As Jesus continues His teaching, He comes second to this important principle. “Blessed are those who mourn…” (Matthew 5:4) Now, it is important to realize these principles, beatitudes, truths, or whatever you want to call them, are given by our Lord in their proper order. We MUST start with the first one, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”, and build from there. Because, we HAVE to first realize our hopeless estate, and how poor we really are! Remember, the Bible tells us that “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) We have nothing good to place the foundation of our faith upon…it must be built SOLELY upon Jesus Christ.
So, the process continues….we first realize our hopeless situation (lost without hope in ourselves), and seeing our hopeless situation, we are sorrowful over it. We mourn at the sin and wrong we have committed in our lives, and that leads us to seek a Savior. We cannot truly repent of our sin and wickedness until we first of all realize how sinful and wicked we are. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation…”
Blessed are those who mourn over their sin enough to desire to be rid of it, and repent of it. I hear people who say “Well, I may have done some wrong things, but I’m not really sorry for my past.” Well, it’s GODLY sorrow over things that have been and are displeasing to God that leads us closer to Him. Godly sorrow is linked to repentance and repentance to sin. Those who mourn over the fact that they are sinners and need a Savior are the ones who come to Christ.
Now, the verse continues, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” It’s not the sin and sorrow that comfort us, it’s the fact that once we realize the hopelessness of our situation, and we truly mourn over our sin, and come to Jesus – He comforts us in forgiving our sin. Those who never sorrow over their sin and never admit their guilt will never find true forgiveness and will find no comfort or happiness. Look at what James writes in James 4:8-9 “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.” We have to hate our sin and this world before we can truly know the peace and joy of true salvation and the happiness that comes ONLY as we draw nearer to God.
Then verse 10 of James 4 tells us, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” Which leads us into the 3rd principle “Blessed are the Meek….”, which we’ll look at tomorrow.