Introduction:
Who Are the "Those Who Mourn"? (Matthew 5:4)
Why Are We Congratulating those Who Mourn?
Revelation 21:4 - He will wipe away 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.
Romans 7:24-25 - Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
How Do I Mourn? (James 4:8-10)
- What Keeps Me from Mourning?
James 4:8-10 - 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.
- You aren't Drawing near to God.
- You're too Invested in your sin.
- You don't see Sin for what it is.
- How Do I Know I Really Mourn My Sin?
2 Corinthians 7:10 - For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
→ You Repent without Regret.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:01
So who's ready to party?
00:02-00:03
(congregation cheering)
00:04-00:05
Good seven of you.
00:09-00:10
Awesome, hey, seven's a party.
00:11-00:11
All right.
00:12-00:16
I know, you're like, I'm saving all my energy for that game tonight.
00:19-00:20
Right?
00:23-00:24
Is that what it is?
00:25-00:28
Show of hands, who's going to some Super Bowl party tonight?
00:29-00:30
Oh, am I allowed to say Super Bowl?
00:31-00:33
Who's going to the big game party tonight?
00:34-00:34
Raise your hands.
00:35-00:39
So I can see that those of you that are like, you're like embarrassed to say that.
00:39-00:42
You're like, me, yes, but I don't want anybody to know.
00:44-00:49
Our youth group's having a big game party here tonight.
00:52-00:57
So who's, again, show of hands, who's cheering for Taylor Swift's team?
00:58-00:59
(congregation laughing)
01:02-01:04
Just Jane Auer and Justin.
01:05-01:05
Wow.
01:06-01:06
Wow.
01:07-01:10
Two spiritual giants cheering for Taylor Swift's team.
01:11-01:12
I'm starting to...
01:16-01:18
On that note, who is cheering for Philadelphia?
01:20-01:21
Okay.
01:21-01:22
That's hard.
01:23-01:25
That's hard to be from Pittsburgh and cheer for Philadelphia, isn't it?
01:27-01:28
All right, they need Jesus too.
01:30-01:35
All right, since we're on the subject, slightly different poll, who thinks the Taylor Swift team is gonna win?
01:35-01:38
Whether you want them to or not, who thinks they're going to win?
01:40-01:44
Okay, how about, who thinks Philadelphia is gonna win?
01:45-01:58
All right, well, we're gonna have a much better party right now, because we're going through the Sermon on the Mount, And this is Jesus' first sermon.
01:59-02:01
And this is his introduction.
02:01-02:10
He starts it by saying, "Blessed, blessed, blessed." In this section, this introduction to his sermon, we call it the Beatitudes.
02:10-02:12
Let's look at it again, shall we?
02:12-02:24
Matthew chapter five, verse two, it says, "And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
02:25-02:44
"Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted, "blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness "for they shall be satisfied, "blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.
02:46-02:51
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
02:52-02:56
"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.
02:58-03:05
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
03:07-03:10
Blessed over and over, blessed, blessed.
03:11-03:17
The Greek word is mekerios, and most people say, well, that means happy, but we talked about this last week.
03:17-03:18
It means more than happy.
03:20-03:24
It is literally a blissful condition of the soul.
03:25-03:42
So what you're reading as you go through Jesus' introduction here is what Jesus is saying is, "Congratulations." If you are this kind of person, congratulations because God has something awesome in store for you.
03:43-03:50
What we see in the Beatitudes, again, we talked about this last week, but there's a spiritually logical flow.
03:51-03:55
You have to see these as steps on a ladder.
03:57-04:02
And Jesus here is describing what Christ followers are meant to be.
04:03-04:05
So let's just pause for a moment and pray.
04:06-04:10
I'm gonna ask that you please pray for me as I will pray for you.
04:12-04:13
And then we're gonna get this party started.
04:14-04:15
Let's just take a moment and pray.
04:23-04:31
Father in heaven, we come in here today with so many distractions.
04:33-04:42
Not just a football game on later, but much deeper and more important things that are weighing heavy on us.
04:42-04:54
And I pray, Father, that your Spirit would help us to just shelve those right now, and our minds and hearts would be laser-focused on what your Word has to say.
04:57-05:06
And when we do, we'll find that maybe those distractions aren't as big as we think they are when we put them next to you.
05:08-05:10
So, Father, glorify your name.
05:11-05:14
as we study your word together today.
05:16-05:20
In Jesus' name, and all of God's people said, amen.
05:21-05:25
So congratulations to those who mourn.
05:25-05:26
Look at verse four.
05:27-05:35
Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn, "for they shall be comforted." Do we get that video?
05:36-05:37
Are you ready, church?
05:37-05:38
Congratulations!
05:52-05:57
See, last week sort of prepared you, but let's be honest, that was kind of weird, wasn't it?
05:59-06:01
It's like, "Hey, are you mourning?
06:04-06:08
"Well, congratulations!" Like, what?
06:08-06:16
I just imagine like a visitor coming in here, somebody watching this stream for the first time like, "These people are weird.
06:17-06:25
Congratulations to those who are sad." What's that all about?
06:28-06:29
Mourning.
06:29-06:34
Like, you know, the obvious question is mourn what?
06:36-06:39
'Cause there's so much we mourn over.
06:41-06:43
What's he talking about?
06:44-06:45
Well, we gotta start here.
06:45-06:49
Jesus wasn't just talking about any kind of mourning at all.
06:51-06:58
Like we said, the Beatitudes, there's a logical, a spiritually logical flow to the Beatitudes.
06:59-07:04
So just look at verse three again with me and flow it into verse four.
07:04-07:06
And you'll see exactly what Jesus is talking about.
07:08-07:13
Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
07:13-07:19
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Do you see the flow?
07:22-07:26
You see, Jesus is talking about the person that says, "I'm spiritually bankrupt.
07:26-07:36
I'm begging for grace and mercy, and I'm mourning over what put me in that condition.
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And what is that?
07:39-07:40
It's sin.
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It's mourning over your sin.
07:46-07:48
And right now you might be like, "Wait, wait, hang on a second, Pastor Jeff.
07:49-07:54
"Are you telling me that God wants me to mourn?
07:54-07:56
"I thought God wanted me to be happy.
07:57-08:07
"And you're telling me that God wants me to be sad?" And I would say that if that's your response to this, you're not really looking at it the right way.
08:10-08:17
Because mourning is just appropriate.
08:20-08:21
Here's what I mean.
08:23-08:26
You know, we talked about being poor in spirit last week, spiritually bankrupt.
08:26-08:30
you've got nothing to offer God, you're broken spiritually.
08:32-08:45
But can we just stop and acknowledge for a second that simply acknowledging that you're guilty about something doesn't quite seem to be enough, does it?
08:46-08:49
Just a simple acknowledgement, it's not enough.
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And here's what I mean.
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Husbands, did you ever get that sense that your wife is upset with you about something, but she hasn't verbally articulated what that is?
09:02-09:08
Don't raise your hands, 'cause you gots to go home, hopefully with her.
09:10-09:13
Okay, this is just a raise your hand in your heart question.
09:14-09:20
But have you ever had that feeling like she's mad at me about something, but she hasn't articulated what that is?
09:21-09:32
Well, husbands, how would it work if you went to your wife in that moment and said, "Apparently I'm guilty of something and I'm acknowledging that." Can we be done with this?
09:36-09:38
How would that fly in your house?
09:41-09:45
Not well, I can tell by the uncomfortable laughter.
09:45-09:47
That would not go well in your house.
09:48-09:50
Now you see where we're going here?
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Or what about somebody that's in court?
09:55-09:57
They committed a heinous crime.
10:00-10:09
And I've never been in a courtroom to actually see this, but you ever see like in those TV shows and movies where they're like, are you sorry for what you did?
10:09-10:10
Have you ever seen that?
10:11-10:18
But could you imagine the guy's, he's guilty, and he's just like, yeah, I did it.
10:22-10:28
Wouldn't you feel that like, that's not enough just simply acknowledging that you're guilty?
10:28-10:29
You see what I'm saying?
10:32-10:43
Many many years ago, this is a horrible story, but there was a young man in my former church that was having a hard go at things.
10:45-10:50
He's having a really hard time in life as a young man, and our camp manager took him in.
10:52-11:00
So they took him to the camp, put him up, gave him some work, trying to help this young man get on his feet, and the young man stole from the church camp.
11:01-11:04
Stole money from the church camp.
11:05-11:11
Well, even with the police, and I'm giving you the short version, even with the police getting involved, the camp manager did not want to press charges.
11:11-11:13
He says, "I'm just trying to help this guy out.
11:13-11:15
"He's had a hard go at things.
11:15-11:18
trying to help him out, and the police said, "Well, this is a probation violation.
11:18-11:24
"There's nothing you can do." So he went to jail, where I did prison ministry.
11:25-11:42
Well, the boy's mother came to me, and she said, "He's so, "she said, 'He's so torn up about what happened.'" She goes, "Are you gonna see him?" And I said, "Well, actually, I'm going in this Friday "to the prison." She goes, "Well, he's just so torn up about what happened.
11:42-11:44
"I hope you get a chance to talk with him and pray with him.
11:45-11:49
Well, I went in that Friday, and he did, he came to Bible study.
11:50-12:17
And he came up to me, and I said, "Hey, how we doing?" He's like, (laughs) he goes, "I guess you heard about what I did." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I heard about what you did." He's like, "Yeah, yeah, you heard about." He was laughing the entire time he was talking about it.
12:19-12:20
And I'm like, why are you laughing?
12:21-12:23
You stole from a church camp.
12:24-12:25
Like, are you proud of that?
12:25-12:27
Like, I don't understand why you're laughing.
12:28-12:32
And he just giggled the whole time he was talking about it.
12:34-12:38
Well, a couple of days later, his mother came back to me.
12:38-13:04
She goes, "Hey, did you get to see him in prison?" I said, "Yeah, I talked to him." "He's really broken up over this, isn't he?" I said, "Not at all." And she was like, "What are you talking about, not at all?" I said, "He laughed the entire time he was talking about it." Would you say that something was missing there?
13:09-13:17
Now we kind of see why this is logical that this is the next step in the Beatitudes.
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Are you seeing it?
13:19-13:22
Because mourning proves sincerity.
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It's not just for show.
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And look, you can pretend to mourn and you can fool me, but you can't fool God.
13:37-13:48
But when you're really mourning in your heart, when you are really broken over your sin in your heart, you know it and God knows it, and that's all that matters.
13:50-13:58
And you've gotten to the place where you're like, look, no excuses, no blaming other people, no comparing myself with others.
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We talked about that last week.
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No rationalizing why I did what I did.
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I have to ask you, have you mourned over your sin?
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Have you, you personally, have you mourned over your sin?
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Have you considered who your sin has hurt?
14:34-15:03
who trusted me that I've taken advantage of. An addiction I've had that has caused me to lie and to steal and to live this deceptive lifestyle. My gossip and slander that has damaged the reputations of the people that I talk about. What is it for you? Have you You mourned over those things?
15:07-15:18
And maybe it's not just like the sins that you've done, but the sins that are things that you haven't done.
15:20-15:27
I think that's been a bigger struggle for me, realizing that I haven't been the husband that my wife has needed me to be.
15:31-15:45
I'm sure every dad in here can relate to the sleeplessness that comes when you realize you haven't been the father to your kids that they've needed, and you mourn over that.
15:48-15:49
Have you done that?
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You know, we disregard our creator, the God who loves us, and we so often just treat him like he's not even there.
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Oh, and then we need something, and then we're gonna act religious for a while.
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Can we really take inventory of our lives and our sin and not mourn?
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Have you done that?
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Because mourning is just the natural response.
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And if you really understand your sin, you know that whole blessed are the poor in spirit.
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If you really, really understand what that means, and you're not a sociopath, then you're going to mourn over your sin.
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Second question, why are we congratulating those who mourn?
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Right?
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That's the those who mourn, but why are we congratulating these people?
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Just like we said in the first Beatitude, we're gonna say it again this week.
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Could you imagine if Jesus stopped at the word mourn?
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If he's like, blessed are those who mourn.
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Amen, end of sermon, you're loved, go home.
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Could you imagine if he stopped there?
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Like, happy or the sad?
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Like, what do you, why would you say such a thing?
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Oh, but he goes on, he goes, "For they shall be comforted." They, just like the previous, the word they is emphatic in the Greek.
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It shows us the sense in which Jesus said this.
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It emphasizes how this is contrary to expectation.
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What Jesus is saying here, again, this is so paradoxical.
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But Jesus says, "Only the sad are happy "because they alone are comforted." There's the congratulations.
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Jesus said, "The people that are tore up over their sin," he says, "Congratulations, because those are the people that get comfort." Like comfort, what do you mean comfort?
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Well, the word in the Greek literally means come alongside to help.
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It's this picture of somebody broken and somebody else comes alongside and puts an arm around and says, "Hey, hey, we're gonna get through this.
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"I got you, you're not alone." And this is what God does for us with his Holy Spirit.
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He comes in and dwells.
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So he's the comforter, but what is the comfort that we receive?
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You see, he doesn't just come along and say, "You know what?
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"Yeah, you're a broken sinner and you should be upset." Yeah, that's true, but it doesn't stop there.
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Here's where our comfort comes.
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Our comfort comes from the promise of the gospel.
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You see, what is the most comforting thing someone who mourns over their sin can receive?
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The answer is forgiveness.
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Don't you see the picture?
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God Himself puts an arm around you and says, "Yes, you sinned against Me.
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But My Son took your sin on Himself.
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I punished Jesus for what you did.
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You are forgiven because of Jesus Christ.
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I'm not going to hold your sin against you.
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And nothing will ever change that.
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So you see, we have this glorious comfort in the promise and hope of the Gospel.
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And someday, someday when we stand before God Himself, He's going to comfort us in person.
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Revelation 21.4, can we put that up there?
20:44-21:13
It says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." I've had people ask me, "Wait a second." I've had people ask me in this verse, "It says He'll wipe away tears, But then later in the verse, it says, "There's no mourning or crying." So what's going on there?
21:17-21:32
I believe that when we stand before God, in that initial moment, we're going to fully realize the price that was paid for our sin.
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I mean, I think we understand it.
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And if you're a born again believer, you understand it now.
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But I think on that day, you are going to fully understand it in a way that you never have on earth when you see your God and your Savior.
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And I think the full magnitude of the price that was paid for your salvation is going to just...
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It's going to cause you to weep.
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What does God say He'll do in that moment?
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Like a dad, He's gonna stoop down and He's gonna wipe the tear from your eye.
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And that'll be the last one that you cry.
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So do you see the flow here?
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I realize that I'm a broken sinner.
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That brings me sorrow.
22:28-22:34
I go to God for grace and I'm comforted by forgiveness.
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And by the way, if you're a born again believer, this isn't a one and done thing.
22:47-22:53
It's not like, you know what, I came to Christ in 1995 and I can't stand there and say, well, yeah, you know what?
22:53-23:01
Back in '95, I mourned for my sin pretty hard, but that was a tough couple of weeks, but glad that's over.
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No, no, for a true Christian, we never get over mourning or sin.
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And at the same time, we never get over the comfort of forgiveness that we receive from Jesus Christ.
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A true Christian lives in both of these at the same time.
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That we live a life of mourning our sin and rejoicing in the gospel simultaneously.
23:39-23:46
You know, great example, we're not gonna read, we're not gonna read the whole chapter today, but just write this down, Romans chapter seven, that's exactly what Paul went through.
23:47-23:49
I'm gonna paraphrase it for you, but I do wanna look at a couple of verses there.
23:52-24:04
Romans chapter seven, again, this is a paraphrase, but Paul's like, "I believe that the law is good, "so why do I do the things that I don't wanna do?
24:07-24:12
"And the things that I don't wanna do, I do them." He goes, "What's the matter with me?
24:13-24:16
"I know what God said, but I keep disobeying.
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"Like, what's the matter with me?" And he walks through that whole experience Sometimes I read Romans 7 and I'm like, "Wait, did I write this?" But the last two verses, this is exactly what Jesus is talking about with these first two Beatitudes.
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Verses 24 and 25, Paul says, "Wretched man that I am.
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"Who will deliver me from this body of death?" There's the mourning right there.
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Like, "Oh, what is the matter with me?
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What can possibly, who can possibly deliver me from this?
24:58-25:00
There's the mourning, but then look at the very next verse.
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There's the comfort.
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Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
25:10-25:20
In other words, using Paul's terminology, you and I are miserable sinners in a body of death.
25:21-25:51
And Jesus would say, "Congratulations, because you have been delivered through Jesus Christ, our Lord." That's why we're congratulating those who mourn, because only when you get to the place where you are sincerely mourning over your sin, will you sincerely receive the comfort that God offers through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
25:52-25:55
That's why we're having the congratulations party today.
25:58-25:59
I could stop there.
26:03-26:14
But I know that there are some people right now, like, okay, I intellectually understand what you're saying, but emotionally I'm not there.
26:15-26:16
So how do I mourn?
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How do I do that?
26:22-26:44
I gotta tell you, this is a hard sermon to put together because I can share with you some commands that say, you know, do this, or God says, don't do this, but this particular beatitude, it's really all about emotion, isn't it?
26:44-26:48
That's sort of a hard thing to command, right?
26:49-26:54
I just wanted to get to this point in the sermon and say, okay, church, mourn.
26:56-26:57
Go ahead, I'll wait.
27:01-27:02
Are you mourning?
27:04-27:05
Some of you are smiling.
27:08-27:08
See the challenge here?
27:09-27:12
How do I just, how do I get you to mourn?
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Like sackcloth and ashes.
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Let's do it, church.
27:21-27:26
I thought, wow, that's a really tough question to answer.
27:26-27:28
How do I mourn?
27:32-27:35
Mourning is an expression of sorrow in the heart.
27:36-27:40
And all I can tell you is, if you're really poor in spirit, you're really gonna mourn.
27:48-28:06
So instead of trying to answer how do I mourn, I think there's two better questions that we need to answer. And maybe these two better questions will help us get to the heart of the matter because God wants your heart.
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So let's answer these ones instead. Maybe instead of saying, "How do I mourn?" maybe we should ask, "What keeps me from mourning?" Because right now I know there are people sitting here and there will be people sitting in the next service and there are people that are gonna be watching this stream and listening to this podcast that are just like, "Something's just not clicking here "because I don't feel any of this sadness "that he says I'm supposed to be feeling.
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"Why am I not feeling it?" Well, the Bible has the answer for that.
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We're gonna jump to James 4, verses eight through 10.
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We're gonna go through this very quickly.
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Look at what James says here.
28:55-28:59
He says, "Draw near to God, "And He will draw near to you.
29:00-29:04
"Cleanse your hands, you sinners, "and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
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"Be wretched and mourn and weep.
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"Let your laughter be turned to mourning "and your joy to gloom.
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"Humble yourselves before the Lord, "and He will exalt you." Right there, what keeps me from mourning?
29:25-29:28
You're like, "Something's not clicking here." Teach me for mourning.
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There's three things right here.
29:31-29:37
If you're not mourning right now, and you realize because of what Jesus said that you should be, here's why you're not.
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Number one, because you're not drawing near to God.
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That's why.
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You're not drawing near to God.
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You know that you should be spending time in prayer.
29:52-29:55
You should be spending time in his word.
29:55-29:59
You should be spending time in fellowship, you can be on Sunday morning, you should be.
30:00-30:02
You know that you need to.
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And you certainly intend to.
30:12-30:14
But for a lot of people, it's just procrastination.
30:15-30:17
I'm going to, yeah, yeah, you know what, yeah.
30:19-30:26
You know what, it's summer break, but when the kids get back to school, that's when I'm really gonna buckle down and seek the Lord the way I know I need to.
30:27-30:52
Oh, no, things are so busy with school, but when we have Christmas break, and January's coming around the corner, and turn the calendar for new year, then I'm really going to, well, January was busy, so maybe once I get through President's Day, then I'll be ready to, and we just keep putting God off, that someday we're really gonna get serious about drawing near to God.
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The Bible tells us that when you keep putting God off, what you're doing is you're hardening your heart.
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And hard hearts don't mourn sin.
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So I would say to you lovingly, if you aren't mourning, you probably aren't drawing near to God either.
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What keeps me from mourning, letter B, you're too invested in your sin.
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You're too invested in your sin.
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James says, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, "and purify your hearts, you double-minded." James says, "Your hands are filthy, your hearts are filthy." James says, "Knock it off." He says, "You're not mourning your sin "because you love it." And we typically don't think of our sin in those terms.
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But if we're going to be brutally honest, you know, think about your favorite sin.
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If we're brutally honest, what we would say is, I do love it.
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You know, that addiction.
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Like, you know, I know I should cut this addiction, but I, quite frankly, I love it.
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I realize the damage that it's causing.
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I realize it's a sin.
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I realize addiction is a worship disorder that offends God.
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I realize I should.
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I just, I kind of like it too much.
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James says, knock it off.
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Maybe it's lust and the various expressions of that.
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That you're like, I know I should stop that, but if I'm being honest, I enjoy it too much.
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Knock it off.
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That inappropriate relationship that I know it's not appropriate, and I'm married, and she's married, and it's just too flirty, and I shouldn't be doing that.
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But I just kind of get a rush out of it.
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Or all the gossip.
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You know, I know I shouldn't be talking about people, but oh, I just love to be the one to give the news and update people.
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Listen, if you've allowed sin to become part of who you are, you're not going to mourn it.
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For some of you, you're too invested in your sin.
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You love that more than you love Jesus, and that is a huge problem.
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What keeps me from mourning?
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For some, you're just not drawing near to God.
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For others, you're just too invested in your sin.
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And for others, let her see you don't see sin for what it is.
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You don't see sin for what it is.
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See again, James says, "Be wretched and mourn and weep.
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"Let your laughter be turned to mourning "and your joy to gloom." You don't see sin for what it is, laughter, joy.
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That's how the world views sin, right?
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We laugh at it, right?
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That's what the world does.
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And sadly, too often, so does the church.
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I read a quote this week, I can't remember who it was.
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I think it was, I think it was Martin Lloyd-Jones that said this.
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He says, "The church has a defective sense of sin." Yeah, we do.
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We don't mourn over sin.
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Even in the church, what do we do?
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We laugh at it.
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We make jokes about it.
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We minimize it, and that is not of God.
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That's not of God when we do that.
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Think about it this way.
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Would you tell a really tasteless, disgusting joke about suicide to a family that experienced that horror?
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Would you do that? No! Would you tell a joke about drunk driving to a family that lost a family member due to drunk driving? Would you do that? Of course you wouldn't. So why do we think it's appropriate to joke about sin in in the face of Jesus Christ, who died because of our sin.
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That's why James says, "Hey, you need to stop laughing at it.
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And you need to take a serious look at it.
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My sin killed my Savior.
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You think that's funny?
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If you were standing at the foot of the cross while Jesus was being crucified, would you be bragging about your sin?
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Is your sin worth celebrating?
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That's why James says your laughter needs to turn to mourning.
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Your joy needs to turn to gloom.
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You need to see sin how God does.
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You need to see sin for what it is.
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So maybe that's why you're not mourning sin.
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You have just so minimized it and trivialized it and turned it into a joke.
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That's what keeps me from mourning.
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So you're like, OK, you know what?
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Maybe some of you are like, I'm on board.
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I'm on board with you.
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I see what God's saying.
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And so, how do I know that I really mourned?
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How do I know that I really, really mourned over my sin?
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That I really had that genuine emotion that Jesus is talking about here?
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How do I know that I've done that?
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I just want to close with one verse here.
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But 2 Corinthians 7:10 tells us how you know that you've mourned.
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He says, "For godly grief," some translations say godly sorrow, we could say the same thing, "For godly mourning," right?
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"For godly grief produces a repentance "that leads to salvation without regret, "whereas worldly grief produces death." How do I know that I really mourn?
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There's one way that you know that you are doing exactly what Jesus is commending in this beatitude.
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It's when you repent without regret.
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That's how you know.
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Don't tell me how sorry you are over your sin if there's no repentance, because you're not really sorry.
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Then tell me how bad you feel if there's no plan to turn from it.
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See, that's what Paul does here in 2 Corinthians 7.
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He compares, he says, "Everybody's sorry about something, but there's worldly grief and there's godly grief." Worldly grief, what's that?
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What's worldly grief?
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That's, "I'm sorry that I got caught." "I'm sorry that you're upset about what I did." Not upset about what I did, I'm sorry that you're upset about what I did.
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Worldly grief is self-centered.
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It's all about me.
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I feel uncomfortable because of the results of my sin.
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And Paul says that does not lead to salvation.
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Where does that lead?
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He says worldly grief produces death.
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That's what you get from worldly grief.
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He says, on the other hand, godly grief, what is that?
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That's the person that's like, you know what?
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I am so sick of this sin.
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It dishonors God, it's hurt others, it's made me such a hypocrite.
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This sin that I'm committing is wrong.
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See, godly grief is Christ-centered.
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Even if nobody else knows what your sin is, you know that God does.
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Like, I gotta be done with this.
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And he says it produces a repentance that leads to salvation.
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See that repentance, repentance.
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Now we're talking about mourning as the emotion.
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Repentance is not an emotion.
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Repentance is action.
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Repentance is I am walking in my sin.
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I'm turning my back on sin and I'm walking towards God.
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Repentance is action.
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Has grief over your sin led you to take action?
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You're like, well, no, not really, seriously, no.
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okay, then you haven't mourned your sin the way God calls you to.
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Notice he says, "Godly grief produces a repentance "that leads to salvation," look at these last two words, "without regret." That's another key, by the way.
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You know, the person that actually does turn from sin, but really deep down feels like, man, you know what?
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I kind of miss that sin.
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I kind of miss doing that.
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Yeah, I would love to do it again.
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Just, even if I could do it just one more time, I would love that.
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But I guess I'm really not supposed to.
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Now, without regret means no regrets in repenting.
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Well, there is one regret for the sincere mourner, actually.
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The sincere mourner says, "My only regret "is that I didn't repent sooner, "because then I would have received "the comfort of God sooner." "So my brothers and sisters, you are poor in spirit.
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Last week we talked about that.
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How do I get there?" You're already there.
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Your sin has offended a holy God, and it's hurt others, and by nature you stand condemned over that.
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And the reality of all of that should have you broken inside.
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Are you there?
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Has your mourning over sin led you to repentance?
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Well, if that's you, then we got a message for you.
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So my friends, on behalf of the leadership of Harvest Bible Chapel, I would like to extend to you a heartfelt congratulations.
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Give yourselves a hand if you are mourning.
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(congregation applauding)
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Because our Lord said, congratulations to those who are mourning because you and you alone are going to experience the comfort of God.
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If our worship team would make their way back to the stage here and those who are serving communion, you know, there's no better way that we can capture what Jesus is talking about than by ending this time around the Lord's table.
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Because as we come to the Lord's table, There should be a brokenness in us in this moment, truly.
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We're remembering what?
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The body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
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We're remembering this price that was paid.
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And there should be a sense of mourning over this, but at the same time, there should be a sense of celebration and that my God loves me so much that this is the price that he paid so that I could be forgiven of my sin.
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This is also the comfort.
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So the worship team's going to play.
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We're going to invite you to stand.
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And when you're ready, come down the center aisles and receive the elements.
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And when everybody has received, I will lead us in taking the Lord's Supper together.
Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 5:4 & James 4:8-10
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What exactly does it mean to “mourn” over your sin? Why is mourning necessary?
What would you say to someone that says “I’ve never mourned over my sin. And I don’t really see why I need to!”
How does God comfort those who mourn? What does that look like?
Read 2 Corinthians 7:10. Explain the difference between worldly grief and godly grief. What does it mean that worldly grief brings death?
Breakout
Pray for one another.