Early in Jesus’ ministry, on a small mountainside outside of Capernaum, Jesus picked up his verbal pen and painted a portrait of human life when it is restored to the way it is intended to be, by his power to overthrow sin. This portrait of kingdom life begins with eight heart attitudes that comprise righteousness. Today we examine the second of these beatitudes, not only because it is so fundamental to spiritual flourishing, but because it was clearly portrayed in King David’s heart after he was confronted with his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah by the prophet Nathan. This priceless attitude is a broken and contrite heart. Jesus said, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Mt 5:4).
Jesus began his portrait of kingdom life, called the Sermon on the Mount, with a cameo of eight, character qualities of kingdom members, called the beatitudes. They are a picture of what the human heart looks like when King Jesus rules our attitudes. He telegraphs to us the fact that they are the path to human flourishing by beginning each beatitude with the word, blessed (MAKARIOS). This Greek word was the term used to describe the island of Cyprus, known as “The Happy Isle” because it was thought that Cyprus was such a paradise that one would never have to go beyond its coastline to find the perfect, happy, completely fulfilled, life.
The first and most important beatitude explains the secret that opens all the resources of Christ’s kingdom—recognizing our own desperate spiritual poverty. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Then Jesus moves on to the far less understood but second most important beatitude, Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted (Mt 5:4). When we realize that “blessedness,” i.e. MAKARIOS refers to heart satisfaction, well-being, and joy, the startling paradox of Jesus’ words in this beatitude becomes apparent. It is as if he is saying, Happy are the unhappy. Happy are the sad. So, we must ask, “What kind of sorrow can it be that Christ wants us to experience, and which brings MAKARIOS—the joy of Christ’s blessing?
We must answer emphatically that Jesus is NOT talking about human pain and sadness in general; he is not a masochist! He is not talking about the disappointment of losing a ball game or not getting the job you hoped for. He is not talking about the broken heartedness of your mate rejecting and divorcing you. He is not talking about the grief of losing a loved one, the mourning that takes place in a funeral home. Rather, the mourning he is referring to is broken heartedness over sin and the devastation it brings. We know this is the kind of mourning Jesus has in mind for three reasons:
1. The context. The first beatitude is acknowledging our spiritual poverty as those enslaved by sin. The second beatitude quite naturally follows, i.e. grieving and mourning over that spiritual poverty—that sinful inclination. Using theological terms, we say the first beatitude is about confession. The second beatitude is about contrition. The first beatitude is about our mind acknowledging sin, the second beatitude is about our heart grieving over that sin. This is the heart described by David in his Psalm 51 confession of adultery and murder, when he says “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (vs 17).
2. The second reason we know that the sorrow Jesus commends is grief over sin is the verb tense of the word, mourn. The verb tense indicates “habitual action,” a regular mourning that is part of everyday life. It is unlikely that Jesus was saying, “happy are those who must go through the agony of losing a loved one over and over again.” It is more likely that he was referring to those who deeply grieve over their sins as a regular part of their walk with him. This attitude of mourning over sin is explained by James, who writes, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you (4:8-10).
3. The third clue about the mourning to which Jesus refers is Jesus’ own mourning over human sin. Why did Jesus weep at the grave of Lazarus when he knew he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead? I believe that at that moment, Jesus looked down the corridors of time to the tears shed at funerals time and time again because of heart-wrenching sorrow; and it was ALL brought about by human sin. As we observed a few weeks ago, on Jesus’ way into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Luke recounts,
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation” (19:41-44).
Jesus wept over the consequences of Jerusalem’s sin. Their sinful, hardened hearts caused them to refuse to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus saw the cost of that sin and when he foresaw that pain, he wept.
Kingdom people, says Jesus, are those who weep inwardly over sin…their own sin and the sin of others. Sin is spiritual cancer. It always destroys. The wage it always pays is spiritual, emotional, physical destruction. Paul wrote to the Galatians,
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own sinful nature will FROM THAT NATURE REAP CORRUPTION, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (6:7-8).
The second beatitude teaches us both to mourn over our own sin and to mourn over the way sin brings devastation across the globe. Let’s consider sin’s impact on the culture and our response to it.
JESUS TAUGHT THAT SIN IN OUR CULTURE SHOULD PRODUCE GRIEF IN US
As you hear often on this podcast, Christ calls us to engage culture, partnering with the Holy Spirit in his work to restore it to righteousness. Jesus goes on in this same sermon to call believers to hunger and thirst for righteousness to invade their own hearts and spread across the land (5:6) to take a stand for righteousness despite persecution (5:10-12), to be the righteous salt that retards the decay of sin, to cast the light of truth onto every dark corner of evil in our culture (5:13-16), and above all to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. But BEFORE we seek to spread righteousness over the earth in these verse (5:6-6:33), WE ARE COMMANDED TO WEEP OVER THE WAY SIN HAS BROKEN US AND EVERY HUMAN. These repeated calls to be agents of restoration in our culture are preceded by the call to first get our heart right toward sinful humans and broken culture, by weeping for the way sin has enslaved and broken us all. It is noteworthy that Jesus followed this pattern when he entered Jerusalem for his final week. He first allowed his heart to be broken with grief over the sin that had enslaved his beloved people, weeping for Jerusalem. ONLY THEN did he cleanse the temple to restore righteousness. The order of Jesus’ teaching in this sermon matters. Grieving over my own sin and the suffering it brings must precede the building of other godly attitudes, like hungering and thirsting for righteousness to spread over the earth or suffering persecution for righteousness’s sake.
The significance of the second beatitude is underscored by the recognition that there are many wrong ways Christians can respond to evil in the culture. 1) We can envy those who seem to get away with violating God’s law—like couples in love who just sleep with each other instead of fighting the tough battle to wait until marriage for sex or the non-tithing neighbor who just bought the Jaguar convertible. 2) We can be judgmental towards the sinners around us who don’t go to church, use bad language, drive recklessly, and corrupt the morals of our kids. 3) We can be angry and hostile towards the sexually broken members of the LGBTQ community, especially the social activists who are harming children by pushing their destructive, immoral agenda. We must stand against their efforts, but when Christ reigns in our hearts, our attitude towards evil in the world is to weep. Weep over our own awful disloyalty to our creator and Lord—and weep over the horrible devastation and pain that sin brings into the lives of others. John Stott, in his book, Christian Counter Culture, writes:
Jesus wept over the sins of others, over their bitter consequences in judgement and death, and over the impenitent city which would not receive him. We, too, should weep over the evil in the world, as did the godly men of biblical times. “My eyes shed streams of tears,” the psalmist could say to God, “because men do not keep your law.” Ezekiel heard God’s faithful people described as those “who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem.”
So, it is mourning over sin, that Jesus both models and calls his followers to exhibit in the second beatitude. It is grief over the impact of sin in our culture. But it begins for members of Adam’s fallen race, with grief over our own sin. This heart jewel—broken-heartedness over our own sin—has numerous facets that we can see reflected in Psalm 51, all of which are marks of true repentance. Let’s seek to bring those facets into the light.
RECOGNIZES THE AWFULNESS OF HIS SIN.
When thinking about having the right attitude, it is helpful to realize that our attitude is always determined by our perspective. For example, if I am on my phone crossing the street and a stranger, grabs me shoving me to the street where I tear my pants and cut my knee, my attitude will be anger….until, a split second later I see a Mack truck go flying over the spot on the road where I was just standing. With that perspective, my heart attitude becomes gratefulness. The godly sorrow Jesus talks about results from changing our perspective about sin. David has much to teach us about how to rightly view our sin. Reaching that bar make take some “perspective realignment” on our part.
A. Perspective adjustment #1. My sin is so offensive that my only hope is your mercy. Verse 1: Have mercy on me O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Be gracious to me according to….what?
- because I deserve your forgiveness
- because I’ve had a tough life
- because I slipped and didn’t really mean it
- because I’ve done great things—won many battles—for you
- because in other areas of my life, I try to please you.
No. According to only one thing—God’s willingness to forgive.
- According to Your steadfast love
- According to Your abundant mercy
David is saying, “God if you are not merciful, I am finished.”
B. Perspective adjustment #2. Feeling intensely dirty because I am. Verse 2: Wash me thoroughly from my guilt. And cleanse me from my sin. There are two Hebrew words that David could have used for “wash me.” The one means “wash by rinsing.” The other means “wash by scrubbing.” David chose “wash by scrubbing.” David is saying, “The dirt, the evil, the filth in my heart is deeply ingrained.” Jesus would later say, Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts, thefts, false testimonies, and slanderous statements. These are the things that defile the person (Mt 15:19-20). Jesus makes crystal clear that sin is not just an action, it is corrupt desires.
This component of true repentance is extremely relevant to a movement led by Preston Sprinkle and Greg Johnson today who, in an attempt to be compassionate towards those who experience same-sex attraction, are promoting what has been called Side B gay Christianity. Side B gay “Christians” admit that homosexual sex is sin, and don’t practice it. But they accept the assumptions borrowed from cultural Marxism that their “identity” is to be gay. Thus, same-sex desire is not repented of; it is elevated as a category of victims for whom it is normal to experience same-sex desire but heroically remain celibate. However, this heretical movement does not promote true repentance. True repentance is to hate same-sex attraction itself because it is evil, not excuse it as normal. Paul was very clear that Christians are to actively seek to put to death sinful DESIRES, not just BEHAVIOR. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. True repentance grieves over same-sex attraction. It might look to others with the same struggle with this sin as brothers in a common battle with sin. But it would never use that sinful struggle to suggest that it be the basis for their identity, link evil, same-sex attraction with the name of Christ, much less celebrate that identity as normal for them.
C. Perspective adjustment #3. This was not a slip up—I have the disease. It has invaded my life. Verse 3: For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. David is saying, “God, you know me. I have a rebel’s heart.” This is what the term total depravity means, not that I am as evil as I can possibly be, but that sin is in my bloodstream, throughout every part of me. David knows that he is like the little girl who might look outwardly obedient. When her parents tell her to sit down or be spanked, she stubbornly sits down. But then she says, “I may be sitting down to you, but I’m standing up in my heart.” It is not just actions that are sinful but heart attitudes.
D. Perspective adjustment #4. Sin is not just breaking a law in some impersonal rulebook; it is the violation of a person—GOD. Verse 4a: Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Our sin is a personal offense against the being who
- who created us
- who delights in us
- who wants us so much he adopted us
- who loves to give us good gifts to enjoy
- who went to hell for us so we wouldn’t have to
It is God in whose face we spit when we sin. It is
- his command we disobey
- his goodness we doubt
- his promise we refuse to believe
- his love we distrust
- his name we dishonor
Perhaps David’s words Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight are the more striking because it wasn’t against God alone that David had sinned. He violated Bathsheba, destroyed her marriage and murdered Uriah. But the grief he had brought to God’s heart seems to have been felt so intensely by David that it pushed aside EVERYTHING. His mourning over his sin consumed him. That is a contrite heart.
E. Perspective adjustment #5. I deserve every ounce of punishment my sin has brought. Verse 4: I’ve done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Nathan had delivered to David, the message from God of what his punishment would be. Notice God’s justice
- David’s wives would be given to someone else who would lie with them in broad daylight/ This was done by David’s own son Absolam.
- A sword would never depart from his house—one of his sons murdered another of his sons.
- The child conceived would die, breaking the heart of Bathsheba.
My God, who is the most wonderful being in the universe, is deserving of utter trust in the goodness of his command. My creator, to whom I owe each breath, has the right to expect complete surrender to his purpose for creating me. My redeemer, who purchased me from destruction by shedding his own blood is worthy of nothing less than total allegiance. And yet my heart rebels. I am guilty of cosmic treason. I deserve to be cast out of God’s presence forever.
The more it dawns upon me that I deserve hell, the greater my allegiance to Jesus will be. Let’s close this examination of true repentance with one of the best examples of it—one of everyone’s favorite stories, from Luke 7:36-47.
Jesus went into Pharisee's house and reclined at table. And a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- How would you summarize the meaning of the second beatitude, Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted?
- Jesus called us to grieve over our own sin and the destruction sin brings into others’ lives before he presses on to the call to spread the kingdom of righteousness over the earth. Why might this order be important?
- As we looked at five perspective adjustments that we might have to make about the awfulness of our sin, which are expressed by David in Psalm 51 which ones stood out to you most.
