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The Inward Attitudes of a True Disciple is our theme for the next few Sunday mornings.

This series is based on the Beatitudes, found in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

Today we are discussing, Joy Comes in the Morning.

Text

Matthew 5:4 NKJV

4 Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

Scripture Reading

Psalm 30:1-12 NKJV

1 I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my foes rejoice over me.

2 O Lord my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me.

3 O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

4 Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

6 Now in my prosperity I said, “I shall never be moved.”

7 Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong; You hid Your face, and I was troubled.

8 I cried out to You, O Lord; And to the Lord I made supplication:

9 “What profit is there in my blood, When I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth?

10 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper!”

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Introduction.

Having never fully understood all that it means to be a Christian, we have never fully appropriated the full blessedness of the Christian life.

Matthew 5:4 NKJV says, Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

This is a plain statement of simple truth.

Blessed is the man in whose heart the “consolation in Christ” has been, is, and ever shall be effective.

Blessed is the Christian, even in sorrow, grief, and pain, because for the Christian, God’s comfort is sure.

As a child of God, the psalmist of our Scripture today, having passed through he fires of grief, pain, and trial, had found the balm of Gilead sufficient for his soul.

His experience was this, Psalm 30:11, You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.

He believed by faith that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Any English translation must miss the picture of the word here rendered “endure.”

The figure is “to come in to lodge as a guest.”

The psalmist was saying, “weeping may come in to lodge with us in the evening, but joy comes in as a guest in the morning.”

This is not a mere promise to a Christian, it is the unfailing result of being a Christian, its the natural consequence of the Christian life.

Other than Christianity and its forebear, Judaism, every religion says that weeping, trials, and pain are things to be escaped, and those who do not escape them are unfortunate.

Only Christianity knows any way of dealing with these unwelcome guests that does not involve arresting, perverting, or even abandoning life itself.

In substance, Buddhism says, “sorrow and pain are universal. Therefore under, for all must suffer.”

Not much comfort there!

The stoic seeks to become calloused in soul and therefore indifferent to suffering, a remedy worse than the disease.

A dead heart is worse than a broken heart.

Christian Science offers escape from the ills of life by denying and ignoring their reality, thus supposedly destroying their hold on human consciousness.

Opposed to all of these is Jesus’ solution, which lies in the opposite direction in the abundant life, the happy Christian life, the eternal life that He came to give.

Christianity would swallow up grief and pain in victory, mortality in life, and transmute the sorrows and trials of life into the joys and fellowship and love of heaven’s own citizens.

Only Christ can give “Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

These words are true to the fact, especially in three relationships.

1. These words are true to the fact of the conversion experience.

The mourning of conviction for sin is comforted by the joy of forgiveness.

Every Christian remembers the long night of weeping under sin’s conviction before conversion came in the morning.

We were miserable and wretched, and then after weeping had endured for the night, the joy, the comfort, and the peace of God came in the morning.

Then we understood David’s exulting words in Psalm 32:1, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered.” 

We may paraphrase our text, “Blessed is the sinner who mourns because of his sin, for he shall be comforted as he finds the peace of God unto salvation.

Not all mourning is blessed.

2 Corinthians 7:10 says, For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

The mourning that comes from our own foolishness is not blessed but has a curse on to.

The mourning over the failure of treacherous schemes, or of the hurt of passion untamed, or of the loss of hoard treasure is not blessed.

All mourning over sin is blessed.

“Blessed are they that mourn” refers to those who show repentant sorrow for sin that results in God’s pardon and peace.

The New Testament abounds with illustrations.

If the prodigal son was a sorrow stricken sinner, his reception by his father represents th comfort God has ready for the sinner who mourns over his sin.

The woman who wept scalding tears of repentance and gratitude on Jesus’ feet was comforted when He said the her, “Thy sins are forgiven” in Luke 7:48.

The thief on the cross turned in his agony to cry, “Jesus, remember me, and he was comforted, even in death.

But the most telling illustration is not in the long ago, nor even in the Scriptures, but in the here and now, in your heart and mine where God’s salvation has spoken comfort to our souls.

2. These words are true to the facts of a developing, enlarging, deepening Christian life.

In pressing toward the goal of the Christian life, weeping often comes in to lodge as a guest for the night, but always, again and again, and in a more and more wonderful way, joy comes in the morning.

As we grow toward, “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, our capacity for life enlarges, our sensibilities to its wrongs quicken, and our struggle with sin deepens into a deadlier and more desperate conflict.

It is also true that our capacity for the true joy of heaven’s realm in like measure increases.

As the prophet Isaiah had said, Jesus was preeminently “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”

He was so because, He felt all the sin of man with all the conscience of God.

Growth in Christ enlarges our capacity to live and therefore increases our capacity for pain and joy.

The biologist ranks living creatures according to their capacity for pain on one hand or joy on the other.

Near the bottom of the scale lies the earthworm, with few capacities for life.

Ten comes the turtle, who’s hard shell guards it from suffering and whose cold blood makes it sluggish.

Near the top of the animal kingdom is the horse, a finely coordinated, sensitive, spirited, intelligent animal.

It lives much and suffers much.

At the top of the sale stands man, the apex of creation.

Man rejoices in the richness of mental and spiritual nature yet is the supreme mourner.

Man does not reach the summit however until in Christ he becomes a new creature.

Then his capacity for life is brought to its fullest.

No one can suffer like the full grown, mature man in Christ, but, on the other hand, no man can rejoice as he can.

“Blessed are they that mourn,” as only the true Christian can, “for they shall be comforted” with al the comfort of God that the world knows not.

Growth in Christ quickens our sensibilities to the wrongs and woes of the world.

We cannot grow in the knowledge and likeness of Christ without taking to ourselves some of His love for the world and therefore some of His sorrow for its sins.

Christ is a man of sorrows because He loves the world and knows its sins.

He feels all the sin of the world with all the heart of God.

“Blessed are they that mourn” because of the sorrows and sins of the world, “for they shall be comforted” by being made ministering saints.

Growth in Christ deepens the conflict with sin in our lives.

If we develop the power to resist sin, we sorrow all the more for our failures when we do stumble and fall.

Here is the obvious fallacy of the doctrine of sinless perfection.

Our sensitivity to sin, our hatred of sin, deepens as, through Christ, our power over it increases, and no mature Christian ever thought of himself as sinless and perfect.

“Blessed are they that mourn” the deepest over their shortcomings and sins, “for they shall be comforted” to the full.

3. These words are, and ever shall be, true to the fact of eternity.

Like a photographer who shoots with film, we sometimes need to take our negatives into a darkroom to develop them, and in the darkroom the image gradually appears clearer and clearer.

Isn’t hat, in part at least, what suffering and sorrow mean in our lives?

Compared to the unfading light of heaven’s realm, this world is God’s darkroom, but the artist of our souls is patient, and little by little the image appears.

Our day He will take us out, the image clear, into the light of heaven’s perfect day, and then shall come to pass the saying, “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.”

After the earth’s night of weeping is past, heaven’s joy comes in the morning.

Conclusion.

Where does this comfort come from that comforts us?

Not from ourselves, for we are like landlocked pools with limited reserves, but from the God of all comfort, as His power, like a river flows through our lives.

2 Corinthians 1:3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.

Revelation 21:4 says, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

There will be no weeping in heaven.

We will enter heaven with the stain of tears on our faces.

God Himself will wipe away our tears, and it will be for the last time.

Until next time

Stay in the Blessings

I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.

When you spend time with God, your life will change in amazing ways, because God is a Redeemer. Theres nothing thats too hard for Him, and He can make you whole, spirit, soul and body!

You’re important to God, and you’re important to us at The Refinery.

When it comes to prayer, we believe that God wants to meet your needs and reveal His promises to you.

So whatever you’re concerned about and need prayer for we want to be here for you! Or even if you just want to say Hi, you can contact us at www.refinerylife.org

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