Blessed Are Those Who Mourn 1981

I'd like to talk this morning about what I believe is, without a doubt, the most urgent need in this flock, and probably in other flocks that may be represented by believers here today. We'll start out by reading verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 126, Psalm 126, 5 and 6, very familiar to us. First, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Oswald Chambers tells us that in our proclaiming of the word to people, we get pretty much the response that we aim for. For instance, if you have the right technique, and you're aiming to get people to cry, you can make them cry.

So now they're crying, but their hearts haven't changed. Maybe you want to get them to run down to the altar rail. So you aim for this, and if you have a little savvy, you can do it, and here they are at the altar rail, but their hearts haven't changed.

Now I'm not saying it's wrong to come to the altar rail, I'm not saying it's wrong to cry, but I'm saying that those things have to be the outward evidence of something inward. So if we, on the other hand, aim at the heart, at genuine repentance, at a true change of heart, we may not have as dramatic a response, but those whose hearts are tender toward God will respond, their hearts will change, they will repent. Now this principle, if you want to call it that, applies not only to preaching to a congregation or to a large evangelistic gathering, but it equally applies, or probably more importantly for all of us here, to our day in and day out contacts and dealings with people in the name of the Lord on a one-to-one basis.

If we play with people's emotion, we can get emotion, but that's no more significant than crying at the movies. What we have to do is aim not only for emotion, but we have to aim at the mind, the will, the heart. Otherwise, we could come together every Sunday, work ourselves into a good cry, and still never change.

But, while it may be true that weeping in church is often no more significant than weeping at the movies, it is also true that there is a kind of weeping which not only changes us, it moves God. There is a kind of weeping that breaks our pride and prepares the way for the coming of the Spirit into our hearts. There is a kind of weeping that causes us to forget about ourselves and to begin to pester God and cry out to Him to visit Israel, Zion, the body, whatever we call it, and heal it.

And this kind of weeping is desperately needed in the body of Christ at this hour. It comes as a gift straight from the Lamb of God Himself, who did His share of weeping while He was here in flesh and blood, and no doubt still weeps. And we have to be careful not to stifle this gift or hinder it when God begins to pour it out upon us.

For instance, sometimes we hear people say, I can't come to fellowship right now because I know that if I did, all I would do would be to sit there and weep. So come and weep. I can't really open my heart to God right now because even when I just open it a half an inch, I start to cry.

So go ahead and cry. I can't even pray these days, somebody says, because when I start to pray, the tears come. Is that a sin? Don't stifle this gift, this precious gift God is trying to give you.

Matthew 5, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who mourn.

Luke 7, soon afterward, he went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. And as he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the city was with her.

When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep. And he came and touched the bearer, and the bearer stood still, and he said, young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak.

And he gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, a great prophet has risen among us. God has visited his people.

And this report concerning him spread throughout the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. And on the human side, the key to this resurrection sign of the kingdom was this weeping woman. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep.

Then to the young man who was dead, young man, I say to you, arise, and the dead man sat up and began to speak. Life comes to the dead man. Revival comes to Israel.

New life comes to the body of Christ through this weeping woman. This woman who is weeping is a sign of the Christ himself. She's weeping for her dead son, even as Jesus is weeping for his dead nation.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his seeds with him. Most of us at this time do not have this gift of weeping, or if we do, we're trying to squelch it.

But if Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn, this mourning must be worth pursuing. It must be worth pursuing the weeping of repentance, for instance. How are we ever going to truly know the peace of God? Until our hearts break, and when our hearts truly break in repentance before the Father, how are we going to stop crying? Back into Luke 7, one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and sat at table.

And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was sitting at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.

And he answered, what is it, teacher? A certain creditor had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii, the other 50. When they could not pay, he forgave them both.

Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one I suppose to whom he forgave more. And he said, you have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house.

You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss. But from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.

And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Notice that in this whole episode, the woman doesn't say a single thing. All she does is weep.

Wetting his feet, drying it with her hair, kissing them, anointing them with the ointment. And from this woman's broken heart flowed two pure streams, the stream of pure repentance which answers to Jesus' blood, and the stream of pure love which answers to Jesus' spirit. Well, you say, maybe all right for her, but I never sinned the way she did.

I don't have as much to be forgiven for. Not until we begin to break in repentance. But when we do, we'll be right at that lady's side, weeping and somehow showing some kind of appreciation, some kind of love to the one who took our sins upon himself.

From Jeremiah 50. In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel and the people of Judah shall come together, weeping as they come, and they shall seek the Lord their God. And they shall ask the way to Zion with faces turned toward it, saying, come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant which will never be forgotten.

Revival for Israel. Revival for the church. Begin with the spirit of weeping.

May God give us such weeping. May God give us such a repentance that he may raise us from the dead, lift us up into his light. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

It's worth pursuing the weeping of vision. When people begin to receive vision from God, so that they start to have some glimpse of God as he really is, and some sense of the body of Christ as it really is, they are overwhelmed by the discrepancy between the goodness of God and our hardness as the body. And they are driven to weeping.

Palm Sunday. Jesus is riding the donkey down into Jerusalem. People are spreading garments in his path, putting down the palm branches, shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Luke tells us that while this is going on, Jesus gets to a certain point, looks out over the city, and starts to weep as if his heart is breaking. Right in the middle of all this festivity, when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace.

But now they are hid from your eyes. For the day shall come upon you when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you and hand you in on every side and dash you to the ground. You and your children within you.

And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. Jesus sees the hand of his father reaching out toward the city in love. And he sees the people pushing that hand away to go on about their own affairs.

And he weeps. And as he weeps, he joins his heart to the heart of his father. Which brings us to the most important kind of weeping of all of them.

The weeping of intercession. It's worth pursuing the weeping of intercession. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

How do you sow in tears? You sow in tears by praying for people who have drifted from the father's house. And you keep on praying for these people months, years, and you keep at it. Sometimes real tears come.

Sometimes it's inside you. But if you keep on praying, you'll begin to have that. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, that seed of prayer, the seed of intercession, shall that which come again with rejoicing bringing the sheaves with him.

Jeremiah 8. My grief is beyond healing. My heart is sick within me. Hark the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land.

Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her king not in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images and their foreign idols? The harvest is past. The summer is ended. And we are not saved.

For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded. I mourn and dismay has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

Now, such a spirit of heartbreaking intercession, concern, worry for the body of Christ, for the suffering of the world, does not come naturally to any of us. Our normal routine is to cry for ourselves or to cry at the movies when we identify with a hero. They're just about to get gobbled up by the alligator.

Such a weeping concern for Israel, the church, for the world and all its suffering, for the injustice everywhere, for people who are hurting right under our noses, comes as a gift. As the spirit of the Lord begins to move us, so do we. But every time such a spirit of weeping, prayer, mourning intercession begins to visit the body of Christ, it is invariably followed by revival.

The woman weeps, her son comes back to life. Jesus weeps, Lazarus is raised from the dead. John weeps, the Lamb takes the scroll and starts to break the seals.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. There is a spirit of weeping which flows from beneath the very throne of God, which the Father has been longing to give to us, and we've been afraid of it. We're afraid to open our hearts and let it move in us.

If this spirit of weeping should again begin to move upon us, God help us not to be afraid or embarrassed or self-conscious. For this weeping is the very gift of God that opens heaven to our hearts and to our prayers and to those for whom we pray. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. May the Lord just show us what this means for us and for his body everywhere. Let's just wait upon him in silence now for a while, please.

We pray Lord God that even this day, by your great mercy and by your awesome power, you would bring us into your heart and mind. Enable us in some way, Lord God, to begin to see yourself, the church, the world, our own lives the way you see them. Move us, oh God, out of our stony self-centeredness and our self-righteousness and our superficial ways.

Bring us, Lord God, into your mind. Bring our hearts up to that cross and nail them there with the Lord. Heavenly Father, we ask it for his mercy's sake.