“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)
As shocking as it sounds to most people that it is those that are poor in spirit that are blessed (inward happiness or joy), the beatitude that we will look at today is even more shocking to the modern mind in the USA, if not everywhere. While we normally think that it is the people that are self-confident with high self-esteem that have true inner happiness rather than the poor in spirit, yet we can understand with more explanation how that might seem so. However, this beatitude tells us that those who mourn are the people that are truly happy and this seems so contradictory that it shocks people to hear that mourning and joy can be reconciled.
We must first consider that happiness is not in outer things but in God Himself. Happiness will only happen when a person is reconciled to God and His sovereign will. As long as we are fighting God and not content with what He wants, we will be unhappy and have inward tension. A lot of man’s unhappiness is the result of being frustrated with things that happen that man does not want. So when man submits to the Lord and seeks the will of God, man may find happiness because he is submitted to what God wants. The hidden or decretive will of God is always done and cannot fail to happen. If it is God’s pleasure that man is happy in a circumstance, then man should be happy in that circumstance since it is the Lord who brings it to pass. Spiritual growth occurs when man becomes more and more resolved to be pleased in all that the Lord wills.
Happiness should not be thought of in relation to how things affect me, but on how they relate to the glory of God. It is His joy and love in me that gives true joy. Mourning over the things that are against His glory is not inconsistent as a sign of true love and joy. When God puts such a love for Himself in the hearts of His people that they mourn over things because of how they relate to His name, then the same love that gives us reason to mourn is also attended with the joy of love for His glory. In other words, mourning over things that on this earth are against His name and glory is not inconsistent with true love and joy for God. It is the presence of God in the soul that brings the soul to a sight of things that produce true spiritual mourning, but it is also His presence that brings true joy to the soul. These things are not inconsistent in the spiritual realm.
I will even argue that a soul that does not mourn over certain things cannot ever know true joy. Not only, then, is a true mourning out of a true love not inconsistent with true inner happiness, but a true joy will not be possible on this earth apart from some degree of mourning. The things that God has put together here on earth are opposite of the way man things from his naturalistic way of thinking. The natural man cannot understand how mourning and happiness can go together, but that is because he is not thinking from a God-centered viewpoint. Let us think of Christ for an example. We know that Christ wept and mourned. We also know that Christ never sinned and so had perfect love for the Father at all times. We also know that Christ was given the Spirit without measure and the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy. If we put all those things together, can we imagine that Christ did not love the Father and have joy in Him while He wept and mourned? We can also know that Christ would not have wept and mourned in the same way if He had not loved and had joy in the Father. We can conclude that the divine life in a human soul will cause such a love and joy in the Father that man will mourn for certain things while in the midst of his love and joy in the Father. This is to be like Christ.
The affections are surely in view here. As we have affections of joy and delight, so there are affections of mourning as well. The mind sees or apprehends those things that are cause for mourning but the affections must feel it as well. We feel an inner pain when we mourn and have heaviness of heart. We must feel pain when that which we love is dishonored and trod in the dust. It must hurt us inwardly to see that beauty which we love to be spoken of in an evil fashion and mocked. The honor and glory of God which we love more than anything is being mocked and dishonored. How can we not have an inward response of pain to this? How can we love and delight in the cross without hurting to hear it despised and mocked? Surely that is the heart of Paul in Phil 3:18?
If our priority in prayer comes from a desire for the glory of God, how can we be without feeling when His name is dishonored? If our real desire is for His kingdom to come, then how can we watch the backward movement of the Church without inward pain? If our love is for His will and pleasure to be done, then how can we watch His will and pleasure being trampled on with each passing moment? This is an issue of the heart and it is an issue of our spirituality. If we are lukewarm, then our mourning will be lukewarm. If we are cold of heart, our mourning will be cold if we have any at all. If we have warm hearts for God and His glory, we may have pain when we mourn at times. The degree of our love for God and joy in Him is seen by our mourning for His name and kingdom.
A person who is poor in spirit mourns over the lost honor and glory of God more than his own. That person mourns over God’s kingdom more than his own and mourns over God’s pleasure more than his own. The degree of mourning corresponds to our depth of love for Him. The heart that hurts over God’s honor is the one that loves Him. The heart that loves His honor more than self is the one that loves Him. The one who loves the glory of God more than that of the self is the one that mourns when His glory appears to be eclipsed. In other words, it is not inconsistent for a person that loves God and has great joy in Him to mourn for Him at the same time.
C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” It is because our desires for God are too weak and our desires for ourselves are too strong that we mourn for the wrong things and therefore have no joy in our mourning. A zeal for God is necessary if we are not to be lukewarm. Surely we can see that a faith in the living and all-delightful God who is beautiful beyond description will inspire a zeal to some degree. Surely this love and faith for Him will move our affections and make us feel for Him. We feel for family, ourselves, and things of the world. Surely we should have affections and feeling for God. Loving Him with all of our being includes the affections.
Paul instructs us in this matter as well: “and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more” (2 Corinthians 7:7). Paul heard of the longing, mourning, and zeal for him and this caused him to rejoice even more. This may sound self-centered if read in one sense, but let us not forget what Paul told them earlier in the letter: “Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy” (II Cor 1:24). Paul worked with those people for their joy and did not see that it was inconsistent when they mourned for him as an apostle of Christ. A true mourning is a sign of true love for Christ which must be attended with a true joy.
Again, in the same letter, we see Paul not wanting to cause the people sorrow. “But I determined this for my own sake, that I would not come to you in sorrow again. 2 For if I cause you sorrow, who then makes me glad but the one whom I made sorrowful? 3 This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all” (II Corinthians 2:1-3). In another letter he wrote this: “Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:25).
As we have seen, Jesus wept and Paul had great affections. We do not mourn because we are half-hearted creatures fooling around with and desiring the world more than Christ and as such we are not like Christ or Paul. We do mourn over the absence and loss of what we love or desire. We mourn over lost games and money. We mourn when we do not get something we desire. Mourning and what we love the most go together. If we love God and His glory and kingdom the most, that will be our source of mourning in the sense that we will mourn when His glory is trod in the dust or when His kingdom is not advancing.
Do we mourn over our declension in love, faith, and prayer? We should mourn over God’s glory and kingdom, sin, others, and ourselves as to spiritual declension and sin. We should mourn over our lack of love and prayer. The Stoics desired not to desire so they could be at a perfect equilibrium at all times. They did not want to be disappointed with a loss or something bad that happened to them. But that is not Christianity. As Jonathan Edwards said in Religious Affections, true religion consists in the affections. As one greater than Jonathan Edwards said, “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (I Peter 1:8). One even greater said this, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mat 13:44). A faith that has affections like that is a faith that will mourn with true happiness. Jesus said so and that means the issue is settled. May your week be filled with mourning.
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