Simple Faith

Narrator: There's no comfort like the comfort we find in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Here's Pastor Bill Henry.

Bill Henry: God comes and he comforts us. He comforts, he comes, and he comforts, he gives aid, he helps us and he encourages us. How does he do that? He does it by his spirit through his word.

All of a sudden we read, oh, about all the things we read about the mercy of God. We read about how he's forgotten our sins, even though we still remember them. He's forgotten those sins.

Even though we may still mourn over them, he's forgotten them, placing them as far as the East is the West.

Narrator: If you've lost a loved one recently, you know what mourning is all about. Stay on Simple Faith, Pastor Bill Henry is going to talk about another kind of mourning, mourning over our own sin.

That sorrow in turn will drive us to God, to turn from sin and to repent. Repentance seems to be an unpopular concept in our day and age. Some people have even attempted to present the gospel without it.

However, as we're soon going to see, there's no salvation without repentance. That's a message clearly taught in the New Testament. We'll seek to underscore it here today. Here's Pastor Bill Henry now in Matthew chapter 5, verse 4 as our series in the Sermon on the Mount continues.

Bill Henry: It's a sad thing today within the church. How sin has just become almost accepted.

I think it's because of the pushback against, you know, we have this whole legalistic and this and that. All of a sudden back in the 60s, into the 70s and 80s, there's this whole push now of grace.

For me, coming out of the Catholic Church, this grace was like a just cold water, just cool water. It's quenching my soul. But I also notice that there's a lot of people who went so far this way that now they basically laugh and ignore sin in their own lives. Even people here today.

People watching or listening, for whatever reason, the sins in our lives don't make us mourn any longer.

I believe that is because of the culture that we're living in. Oh, do it your way, have it your way, it doesn't matter. So many churches the same way. But it does matter.

We should still be those who are mourning over our sins and keeping us in that humble position before God. As we see our utter poorness of spirit, our desperate spiritual need, and we see the grotesqueness of our sins towards God. We understand that our sins, your sins and my sins, crucified Jesus Christ.

You put Jesus on the cross, I put Jesus on the cross, and our hearts are then moved to mourn over our sin to show an outward expression of the grief within our hearts over our own sin.

Oh, it's easy to be horrified over other people's sins, Amen. Look at those buzzards out there, I can't believe this.

One commentator put it this way, said the man who truly mourns because of his sinful state and condition is a man who is going to repent. He indeed actually is already repenting already. And the man or woman who truly repents as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit upon them is someone who is certain to be led to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Having seen their utter sinfulness and hopelessness, they look for a savior and they find him in Christ. No one can truly know Jesus as his personal savior and redeemer unless they first of all have known what it is to mourn over their sin.

It is only the one who cries out, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?" who can go on to say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

You know, horrified and grieved, that should be our hearts, knowing that we put Jesus on the cross, the Son of God. Embarrassed by our pride, embarrassed by our rebellion, grieved about our rebellion against he who created us.

Since this grief over our sin will be an outward expression, people will see and hear us as we mourn over our sin. Meaning in other words, to me, that they're going to see a change in our lives.

They're going to see God changing us. They're going to hear a change in our words, the words that we use, how we speak to people.

There are a lot of people here, they love to tear people down within their families. Tear people down within the church, and they think it's all right.

Their words, like fire, starting up as James talked about, and they have no thoughts. They'll tear down their wives, their husbands, their children, their parents.

Look guys and gals, those are sins that are not acceptable before God, however acceptable you think they may be.

You see, there's going to be a change in us when we're mourning over our sins. Those sins which once we once embraced and celebrated, now we scorn and we mourn over them.

Which is the exact opposite, by the way, of what the world does, right? The world basically says, be prideful over your sins. Embrace your sins. Ignore your sins. You see, before Christ, we either ignored our sins or we celebrated our sins.

When Jesus gave this same sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, again, he would go from town to town, giving a lot of the same sermons. In the Gospel of Luke, it was a different occasion, it was a different sermon, but it was pretty much the same thing. He added something there that was quite significant. In Luke chapter 6:25, he said this as well, along with blessed are those who mourn, you shall be comforted. He said in Luke 6:25, "Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep."

Today we see within the world so many who are laughing over their sin. They should be mourning over their sin. Again, even many within the church, even some here today, watching today or listening at home.

We should be mourning over these sins, but we're either again embracing them and celebrating or ignoring them. We should be mourning over them, not laughing at them, as some will do, because one day their pride will be turned upside down and they shall mourn and weep over their sin.

As I said a moment ago, there are many today even who profess to be Christians who do not mourn over their sins even now, even though they know better. You might be sitting here today. You're so callous, so hard to your sins, that you've done them over the years. It doesn't matter to you anymore. You know, I know I did this when I was a mom or a dad and I know I shouldn't have maybe, you know, but it's all passed, it's under the bridge. Maybe it isn't under the bridge for your children, your grandchildren, whoever. Maybe you need to go back to them again and say, you know what? I'm really sorry for this, what I did.

You know, it's interesting how many times I've had people come and sit for counseling and one of the others committed adultery on the other. And at first the one who committed adultery, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry, please forgive me. And two weeks later, it's like, hey, it's been two weeks, you should have already forgiven me.

Do you see that there's not genuine mourning over that sin? If that was me, I'd be mourning, I should be mourning. I'm not going to say in pride that I would be. But I should be mourning the rest of my life over that sin. Yes, I will find forgiveness. But also, I can't take back the hurt that that caused other people.

And we need to understand this. We, there's no room in the life of a Christian for pride or even forgetfulness. Now, again, there are many who don't mourn over their sin. And I'm not just talking about the sexual perversions coming into the church, being embraced and celebrated by the church, those sins which should be mourned over and yet are celebrated.

But also those sins we tend to ignore here within the church, pride, outbursts of wrath and anger, gossip, slander, lack of love, greed, love of self, pornography, fornication, worship of the American dream, and on and on it goes, these things that we just kind of ignore.

There's a perfect example of this in First Corinthians chapter 5. First Corinthians chapter 5, where they should be mourning, but they weren't. It says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father's wife. And you are puffed up. And have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

They should have been mourning over that sin. Here a fella sleeping with his stepmom, fornicating, committing adultery. Not even seen, he said, within the Gentiles. Yet the church there probably said, oh, it's all covered by love. Oh, it's all covered by grace. They were boasting about it.

They were ignoring it. And yet Paul says here, they should have been mourning over it so that they might have taken it away from their midst.

You see, the Christians, there should not have been there, they should not have been boldly and proudly embracing this sin. And so too is how we should be over sin today. There's not enough teaching about sin today. Amen. Amen.

Now, some of you might say, well, this is a lot of teaching this morning. This is good for the rest of my life. As a matter of fact, Pastor Bill, it's good enough right now. And by the way, Amen. Remember, I'm preaching to myself in this case because I've been sick. This message was ready two weeks ago. I've been going over it and over it. So the Lord's been hammering me too.

But within the church today, we've gone so far from, you know, the legalistic, this and that, God hates you to, you know, everything, it doesn't matter what you do anymore. And we forget to come to where that narrow road that God has given us in his word. Narrow is that way. Hard is that way.

You see, James addresses this same subject in James chapter 4:7-10. James 7, or excuse me, 4:7, he says, "Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners." Remember, he's writing to Christians.

"Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." Remember, to Christians. "Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up."

Look guys and gals, too many of us forget that we are still sinners. Yes, saved by the grace of God. But how many people here have their body of flesh? Raise your hand real quick if you have your body. There we go, good, good. You're still a sinner then.

Even though, thankfully, we're now saved by the grace of God, we need to be careful. Don't become so prideful to where you come to that place where I don't need to cleanse my hands, I don't need to I need to remember that I am a sinner. That I still need to purify my heart. I need to not be double-minded. I need to lament and mourn and weep when I do sin. Not laugh over it, not belittle it, oh, it's covered by God's grace. No big deal.

It's a huge deal. Because even that sin put Jesus on the cross. And we know better now. We have the Holy Spirit of God living within us, if indeed we are born again. Now, look, if you're hearing me this morning and it's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're hearing, you know, what is it, Charlie Brown, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Can I say to you this morning, you need to get saved. You need to get saved.

Salvation doesn't start by knowing about the love of God. Salvation starts by knowing about our own wretchedness and our own sin. And then we find out about the love and the grace and the mercy and forgiveness at the cross, and we're longing for it now. Because we know how wretched we are. We know how poor in spirit and that we've mourned over our sins.

I like how the blessed preacher, Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, said it. He said it this way: "The Christian is a man who mourns also because of the sins of others. He does not stop at himself. He sees the same things in others. He is concerned about the state of society and the state of the world as he reads his newspaper, and he does not stop at what he sees or simply express disgust at it. He mourns because of it. Because men can so spend their lives in this world. He sees that the whole world is in an unhealthy and an unhappy condition. He knows that it is all due to sin, and he mourns because of it."

You see, this same mourning over our sin will then lead us to mourn over the sins of the world. But we won't do so in a judgmental manner. Oh, I'm so much better than the world. Oh, look at those buzzards out there, I sure glad I'm not any of them. No, no, no. It's like, oh, Lord, I remember when that was me.

I remember when I was lost and on my way to hell. Lord, I remember, Lord, that I I didn't know and realize what a sinner I was. But now, we need to understand that as we mourn over our sins, it will also take us to that place where we'll look at this world around us. And we'll see the sin around us and we'll mourn over it. How do we not mourn when we look around the world today?

I mean, let alone, let's set aside the fires and all the human calamity of errors that have caused these horrific things. And even in North Carolina, the horrific human errors that are not getting people so they can even feed themselves and stay warm. Let's go down to lawlessness continuing all around the world, wars and rumors of wars, et cetera, et cetera.

The heart of every single thing is sin. Every bit of it. Now here's the beautiful thing. We're not leaving us there here today.

If you remember last time, I said, look, there's no grace here today. We're not talking about grace today. But I did say, you know, but if you want to read ahead, you'll find some. All you had to do is go one verse. If you took the time that day, you would have come to this verse because notice it says, "Blessed are those who mourn." What does it say? "They shall be comforted."

You see guys and gals, one day there will be no more mourning. There'll be no more mourning over our sins, no more mourning over the death of loved ones, no more mourning, you know, mourning over the sins of others. Revelation 21:3 and 4 says, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away their tears from the or every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

"Blessed are those who mourn," back in our text, "for they shall be comforted." Now, I love the word comforted here. It's parakaleo. It literally means to comfort, to aid, to help, to encourage. It's the same word we get the Paracletus, or the the Holy Spirit, the comforter. Jesus said the Holy Spirit when he comes, he called one of the names is the comforter.

And I love this. He comes to comfort and to aid and to help. So, once we humble ourselves before the Lord as we confess, we are poor in spirit, and then we mourn over our sinfulness. Here's the beautiful thing, guys and gals, Jesus doesn't leave us there.

Jesus does not leave us there. James 4:10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up." Matthew 18:4, "Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." And then Matthew 23:12, "Whoever exalts himself with haughtiness and empty pride shall be humbled or brought low." "And whoever humbles himself, whoever has a modest opinion of themselves and behaves accordingly, shall be raised to honor."

So when we humble ourselves, when we allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sinfulness, and we're honest and truthful about it, it can be a very crushing occasion for the believer. Amen. It can crush us. But here's the beautiful thing. You know, God doesn't leave us there. See, even though this is a time of acknowledging our utter and complete wretchedness before a holy and pure God, recognizing we can do no good work to save us, that there is no work we can do to keep us saved. Yet God by his grace and his love, he doesn't leave us in our sin. He doesn't leave us mourning. What does he do? It says, "For they shall be comforted."

God comes and he comforts us. So, again, what I love too is that as we come to this point, he comforts, he comes, and he comforts, he gives aid, he helps us and he encourages us. How does he do that? He does it by his spirit through his word.

All of a sudden we read, oh, about all the things we read about the mercy of God. We read about how he's forgotten our sins, even though we still remember them. He's forgotten those sins. Even though we may still mourn over them, he's forgotten them, placing them as far as the East is the West. I love that.

Now, as we're coming to a close, we need to understand just a few things. This is not just a one-time mourning deal. Like once we, you know, we mourn and then we come to Christ, we get saved and we don't mourn anymore. No, that's not how it's to be as a Christian.

You see, in Romans 7:18, Paul the Apostle said, "And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, my sinful nature." Are you there? Anybody? Amen. Hallelujah. "I want to do what is right, but I can't," he says. "I want to do what is good, but I don't," he says. "I want to do I don't want to do what's wrong, but I do it anyway." Then he goes on in verse 24, "O wretched man that I am, who would deliver me from this body of death?"

Notice Paul comes to that place. And it was important for him even to remember this as a Christian, as an apostle. But again, I love this that that even though we have this corruption, this body, First Corinthians 15, Paul calls it. We're not left there.

You see guys and gals, as we're mourning over our sins, Jesus comes and he comforts us. He brings a comfort that no one else can bring. He brings the comfort of the truth of who he is and who we now are in Christ.

Our job is to remain humble. Our job is to remain in a place that no matter how young or old we are in the Lord, we still mourn over our sins. We don't ignore them, we don't forget about them, but we remember them and bring them afresh to Jesus Christ. We find forgiveness if we haven't been forgiven yet. We find refreshment as we're cleansed from all unrighteousness, as we've confessed our sins. But as we are quick to mourn and to be confessing and to be repenting, God, who cannot be out given, is even quicker to come in and comfort us.

To bring peace. You see, remember Paul didn't stay in that conviction there in Romans. It says in Romans chapter 8, verse 1, he says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." You see, Paul first allowed himself to feel the conviction of God, and the but not the condemnation of God. He felt the conviction of God, O wretched man that I am, but not the condemnation because there is now therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

The conviction leads us to a place of being poor in spirit, mourning over our sins, coming to Jesus and finding forgiveness and restoration. The condemnation is not for the Christian anymore. The condemnation has been poured out upon the cross of Jesus Christ.

And condemnation, by the way, here's how you can tell the difference. Condemnation will always keep you away from Jesus. Oh, I'm not worthy. Oh, I'm no good. Oh, the conviction will bring you straight to the cross. Lord, I know I'm not worthy. I know I'm not good, but in your word, you tell me you'll forgive me if I confess my sins.

One other commentator as we're closing said this, "Through the Spirit the Christian sees that Christ has died for their sins as standing as their advocate in the presence of God. They see in him as the perfect provision that God has made, and immediately they are comforted. That is the astounding thing about the Christian life. Your great sorrow leads to joy, and without the sorrow, there is no joy. This is not only true at conversion, but it is something that continues to be true about the true Christian."

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

Narrator: We will move right along to our next beatitude. Blessed are the meek. That's coming up next time as we look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 5.

I hope you've been blessed by today's message from Pastor Bill Henry. This has been Simple Faith. Simple Faith comes your way from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you a message from Pastor Bill from his new series in the Sermon on the Mount.

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Well, thank you for joining us today. Be sure to join us next time as our series on the Sermon on the Mount continues here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel.