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HOPE Covenant Sermons

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

June 23, 2013 Speaker: Series: Blessed

Topic: Beatitudes Verse: Matthew 5:4–5:4

BLESSED!
“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn”
Pastor Corrie Gustafson | 06.23.2013

 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)

Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near. (Matthew 4:17)

• ‘Repent’ means to change our mind.

Text for the day: Gospel of John 11:1-54

I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? (vv. 25-26)
When Jesus saw her weeping, and all the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. (v. 33)

Deeply moved in spirit = like the snort of a horse

Troubled =agitated or stirred up

Highlighting verses 4, 15, 25, 26, 40 and 42
• The point of the story is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.

Many of the Jews who...had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. (Jn 11:45)


Death is suddenly doorway and belief is the key to entering a kingdom where death has no sting!        

...[Jesus] shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.                                (Hebrews 2:14-15)

“While the world keeps holiday [the disciples] stand aside, and while the world sings ‘Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,’ [the disciples] mourn.  They see that for all the jollity on board, the ship is beginning to sink.  The world dreams of progress, of power and of the future.  But the disciples meditate on the end, the last judgment and the coming of the kingdom...and so the disciples are strangers in the world.”      
                                                       (Deitrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship)

Mourning should not be the ritual for which we are known, as it was for the Jews. Instead, we should be wrapped up in worship.

For Self-study or Discussion:
If you are inquiring about Jesus - How does “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” speak to you? Does it offer you any comfort?

If you are a follower of Jesus - How does this beatitude invite you to respond? Change your way of thinking? Act?

Read Luke 19:37-48. (this is the other N.T. passage where Jesus cries.)
What is similar to John 11? What is different from John? How do Jesus’ emotions here call you to repentance?

More in Blessed

August 4, 2013

Blessed Are The Persecuted

July 28, 2013

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

July 21, 2013

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart