Matthew chapter 5 actually, I'd like to pick it up again to remind you where we're at Matthew chapter 4 verse 24. So the end of the previous chapter Matthew 4 24 says this And his fame, this has been Jesus' fame. And his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Decapolis and from Jerusalem and from Judea and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, Those are the thousands, the Jesus followers. He went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came to him. That's a smaller group of people. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then verse four, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. And just for context, let me read the rest of these to you. Verse five, blessed are the meek. for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Father, thank you for this reminder of what your disciples are, of who they are, what their attitudes are, how their very core is. And we want to be your disciples. We want to be more than mere Jesus followers, people who talk about following you. We want you to transform us from the inside out to be more like your son, Jesus Christ, who exemplifies all of these beatitudes. So we ask again for your Holy Spirit, to work in our lives. We want that change to start on the inside and, yes, be reflected in our behavior, but we wanted to start deep in our hearts and in our minds and in our spirits and in our souls and to be transformed like moths become butterflies. We want to be transformed so that we are like caterpillars become butterflies want to be transformed so that we are more like your son and less like the Sinful humans that we are broken by sin. So help us with this Lord and give us insight into this passage Today and we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen Hold your place there in Matthew chapter five and turn back with me to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. I wanna show you another passage that talks about mourning. Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes is right after Proverbs, which is right after Psalms. So it's probably about in the middle of your Bible, depending on how big of a concordance you have in the back. And Ecclesiastes chapter seven, let's read, I'll read to you, excuse me. I'll read to you verses two through, 6 verses 2 through 6 here's Ecclesiastes 7 verse 2 think about these words Blessed this is for Matthew blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted here in Ecclesiastes 7 verse 2 it is better to go to the house of mourning Than to go to the house of feasting For that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart sorrow is better than laughter For by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. Let's consider just American society for a minute. Who are some of the people that are paid the most money? I'm talking about salary. I'm not talking about business leaders who get stock options. I mean, just pure salary. Who are some of the people that get paid the most money in our society? Anyone? Actors and actresses. Yeah. Sometimes millions of dollars, multiple millions of dollars for one movie. It just boggles my mind. What else? David, you had something. Yeah, doctors make a lot of money, but not multiple millions, usually. Hudson. Yeah. Didn't someone, I'm trying to remember, is this, I don't think I turned this microphone on. Yes, you're right, Hudson, that was one of the guys, one of the people I was thinking of. Some of these sports athletes, they're gonna be paid millions of dollars to hit a ball, or to shoot a basket, or, you know, tackle people. It's mind boggling. How much do these people make? Why do you think, why do you think that as Americans we pay professional athletes and actors and actresses, by the way, I'm not against actors and actresses, they are human beings, but is what they do really that important? Think about it, is it really that important? Now, let's think about people that I think are really important, firefighters. These folks are risking their lives sometimes to go into burning buildings and pull people out. If I had to choose whether to pay a guy who could throw a football or a guy who broke into burning buildings to save human lives, I think the guy who's breaking into human buildings to save human lives is more important, right? So why do you think it is that, as Americans, we pay actors and actresses and professional athletes, why do we pay them so much? Someone who hasn't answered a question yet. Yes? Yeah, we love our entertainment, don't we? We just love our entertainment. We just went through the Olympics. I don't know if you're a big sports fan and you watch the Olympics. I was gonna go watch a section of them earlier and I found out that I had to pay money for some streaming service, at least that's where I found it. And I said, you know what, it's just not that important to me. So I just moved on. But there are people who will go out of their way to buy a new television at Olympics time so they can watch the Olympics, or they'll buy a new television just before the Super Bowl. I understand one of the biggest selling times for televisions in the United States is just before the Super Bowl. And people justify their purchase, I've got to have a good television for the Super Bowl. We love our entertainment. And the reason I'm bringing this out is because in Ecclesiastes 7 and also here in Matthew chapter 5, blessed are they that mourn. Not people who are striving after entertainment, not people who are looking for laughter, not people who are trying to be entertained. In Ecclesiastes 7 there, it says, it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. Now, I don't wanna try to define exactly which of our people who sing, our singers, are fools, but I think there's a lot of foolish singing that goes on. It doesn't really edify. In fact, in a lot of cases, it just feeds our flesh, but it doesn't really edify. Those are the people that seem to make all the money. Now, I don't want you to worry about that. The Bible says that we're not to fret because of evildoers. I'm just pointing out that the emphasis in our society is not on sober thinking, It's not on mourning. It's not on weeping with those who weep. It's very focused on entertainment. And we don't, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we don't want to make our focus entertainment. We don't want our focus to be laughter. We want our focus to be what God's focus is. So why is it that he calls those who mourn blessed? Last week, as we talked about, blessed are the Spirit, we saw that happiness, and I'm just going to read to you from last week's message, happiness is not attached to wealth, to having enough, to having a good reputation, to power, to possession of the goods of this world. Blessedness is connected to poverty of spirit. So think about this week. Happiness is not connected to having a good time. Happiness is not connected to laughter and play, to jokes and mirth, to songs and carousels. Happiness is connected, excuse me, comfort is connected to those who mourn. And who is it, by the way, who is it that does the comforting in this verse? It says in Matthew 5, 4, blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. That's what it says. Shall be comforted is, of course, in a passive voice. So let me ask you the question, obviously, who is it that does the comforting? God does the comforting, doesn't he? Blessed are they that mourn, for God shall comfort them. Now that's why, the reason I bring this up, would you rather have the entertainment of the world or the comfort of God? Would you rather have a good laugh? I mean, there's some comedians, they are truly funny. And they will take your mind off your troubles in an instant. Do you want that or do you want God's comfort? There's some movies, I'll be frank, there's probably a lot of movies out there that will take your mind off your troubles. It's almost like a drug if you ask me. How swiftly your mind can just be taken away from your problems and just focus in on some fantasy or some universe that doesn't even exist except in that movie. Or do you want the comfort of God? My wife teases me because I used to read Pat McManus books. Anyone of you read Pat McManus? Okay. I would just shake in the bed laughing. This guy, he is a funny writer. And at the end of the day, when all my, you know, I've gotten done with my day and I just, and she'd say, can you read that somewhere else? You're shaking the whole bed. He is really funny. Do I want that laughter, or do I need to be more focused on something else so that God will comfort me? That's the challenge we have as Christians. Our whole culture, society says, hey, entertainment's important. Look how much we pay these people. Look how important it is to us. Don't worry about your life. Don't worry about the bad things. Listen, what you need to do is you need this song, you need to watch this movie, you need to read this book. And God says, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Do you realize that Jesus was called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? Isaiah 53, he's called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And why was he a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? Because he left his throne in heaven and came down and lived with us. And as human beings, we experience a lot of sorrow. We experience a lot of grief, and I know what the temptation is. The temptation is to run away from that sorrow and grief and look for entertainment or happiness or laughter or thrills or whatever. Instead of allowing God to use that, grief and that sorrow to change us from the inside out. In Mongolia, it was very sad because as people became ill, especially if they were very sick, like deathly ill, their family literally, well, not literally, but it seemed like literally they would disappear. They would not come and sit by a person's bedside as they were dying. But almost the instant that person died, and their breath was gone, family would reappear. And they'd start planning the Buddhist funeral. And I said to my Mongolian friends, I said, this is really odd to me. Why is it that when a person needs them the most, when they're on death's bed, why does everyone disappear and not come spend time with them? And then wait until they're dead, and then we've got to get them this particular ritual, and we've got to get their body prepared this way, and we've got to get the corpse to the... And all of a sudden, there's all this activity. And they said, well, let's be frank. My Mongolian friend said, yeah, we can tell you. Who wants to be around death? But now once they're dead, hey, we've got to get them ready for the next life, because they believed in reincarnation, okay? We've got to get them ready for the next life, and if we don't do these rituals in a certainly timely fashion, they're going to be wandering da-da-da, and all this lies. You know when people need us? It's when they're on their deathbed. When they're in the hospital. And I can be candid. I don't like visiting hospitals. It's not comfortable. But that's when people need us. And that's what Ecclesiastes tells us. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men. and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better." Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And life can be difficult. There's painful things in life. Don't run from painful things. I'm not saying run to painful things. But don't run from painful things. Learn what it is to weep with those who weep. What are some reasons that these people mourn? In Matthew 5, blessed are they that mourn. Well, one group of people that mourn is those who mourn their own sin and their mourning leads them to repentance. Our sin should bother us. Turn with me to James chapter 4 keep your place in Matthew 5 we'll be back but James chapter 4 And we're gonna look at verses 6 7 8 9 and 10 James chapter 4 verse 6 Please listen as I read it to you and consider that James is writing to believers He's writing to believers James chapter 4 verse 6, But God, that's he, giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." Why are these people mourning? What is it that causes them to weep? Well, they realize how dirty their hands are. They realize that they've been double-minded. They've been trying to keep one foot in the world and one foot in their relationship with God. And it's like trying to put one foot in one boat and a second foot in a different boat. And so they mourn, and they weep, and their laughter is turned to mourning, and their joy is turned to heaviness. Now, I don't want anyone to leave tonight thinking that what I'm preaching is that you're a good Christian when you are a miserable wreck. God wants us to be joyful. How many times does he tell us that he wants our joy to be full? But how do we get to that life full of joy? We get to it through mourning for our sin and through repentance. Christians who are mired in sin are not joyful Christians. Christians who have something that God's saying, hey, give that to me, give it up, and they're not giving it, they are not joyful Christians. And it's not until they've mourned for sin and they've repented that they experience the joy that God has for them. So God says, blessed are they that mourn for God, again, I'm putting that in, for God will comfort them. There's a second group of people who mourn. And that's believers who mourn the death of a loved one in the Lord. Some of you have lost people that are very close to you. Maybe a child. That's maybe the most difficult. I don't know. I don't know how you'd rank that. Maybe it's a spouse. Maybe it's a brother or sister. And you mourn about that. Let me remind you, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. God is your comforter. God wants to comfort you. Now, I don't say by that that God wants you to quit grieving or God wants to take away all the pain. What I do mean is that God wants to comfort you. Job 15 says this, are the consolations of God small with you? Now, I know it's one of Job's friends and we gotta be careful about what we take from them. But you know what they're arguing with Job? Job, couldn't God comfort you? Couldn't God's consolations be big enough to fill that hole of grief in your heart? Now, what had Job lost? He'd lost his children. He'd lost all his goods. His wife had said, curse God and die. Job had really had it bad. My guess is none of us have had it quite as bad as Job. And I think that's a good question that I've had to ask myself sometimes. When I am depressed, when I am discouraged, aren't God's consolations big enough for me? You see, God wants to comfort you. And sometimes I'm convinced, I know myself, we just don't want to be comforted. God says, blessed are they that mourn, for they should be comforted. I will comfort them. And we said, no, no, I'd rather just wallow in my pity and in my grief. Please don't be that way. By the consolations of God, small with you. There's a third group of people that mourn. And I think of, I think this is illustrated in Jesus' life. You remember when he came to the city of Jerusalem, he wept over Jerusalem. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. When he came to that tomb where Lazarus was, the Bible says that Jesus wept. The situation that we find our own country in should cause us to at least take serious stock and think seriously, if not more. for the terrible things that go on in our country. I was just grabbing some statistics to help illustrate my point. Do you realize that last year, in 2023, this was the last full year after the Dobbs decision, there were still, despite the Dobbs decision, there were still over one million abortions in the United States in 12 months? Shouldn't that bother us? That people think, I'm paraphrasing, but I agree with the lady who said, for many women, abortion is not a choice. It's more like a wounded animal gnawing off its own leg that's caught in a trap. I get that. I understand that. But hear what I'm saying, that people think that over 1 million times, people thought that aborting their baby was going to be the solution to their problem. That should bother us. The one that, not we, not this church, I understand it, but Americans are allowing children to be mutilated in a vain effort to try to change what God created them to be. They were born as a boy, and they say, no, no, no, I think I'm a woman. And so we've said, okay, great, we will take off working body parts. in order to transition you from being a man to being a woman. That should bother us. Those things are irreversible. That young man grows up and he gets to be older and he says, well, wait a minute, what was I thinking? You just can't recreate those things. Same for ladies, trying to make them into, that should bother us. God created our children, boys. God created our children, girls. And I don't mean by that, I don't mean by that, that every single boy is the same or every single girl is the same. But I do know that boys are boys and girls are girls. Let me prove to you that America Americans knew that 10 years ago, okay? And forgive me, this is a little bit crass, but I don't think too bad. You realize that in the Obergefell decision in 2015, the Supreme Court said that men should be able to marry men. Now, I disagree with this decision 100%, but that requires that there are men and that there are women. You understand that, don't you? Nine years ago, the Supreme Court said, well, there's a certain category that are men and there's a certain category that are women. But now we have a Supreme Court justice that can't tell us what a woman is. That should bother us. It's easy to make fun. Don't go out and read it, but I told my wife, I don't even go read the Babylon Bee anymore. Their job is way too easy. We can easily make fun of sin, but sin ought to break our heart. It shouldn't be a subject for laughter and mockery. There are real people whose lives are being destroyed by sin. And that should bother us. That's why Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Why was Lazarus in the tomb? Because death came by sin. And it bothered him. Why did he cry as he looked out over Jerusalem? Because there was a bunch of wicked people down there, and God's judgment was coming. And he knew the judgment was coming, and he said, How many times would I have gathered thee as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing? And you would not, he said to Jerusalem. There's no doubt in my mind that judgment is coming to the United States. In fact, there's no doubt in my mind that judgment is already here. Just as an illustration, think through this, the park fire, the one that's diverted PG&E resources to the Chico area, you realize that was started by a man pushing a flaming car into a gully. Doesn't even make sense. If your car was on fire, what would you do? I would call 911. I would not push it into a colony. I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe you know. If you know more than I do, let me know. I see that as God's judgment. All that acreage did not need to burn. All those homes did not need to burn. And trust me, it's not climate change. God's judgment is coming. It should break our hearts. that sin's destruction is eating America from the inside out. Let me tell you something else that I believe should cause us to mourn, that should bother us. The apathy of Christians. Again, just looking up statistics, just go to a search engine, ask how many Americans say that they are Christians, and the website I was looking at said 210 million Americans say that they are Christians. Let's imagine that those 210 million people really walked with God. Don't you think our culture would be a little different? It should bother us that it's so easy to say, oh, I'm a Christian, and yet live like the devil. That should bother us, that there are people, maybe you know them at work, not be at our church, but maybe you know them at work, maybe you have a neighbor that says, hey, I'm a Christian, and you think, well, how can you be a Christian and do that? Because they're apathetic. They don't have a walk with God that changes them from the inside out. That should bother us. It should bother us that some Christians are bored with worshiping a God who is amazing and incredible and wonderful. He's beyond our comprehension. Worshiping God should be, we should be excited about the times we get to worship God. First of all, in our personal time with God, I hope each day as you take some time with the Lord, you just tell him how great he is. mentally magnify him, intellectually just lift him up. But then on Sunday mornings and on Sunday nights, we gather and I call it worship, Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening worship, because the primary thing we're doing right now is worshiping God. We sing to worship God. Boy, I can't miss it. I got to be there. I get to worship God with my brothers and sisters. But how many people that sometimes attend here chose to be somewhere else this morning? Now, again, they're working as a firefighter. God bless them. They're working as a nurse. I'm glad that hospitals are staffed 24-7. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But if they're out on their boat fishing, really? That's more important than worship. I've told this story before, but my dad, my brothers and I, we were fishing up on the Kenai River in Alaska. Now, if you know about salmon fishing, the Kenai is where some of the biggest salmon, king salmon in the world are caught. And we had been fishing all week, got to Saturday night, and of course there, it's light until like one or two in the morning, so we'd fish deep into the night. And as we're getting back to camp, dad says, tomorrow morning, we're going to church. And it was our last day to be on the river. Our last day. Now, what would you have said? Come on, dad. Let's get back out on the river. We're only gonna fish once. We can worship God next week. Is that our attitude about worship? We should be so excited. You wanna go to church? Yeah, let's go. Let's go worship God together. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. That should be our attitude. It should bother us that there's so many people that say, hi, I'm a Christian. Where were you last Sunday morning? I was watching the Olympics. You should have seen. Watching the Olympics is better than worshiping God? The boredom of Christians with worshiping God should break our hearts. Sin, sin should bother us. Sin should bother us. Let's think about some people who are bothered by sin in the Old Testament. Think about Joshua. They had conquered the city of Jericho so easily that he only sent a few thousand men to attack the city of Ai. And we can argue about the wisdom of that. But because Achan had stolen from the city of Jericho and had hid it in his tent, God allowed the Israelites to be defeated. And it says that Joshua fasted and he mourned the whole night about that. That bothered him. Consider the city of Nineveh. Jonah comes. He says, Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed. And I don't know what possessed those people, but they took Jonah seriously, didn't they? And they put on sackcloth, and they put ashes on their head, and they fasted, and they mourned. And because of that repentance, what did God do? He stayed his hand. He didn't bring that destruction. That's why those who mourn are blessed, because God comforts them. Those who mourn for their own sin, those who mourn for the sin of the people around them, those who mourn for sin's destruction in their own life and in other people's lives, those who mourn the apathy towards God, The Bible says God will comfort them. God will comfort them. Now I pointed out last week, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is, present tense, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This one is blessed are they that mourn for they shall be, future tense, comforted. So you may not experience God's comfort right now today, but you can trust God's word that mourning now will lead to comfort later. So let me just make a couple of applications here in closing. If we're a disciple, again, the Beatitudes, they describe what a disciple is. They're not aspirational. Boy, I sure wish I could mourn like that. They describe what a disciple is. If I find that my life does not line up with the Beatitudes, then I should examine myself for where I'm not following Jesus Christ closely enough. Here's the application. First of all, as a disciple of Jesus, don't just look for things that you enjoy. Don't just look for things that make you happy. Don't just chase after entertainment. I remember as a teacher there in a Christian school, it was a Christian school, and what would be the topic of conversation among those Christian kids on Friday morning? What movie are we gonna go see tonight? What movie is coming? I guess they come out on Friday nights, is that right? Thursday? I don't know. What movie's coming? Oh, we gotta go see it. It's gonna be the first night it's out. That should not be a Christian's thinking. That we gotta go see this movie as quickly as possible. As a Christian, we ought to Weep with those who weep. Let's not run away from sadness and sorrow in other people's lives. I made a decision some years ago, back about the time I got to Mongolia, that I was going to go to every funeral to which I was invited. That hasn't bitten me yet, but I'm going to go to every funeral to which I'm invited. I've gone to some people I didn't know very well, but I had a family member who reached out and said, hey, we'd like you to be there. Would you come? I don't know about you. Funerals are hard, especially if the person is not saved or you're not sure they're saved. That's hard. It's a lot of grief, a lot of crying. People are broken up. But the Bible says the wise man will go to the house of mourning rather than the house of feasting. And many of you have gone with me. I'm not chastising you. I'm just rebuking you. I'm just saying we can do better at weeping with those who weep. Don't run away from places where there's sadness and mourning. Don't run away from that. Let me encourage you, don't laugh at sin and don't laugh at the destructive consequences of sin. There are some things that we just should not joke about as Christians. And the Lord and the Holy Spirit will lead you exactly to what those things are. But there's just some things we shouldn't joke about. They may be funny. I mean, humanly speaking, it may bring a big laugh, but it's laughing at sin. It's laughing at the destructive consequences of sin. We need to go sometimes to the house of mourning and weep with those who weep. and to be touched deeply by the sorrow that comes from the destructiveness of sin. As disciples of Jesus, we see life differently. It's not about entertainment. It's not about laughter. It's not about having fun. It's not about having a good time. There are times when life hurts, when things are painful, when there's sorrow. Let's be there for people. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. The world's focusing on fun. The world's focusing on happiness. The world's focusing on satisfaction. We have a different focus. Father, thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for another chance to worship you. I thank you for Scotty leading us this morning and Caleb leading us this evening in songs that exalt you, that lift you up, that make you big. May we take those songs into our week, great and mighty is the Lord our God, and sing them wholeheartedly. Sing them with joy because you are a great God and a mighty God and one that is worth worshiping. May we enjoy worshiping you in our personal time and may we look forward to joining others for worship on Sunday mornings. Lord, give us a heart that mourns when it should mourn. A heart that is broken for sin and the destructiveness of sin. A heart that is broken for our own sin as need be. certainly a heart that is broken for the sinfulness of others and the destruction that it is doing in their lives. So many of us have family members and friends who are in bondage to sin, and it's eating them from the inside out. And may we not make fun or make light of their predicament, But as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, may we have a heart for these people to mourn and to weep. And then Lord, we pray for your comfort. I pray for your comfort for those who are mourning the loss of a loved one. That's hard. May they experience your grace and your goodness fresh again tonight and this week. Most of all, Lord, help us not to be focused on entertainment and fun and laughter. May we be like Jesus, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. People who are good friends when others are dying and sad. People who are there when people are sorrowful and they're weeping. We need your grace for this, Lord. This is not normal for us. This is not the way humans normally respond in their brokenness and in their selfishness. So we ask for your hand upon us. We ask for your grace to change us. And we ask these things in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.