Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'm going to continue in our study of Matthew's gospel, chapter five, and Jesus' manifesto, his recipe for living. "Blessed are the poor in spirit"—that's where we began, if you remember. Why are the poor in spirit—those conscious of their spiritual poverty—so happy? Because it casts them upon God. It helps them not to attempt life on their own, in their own human abilities and pride.

Pride always leads to a fall, whereas those that depend on God to be all that he intended them to be become all that he intended them to be, hopefully. We're talking about one of those paradoxes in the Christian life. You die to live; you give to get. It's a strange thing, living the Christian life, and it certainly cuts across what our society tells us to do.

"You can do it. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You can be good enough for God. You can be religious enough, clever enough, kind enough, patient enough." Well, the Bible says that you can never be any of those things. That's why he gave us Christ, that he in us may lend us his ability to be patient and loving and kind, and all the things he is when we are not.

The solid ground that this series talks about is really the solid ground of a relationship with God through Christ. We've got to get our feet on him, on the rock, on firm footing. We've got to listen to what Jesus says, and we've got to do it. It's no good, as the little parable tells us, to listen to what he says and not bother doing it.

Remember the little picture I gave you of the baby looking in the glass and not understanding that that's him? He thinks it's another baby because he's too little a baby to understand. So often we are too little in the sense—spiritually little—to understand that when we look into the glorious liberty of God's word, it's ourselves that looks back. We see ourselves. This is the mirror.

As we study God's word, we can see ourselves as God sees us. Then, of course, we're intended to say, "I don't much like this. In my reflection in this sense, I need to work on this; I need to work on the other." Anything else is shaky; it is sinking sand. All this is presupposing that Jesus is God, that Jesus was right. When he said, "I am the way," he is the only way. When he said, "I am the truth," he's the true truth.

When he said, "I am the eternal life," he is the only way to the Father, as he claimed to be. We that are part of the body believe that Jesus Christ is God and that Matthew 5 sets out his manifesto for our lives. So let's look at the second beatitude today: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

You might think that this is going to be a talk on death. Actually, it's going to be a talk on life. The mourning that is spoken of here has nothing to do with losing somebody. The word itself speaks of tears, of uncontrollable grief, of a spirit of heaviness, of guilt, of depression. That sounds pretty miserable, and it is pretty miserable to experience all those things.

But here, the subject is not the absence of someone that has been killed or left us. We are not mourning the death of a loved one. We are mourning the poverty of our spirit. We are mourning our poor spirituality. We are mourning our sin. Just because we have become believers does not mean that we have stopped sinning.

I remember becoming a Christian and getting this wild idea that now I knew Jesus, I wasn't going to sin anymore. It was a great shock to me to discover two or three days later that I was doing things that I shouldn't be doing as a believer. What had happened? Had Christ exited my life as surely as he had entered it, or what was going wrong? It was a real puzzle to me.

Then I discovered that we are walking along the line of time. If you just imagine the front of this pulpit, this straight line is the line of time. God is here where I am, if you like. He sees us before we're born, for we've always been on his mind. Then he sees us when we're born, and he sees us whether we'll accept Christ or not, and he sees us when we die and step off into eternity.

If he sees us accept Christ, at that point, he forgives our sin—all this and all that, all of it. He doesn't just forgive this bit and wait until we sin again after we're a believer to forgive this bit. He forgives our sins, everything—our sin. Therefore, you might ask, why do I have to confess my sin from this point onwards? If God has already forgiven it, which he has because he's out here and he's forgiven it all, then why do I then have to confess it?

Well, your relationship depends upon your birth, but your fellowship upon your behavior. In other words, the moment you accept Christ here, say, you come into a very special relationship with God. You're born not of blood, nor of the will of man—you haven't been able to do that yourself—and you're not naturally born a child of God. But you're born of the spirit at that point, and you receive God's life, and you're born into his family.

Your relationship depends upon that spiritual birth. From now on, you're supposed to go along in that relationship, getting to know God better and keeping it clean and good until you die and have this wonderful relationship forever with him in heaven. However, because we go on sinning—because we're still sinners until we die, until we're made perfect—there will be things to confess because of your fellowship.

Your relationship depends upon your birth, but your fellowship upon your behavior. Because we don't behave as we say we believe—unfortunately, we should but we don't—we do not behave what we believe. Because there are things to say "sorry, God" about, that's why we have to confess our sins, and our fellowship depends upon that.

Stuart and I had a wonderful day visiting with two of our children who came up to see us. I would say that the fellowship with our children, in a sense, depends upon their behavior. We are not at enmity with each other as parents and children; there is fellowship between us. If anything ever occurs, there is a quick reparation of it. If one of us needs to say we're sorry, we say it because the fellowship might be broken.

But the relationship depends upon the birth of our children. So when we talk about having tears and uncontrollable grief, inconsolable grief, the spirit of heaviness, and this guilt and depression, this is not because we've lost a loved one through death. It is because we have lost our fellowship with God through sin as a believer.

On the way to heaven, since my conversion, I've lost my fellowship with him. Jesus said unless we can begin to practice to know when that happens, to sense when it happens, to know what to do about it, and to know how to put it right, then we will never be comforted. We will never be brought back into fellowship with him and be able to know this sense of blessedness, this happiness that goes along with walking moment by moment in the light of his presence, in the light of his grace, and in the light of his face.

It's this poverty of spirit I have to mourn, this sense of sin that I have to develop in my own life. These people are to mourn their shortcomings, says Jesus, or their "coming-shorts." When you think of shortcomings, turn it around the other way. We come short of what God wants us to do all the time. Blessed are the completely penitent. Penitent about what? About our pride, about lying, about cheating, about laziness. I don't know, whatever it is.

If we're completely penitent about it and if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us—to go on cleansing, the word says—from all unrighteousness. Isaiah 61:2-3 says God speaking: "I will give you the oil of joy, or the oil of gladness, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, or the garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. You will be called oaks of righteousness, the plantings of the Lord for the display of his splendor."

What's this talking about? Those that mourn in Zion, I will give the oil of joy, the oil of gladness. But again, Isaiah is not talking about those that mourn for someone that's died. Those in Israel that mourn their spiritual poverty, that say, "How did we ever get this far away from God as believers?" There is a spiritual mourning that believers need to experience if life, if comfort, if blessedness, if revival—spiritual life personally and corporately—is to happen.

John Stott, in the book Christian Counter-Culture, says this: "One might almost translate this second beatitude 'happy are the unhappy' in order to draw attention to the startling paradox it contains. Those here are promised comfort, and they're not primarily those who mourn the loss of a loved one but those who mourn the loss of their innocence, their righteousness, their self-respect. It is not the sorrow of bereavement to which Christ refers but the sorrow of repentance."

This is the second stage of spiritual blessing. It's one thing to be spiritually poor and acknowledge it, knowing that we cast ourselves on God for mercy and grace to be saved and for salvation. But it's another to grieve and to mourn over it. Or in more theological language, confession is one thing, contrition is another. Confession is one thing, contrition is another.

Haven't you ever had a child that's done something wrong, and you reprimand them or you catch them at it? They come and they say, "I'm sorry," and you say to them, "No you're not," because you know they're not. Saying you're sorry doesn't do it, right? As a mom, you want to see they're sorry. You want to see contrition. Confession isn't enough.

Confession is where it starts. "I'm sorry" is the acknowledgment of something that they've done. But it's the contrition as a mother you look for. It's a contrition as a heavenly parent that God looks for when we come along and say, "Oh, I'm sorry I did this, and I'm sorry I did that." He says, "But you're not mourning it. There are no tears. There's no inconsolable grief about this. You don't care. You think you can just come into my presence and say 'sorry' like that and it'll all be right? You don't mean it."

Well, it does sound upside down, doesn't it? How can the Christian, who's meant to be happy, spend their life mourning? But again, it casts us on God, and anything that casts you on God is going to turn up happiness in the end. The closer you are to him, the closer you are to he that is joy and that is comfort. Remember, "they shall be comforted" speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit, who is the comforter.

We will be driven to God because of our "coming-short" of what he intends us to do, our sins of omission and our sins of commission. So what does this word *pentheo*—P-E-N-T-H-E-O, mourn—really mean? To care deeply. It's a word that's used in other parts of the Scripture that throws a little light on what it really means. Whenever you want to know what a word means, see where it's used in other parts of Scripture.

This was a fascinating study to me. I just spent most of the week checking where it's used. For example, in Matthew 9:15, it says, "Can children of the bridegroom mourn when he's with them?" They won't mourn when the bridegroom's there, but Jesus, talking about himself, said, "When the bridegroom is taken away, then you'll mourn. Then you'll fast."

Here's a little picture. The bridegroom is taken away from the bride. I talked to a young, very young woman, a fiancée of a wonderful young Christian man who has very tragically died four months before they were to be married. I've been to this conference up in Camp of the Woods twice now. Last year, this young lady had just got engaged and she was telling me all about it.

This year, I recognized her—beautiful girl. I said, "Oh, you must be married by now!" She said, "My fiancé died four months ago." Well, you can imagine how I felt. But as we sat and I said, "Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry," and we sat and we began to talk, she began to tell me what it meant. Can you imagine having the bridegroom snatched away from you like that? Now, I'm going to ask you to try and feel—that's very difficult to do—but put yourself in her position and just try and imagine how you'd feel if that happened to you for a minute. Try and get yourself in character. That's what you do in drama. What would it feel like?

Another place the word is used is in Mark 16:9-10, where the disciples are all gathered together and Mary sees Jesus in the garden, gets up, and runs to the disciples to tell them very excitedly, "I've seen the Lord! I've seen the Lord!" Well, it says they were mourning and weeping so greatly for Jesus that they could not countenance her message. They didn't believe it. They couldn't believe it.

The word there, mourning, is the one that's interesting. What is the picture? Somebody that you love has just been crucified, tortured, hammered onto a cross, died the most ghastly, terrible death. The only thing that doesn't even come near it is somebody that belongs to you is put to death in the electric chair. Imagine, go on, how you'd feel. Feel it.

Can you possibly imagine that sense of inconsolable mourning and grief? All your hopes, all your dreams crucified along with Jesus. Another place it's used is in the sense of the whole personality involved, as in the case of a crying child. Have you ever seen a crying child, absolutely inconsolable, apparently? Now, those of us that deal with small children have seen this.

I used to run a nursery school for two-to-five-year-olds. I had 200 kids in it. There was many a day when I would look at a tug of war over a doll or something, and one of them would triumphantly end up with this doll that they'd been fighting over, and the other one would just—two years of age, you know what that's like. The one thing in life that obsesses them at that moment has been torn from their grasp.

There is inconsolable grief, and they wail, don't they? They bawl; that's the word we use. That's the word that's used here—a wailing and a bawling. I often used to say that poor child, there is nothing in the world more than this little puddle of grief that is—that's what they look like, this little puddle of grief. They've dissolved into their tears, and the whole personality is involved, as in the case of a crying child.

That's what the word means. You see it in Genesis 21:16, where Ishmael, a child, is put under a bush, and he's dying. He's no water, and he's in the desert, and the bush doesn't help. He's literally dying of thirst, which is one of the most terrible, painful deaths you could ever die. He cries, and God leans out of heaven and says, "I've heard the voice of the child where he mourns."

The word is the same in the equivalent word in the Hebrew as in the Greek. He's mourning, he's crying, he's bawling. "I've heard the voice of the child where he mourns." Imagine you were Ishmael. What would you feel like? And of course, it's used in Jeremiah 31:15, where it's describing Rachel crying for her children, babies torn out of your arms and slaughtered in front of you. How can we possibly put ourselves in these situations?

I remember the uprising in Hungary. I was probably 15 at the time in England, and I remember our newscasters telling us that the tanks are in the streets. There are 16-year-old girls putting dynamite around their bodies and throwing themselves in front of the tanks to—that's all they've got to fight with. There are women lying down in front of the tanks, and the tanks are just going over them in the streets.

The people are crying out to the whole world, "Save us, help us, send us help! We're trying to get free!" And nobody moved, and nobody lifted a finger. I remember being angry and wanting to get in a boat and go and help. Then I remember the awful picture that somebody had taken of the soldiers going into all these high-rise flats and taking the babies and throwing them out the windows of the people.

They had the pictures of the babies falling. Now, imagine that could have been Milwaukee in another day and another time, and if we had been in Eastern Europe, what would you have felt like if your baby was thrown out the top of a house and lay smashed on? Just feel it. Can you feel the intense grief? Then let me ask you a question: Have you ever felt those sort of feelings about your sin?

Jesus says that's how we should feel about it, that we should mourn any sin that comes in between ourselves and our God as believers, as intensely as that. We should hate it, and that's what the fear of the Lord is all about. The fear of the Lord is an intense desire for God and a hunger for him, with a hatred of evil. The two go hand in hand because the hatred, the intense dislike and mourning over sin, is because you want his presence so much that you know that comes in between and breaks the fellowship.

So you're going to be intensely concerned about it. In the Old Testament, if people mourned for the dead, they smote their breasts, they shaved their heads, they shaved their beards, they cut themselves. These were Israelites. They called others to come to them for the mourning. They put sackcloth on, they beat their breasts and wandered around the streets.

They wailed, they brought dirge singers in, and for seven days, if somebody died, they continued in this manner. Well, I tell you, I don't know if I've gone to any of that sort of trouble whenever I've sinned. Have I ever shown in any sense, with a true heart, that I'm distressed because I'm out of touch with the Lord, because I'm dry? All sin—because sins of omission, I haven't shown faith or trust. I've worried, which is sin. Do I really care about that? Because it hurts him and it grieves him.

Well, Jesus said, "Blessed is the condition of those who mourn their spiritual poverty and sin, for they shall be comforted. They shall be comforted." So this ministry of the Holy Spirit longs to be involved in active in our lives. He will assist us by his grace to enjoy the forgiveness of God and the restoration of fellowship with God if we've sinned.

So how do we go about it? Well, joy arises in our hearts when we're truly sorry. But what if we're not? The first thing we've got to do is be honest. I've got a whole lot of little B's in here for you: Be honest. Not...