Daily Devotional For Friday, August 16, 2024

Well, you made it to Fantastic Friday. You are within hours of getting some necessary rest and relaxation. We have been making our way through the Beatitudes that are part of a larger sermon Jesus preaches called The Sermon On The Mount. This is the best and most memorable sermon ever preached in all of history. You can read it in Matthew chapters 5,6, & 7. In order to understand the Beatitudes, you have to understand the context of them. I dealt with this over a two day period – Monday & Tuesday, August 12th and 13th. If you did not read these, I would encourage you to, so they make better sense to you.

As I told you, each one builds on the previous one. There is a reason Jesus taught them in the order that He did. If you do not do what the first one says, you will not experience the blessing of it, and you will not experience the blessings of the remaining ones. Today, we are in Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (ESV). When we are mourning, we all can relate to what David writes in Psalm 55:6-8, “I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. (7) “Behold, I would wander far away, I would lodge in the wilderness. (8) “I would hasten to my place of refuge from the stormy wind and tempest” (NASB).

Just like David, we experience great loss, death, regrets, tragedies, disappointments and sorrows. And when these experiences come, just like David, we wish we had wings and could fly away to some other place. And if we could fly away, what we would discover is that the comfort we seek is much harder to find. The greater the tragedy or loss, the harder that experience pushes its weight on us until we feel as if we are suffocating. 

Thus our sense of despair increases exponentially and the comfort we want is harder to find than a needle in a haystack. Here’s how you know you are truly a disciple of Jesus Christs: you are deeply sorrowful and broken over your sin. As we mature in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we become more aware and affected by what our sin does to us, our relationship to others and especially our relationship to Jesus Christ. We are recipients of grace and the more we keep receiving God’s grace, the more we should be aware of our own sinfulness. 

In the Bible, Israel was consistently disobedient and unrepentant. When it came to their sin, they mocked God by denying any wrongdoing. This is one of the reasons God had to repeatedly punish them. The prophet Isaiah writes about this in Isaiah 22:12-13:

“At that time the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, called you to weep and mourn. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. (13)  But instead, you dance and play; you slaughter cattle and kill sheep. You feast on meat and drink wine. You say, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (NLT).

What this Beatitude reminds us is how no matter one’s social standing, rich or poor, health or sickness, ethnicity, education, having happiness is not based on having things and having things go your way. This is a false ideology our American culture advocates. It promises much, but comes up short on promised results.. Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:

“The whole structure of most human living is this . . .  Pleasure brings happiness, money brings happiness, entertainment brings happiness, fame and praise bring happiness, self-expression brings happiness. On the negative side, avoiding pain, trouble, disappointment, frustration, hardships, and other problems brings happiness. Sidestepping those things is necessary before the other things can bring full happiness. Throughout history a basic axiom of the world has been that favorable things bring happiness, whereas unfavorable things bring unhappiness. The principle seems so self-evident that most people would not bother to debate it” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 154).

If we were to put Jesus’ words into a modern vernacular, then Jesus said this: “Happy are the sad . . .” Jesus was not against a good laugh or humor but He did warn us with these words in Luke 6:25, “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep” (NASB). Jesus is not saying that happiness comes through mourning; but with now happiness from God comes from mourning over one’s sin. 

Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:

“Only mourners over sin are happy because only mourners over sin have their sins forgiven. Sin and happiness are totally incompatible. Where one exists, the other cannot. Until sin is forgiven and removed, happiness is locked out. Mourning over sin brings forgiveness of sin, and forgiveness of sin brings a freedom and a joy that cannot be experienced in any other way.” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 158).

This means a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ never laughs at their sin or the sins of others. The genuine disciple never laughs at crude or immoral jokes and we do not even retell them. This means we do not even seek any kind of entertainment that mocks God’s position on sin or makes jokes about sin. To be intrigued by any kind of sin such as sexual immorality is to be rejoicing when we should be mourning. Such activity is wrong and sinful. This is the point of Proverbs 2:12-15:

“Wisdom will save you from the way of evil, from the person who speaks devious things, (13) from those who abandon the paths of righteousness to walk the ways of darkness, (14) from those who enjoy doing evil, from those who find joy in the deviousness of evil. (15) Their paths are crooked. Their ways are devious” (GWT).

The point of Proverbs 2:12-15 is that to rejoice in the sinfulness of evil is to take delight and take part in it. Again, I quote pastor and author John MacArthur:

“Much of the church today has a defective sense of sin, which is reflected in this defective sense of humor. When even its own members make the church the butt of jokes, make light of its beliefs and ordinances, caricature its leaders as inept and clownish, and make its high standards of purity and righteousness the subject of humorous commentary, the church has great need to turn its laughter into mourning” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 159).

God is not against a good laugh or godly humor. He states this in Proverbs 17:22a, “A joyful heart is good medicine . . .” (ESV). Any time a person who calls themselves a Christian laughs at what God calls sin is not to take medicine for their soul, but poison. Mourning over one’s sin brings God’s forgiveness and that then brings happiness. David writes about this in Psalm 32:1-2:

“Blessed is the one whose transgression (sin) is forgiven, whose sin is covered. (2) Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (ESV). 

To understand what Jesus means here, we must understand Jesus’ use of the word “mourn” or “mourning.” In the Greek New Testament, there are nine, yes nine, different words used for “mourning” or “sorrow.” The Greek New Testament word Jesus uses here in Matthew 5:4 is [πενθέω, pentheo]. This is the strongest, the most severe. In all my years of study, I have learned that this specific Greek word represents the deepest, most heart-felt grief, and was generally reserved for grieving over the death of a loved one. 

We find this same Greek New Testament word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint when It is used in the Septuagint to refer to Jacob’s grief when he thought his son Joseph was killed by a wild animal (Gen. 37:34). Even though most of you cannot read Greek, here is the Septuagint’s version of the Hebrew’s Bible text of Genesis 37:34:

“Συνήχθησαν δὲ πάντες οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες, καὶ ἦλθον παρακαλέσαι αὐτόν· καὶ οὐκ ἤθελε παρακαλεῖσθαι, λέγων, ὅτι καταβήσομαι πρὸς τὸν υἱόν μου πενθῶν (pentheon) εἰς ᾅδου· καὶ ἔκλαυσεν αὐτὸν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ” (Source: L.C.L. Brenton, The Septuagint Version: Greek, "Genesis 37:34"), Vol. 1, p.50).

In the above Septuagint I have made bold and underlined this Greek word. It is used of the disciples’ mourning for Jesus before they knew He was raised from the dead (Mark 16:10). It is used of the mourning of world business leaders over the death of its commerce because of the destruction of the world system during the Tribulation (Rev. 18:11,15).

A genuine disciple mourns over their sin. This is not endorsing sinlessness, which we can only obtain when we get to heaven, but a growing acknowledgement of our own sinfulness. This is the point of one of Jesus' disciples who heard Him teach this. He writes this in 1 John 1:8-9, “We say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (9) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and rto cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (ESV). The Greek New Testament word Jesus uses in Matthew 5:4 is Penthountes (mourn. This is what we call in Greek a present participle, indicating continuous action. In other words, those who are continually mourning over their sin are those who will be continually comforted.

True mourning over one’s sin does not simply mean to focus on despair. It doesn’t even mean to focus on the sin itself, but to focus on God who alone forgives our sin. This kind of mourning is wallowing in self-pity or a false humility, because this is pride. As you can tell, there is much with this Beatitude that we will continue this week.

Questions To Consider

1. Most of our American culture believes and lives as if having material possessions brings happiness. Has this ever been your attitude and if so, what were the results?
2. In Isaiah 22:12-13 you read above, Israel mocked God by not mourning over their sin. They ignored their sin. You may be aware of your own sin, but what is the proof you are?
3. In Proverbs 2:12-15 you read above, do you allow yourself to be entertained by stuff in any kind of media the Lord calls sin? To do so is not only to encourage such sin, but to participate in it. When we do that, God mourns. The question is, when you do it, do you mourn? Why or why not?
4. Above, pastor and author John MacArthur says the modern church is defective in its sense of sin. Do you agree with him? Why or why not? If you do, in what ways have you personally seen or witnessed this?
5. The mourning Jesus mentions is mourning over one’s sin. Remember, I said there is an order to the Beatitudes. One builds on the previous one. In Matthew 5:3, Jesus is about humility. Humility leads a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ to be mournful over their sin. This is not to get trapped in a permanent despair or self-pity of false humility. It is to turn one’s attention to Jesus Christ who alone can forgive sins. In what ways is this evident in your own life?

Scripture To Meditate On: 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. (10)  For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (ESV).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I must confess to You what You already know. While I can be quick to notice and point out the sins of others, I am not so mournful over my own sins. Please give me a heart like Yours. Please forgive me when I ignore, minimize, rationalize or make excuses for my own sin. Please help me see that my sin causes a part of me to die spiritually and as with a death of someone I love, I would wail, weep, be heartbroken and mourn. Please give me that kind of heart for You. I ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.!”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly