saved him. He didn't do anything but read what the Bible says because the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul, right? Faith cometh by hearing, hearing about a word concerning the Christ, Romans 10:17.

He read the scriptures and realized that he needed cleansing and that without that cleansing, he would not have the spirit and without the spirit, he could not follow God. So he cried out to the Lord. Research sin in the scriptures.

Read about Paul's life and the struggle that he had in Romans 7 because he struggled. Things I'm supposed to be doing, I'm not. The things I shouldn't be doing, I am.

Oh, wretched man that I am. Who will free me from this life of sin? He recognized his sin and he was a great prophet of God, great apostle for the Lord, great preacher of the gospel. Wrote 13 books of the New Testament but he recognized how sinful he was and cried out to God.

And lastly, request a contrite heart. Psalm 51, a broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Have you ever requested God to break your heart? To shatter the hardness that's there.

To break up all the rocky soil that's there. And shatter your inner man. Request a contrite heart because God promises blessing to those who mourn, joy to those who mourn because they and they only will be the ones who are truly comforted.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for tonight and for your word and what it means so much to cover so little time to do it. But I pray for everyone in the room.

I pray that, Lord, you'd work in their hearts. Those who are here have never, never turned from their sin, never, never mourned over the sin of their lives because they are separated from you. Cause them, Lord, to see how their sin is only going to lead them to hell, not to heaven.

They need a savior, someone who will forgive them of their sin. That's what you do. You're a savior. You're a redeemer. You will deliver them from their sin. Cause them to cry out to you, Lord.

And may all of us realize, Lord, that, that turning from our sin, as Martin Luther said, when he nailed those 95 theses on the Wittenberg door in Germany, that when God calls his people to repent, he means that it's a lifelong action of repentance. It's constant turning from our sin. Maybe it'd be that way, Lord.

That we might understand the true comfort that comes from the God of mercies, the God of all comfort. Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.