The Blessing of a Broken Heart
Matthew 5:4
February 12, 1995
J. David Hoke
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. - Matthew 5:4 (NASB)
Children sometime play a little game called, "let's pretend." It really is a
great game. I used to play it myself. The game is so much fun because you can become
anything you want to be. You can become a fireman, nurse, doctor, policeman, or astronaut.
You can be the richest person in the world or a king living in a castle. We used to play
it for hours.
Then you grow up. But even as adults, while we may not play this little game in its
overt form, we do play a version of it more often than we may think. You see, there are
times when we are not altogether satisfied with who we are and how we are behaving.
Perhaps we are not satisfied with how others are treating us. In any event, there are
those times when we like to escape the reality of our current situation and imagine that
things are different.
This is not necessarily a bad thing to do. Sometimes it can be the first step in making
things different. It's not bad to dream, especially when they are good and when we make a
commitment to translate those dreams into reality. In Back to Methuselah, George
Bernard Shaw wrote, "'you see things; and you say, 'why?' but I dream things that
never were; and I say, 'why not?'" Sometime dreams can be a positive thing.
On the other hand, sometimes we pretend, not in order to consider what could be but in
order to ignore the reality of our own situation. This can be a bad thing, especially when
we need to deal with our situation by facing it squarely. There are times when God desires
to bring us face to face with who we really are in order to change us in to who He wants
us to be.
This is precisely what the Sermon on the Mount does. Jesus' great sermon pierces the
veil of pretense and reveals a true perspective on life. The Sermon of the Mount shows us
who God is. It brings us into His presence and by that very act reveals who we really are.
Then it challenges us to deal with the reality of our situation in light of the goodness
and greatness of God.
We have already seen how the first step in coming to Christ is to see our poverty of
spirit. We must come to see our total destitution without God. Unless we see our
insufficiency apart from God, we will never cast ourselves at Jesus feet. And it is only
when we surrender to Him, acknowledging our total dependency, that we become open to what
He desires to do in us. This is the first step.
Now we turn our attention to the consequences of seeing our own spiritual poverty. The
result of seeing our own insufficiency and sinfulness is a deep and profound mourning as
our hearts are broken before God.
Godly Sorrow
Perhaps the first question we need to ask ourselves concerns what Jesus meant by
mourning. What kind of mourning did Jesus have in mind? Was He just talking about mourning
in general? Was He talking about all mourning?
People mourn in various ways. In fact, some mourning may be considered sinful mourning.
In 2 Samuel 13:2 we read that David's son "Amnon was so frustrated because of his
sister Tamar that he made himself ill, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon
to do anything to her." Amnon was so consumed by unfulfilled, incestuous lust that he
mourned over it. There are those who mourn over their unfulfilled desires, even when those
desires are sinful in nature. They are deeply sorry that they have been denied some
pleasure. This kind of mourning is certainly not what Jesus had in mind when He spoke of
mourning.
Another kind of mourning is acceptable human mourning. This kind of mourning
encompasses all the legitimate sorrows that are common to mankind. It is perfectly proper
to mourn over events that bring us sorrow. The death of a loved one brings mourning. News
of the sickness of someone we love also brings mourning. Many tragic events bring
mourning. These are legitimate expressions of the human condition. But while Jesus'
comfort extends to these situations, there is a more specific application to make
concerning the mourning He had in mind.
The kind of mourning of which Jesus is speaking here may be called godly sorrow, or
godly mourning. It is that mourning over our spiritual condition that leads us into a
deeper relationship with God.
The apostle Paul speaks of this godly sorrow in 2 Corinthians 7:10-11: "For the
sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading
to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this
very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you." What Paul is referring to is a
sorrow over sin that leads to repentance.
It is on this point that we need to focus. You see, one problem we face increasingly in
our day is a conspicuous lack of seriousness concerning sin. In many places, even among
Christians, sin is seemingly not taken seriously anymore. Oh, there are those churches
where pastors rail against sin, but they have usually identified certain outward behaviors
of which they disapprove, while ignoring many of the more deadly attitudes of the heart
like pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, and a judgmental spirit. In many of these
places they have replaced the small sins of outward actions with the more deadlier sins
born of the carnal pride they have that they do not commit those outward acts of sin. This
is not taking sin seriously.
Taking sin seriously means that we truly mourn over our sinful condition. This
is what the writer means by godly sorrow. It is the cry of the one whose heart has been
broken because he has sinned against God. Listen to David in Psalm 51:3-4: "For I
know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, I have
sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight." David had sinned against God and he
could not escape that sin. He mourned over it, not because he had been caught, but because
he had committed the sin itself. It was an affront against God, and it broke David's
heart.
The seriousness with which we must take sin is evidenced by the Greek word used to
speak of mourning. There are nine different Greek words used in the New Testament to speak
of sorrow. The one used here is the strongest. Like grieving over the death of a loved
one, so we are to mourn our sin. It is a present participle, indicating continuous
action. In other words, we are to continually mourn our sin that God may continually apply
His forgiveness to our lives. And this will never happen unless we take sin seriously.
How seriously does God take sin? God takes sins so seriously that He sent Jesus, His
only Son, to die to pay the penalty for sin. In God's sight, sin is so serious that
nothing else short of the death of Jesus Christ could deal with it. It was because of the
seriousness of sin that Jesus Christ had to go to the Cross. When those nails were driven
through His hands and feet, it was because of your sin and mine. Because of my sin and
yours He suffered hour after hour upon the Cross, His life slowly ebbing away. God the
Father watched His Son suffer this horrible agony because it was the only way to deal with
our sin. Let there be no doubt what is God's opinion of sin. As we casually joke about
sin, we need to be reminded that to God it is not funny.
How seriously do you take your sins? Does it break your heart when you have sinned
against God? Do you mourn over your sin? Or do you take pleasure in your sin? Do
you experience a godly sorrow which leads you to repentance? Like the sinful man in the
temple, do you bow your head in sorrow and say, "God be merciful to me a
sinner"?
This kind of mourning for sin must precede any action of God to deal with you.
Repentance precedes the blessing of God. A lack of repentance shuts off the power of God.
There will be no revival or renewal without repentance. And there will be no repentance
without godly sorrow. Until we come to the place where we truly mourn over our sin, we
will never see the hand of God revealed.
Godly Comfort
The result of our mourning is that God moves on our behalf. If we experience a godly
mourning over sin, we shall be comforted. This is the blessing promised for those
of us who mourn. And it is a blessing indeed.
What does this comfort mean to us? It means that the sins over which we are mourning
are forgiven. David, who knew what it was like to sin against God, wrote in Psalm 32:1,
"How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!" In
another place, Psalm 30:11, David almost shouts, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning
into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness." When our
sins are forgiven, it brings great joy to our hearts. We are happy indeed.
This is the purpose of true godly Christian mourning. It has been God's purpose all
along. When Isaiah tells of the Messiah's coming, he says that one of His purposes is
"To comfort all that mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning" (Isaiah 61:2-3). What
begins in mourning ends in a shout of joy. As we experience the forgiveness and grace of
God, it should make us want to dance for joy.
Why is it that we have settled for less? In many churches, we hear the message of Jesus
and there is no response, no excitement at all. It is as if the people think that by their
dour mood they are being godly. To me it is like being at a football game, seeing the home
team score a touchdown, and watching the people have no reaction at all. Instead of
leaping to their feet in wild cheers of affirmation, they sit there stone-faced, making
comments like, "My, wasn't that great." Or perhaps saying things like,
"Well, that was a good play. After all he did score. But he could have done it much
better by running the ball instead of passing." You would look at people like that
and ask yourself what was wrong with them! What kind of people are they to show no kind of
emotion at all?
Perhaps the reason why the church is so much like these people is because we have never
experienced the mourning which leads to repentance and joy. Perhaps it is because we have
never taken our sin seriously enough to mourn over it that we have so little joy in our
salvation. Maybe it is because the burden has not been lifted that we are not free.
Because when we walk from the blackness of our sin into the glorious light of God's
liberty, then we will rejoice with exceeding great joy. This is the fruit of God's comfort
and forgiveness.
Copyright (C) 1995 J. David Hoke. This data file is the sole property of
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