Grievers || Behind the Beatitudes || Week 2

Introduction

Welcome back to another message in the “Behind the Beatitudes” series. This series takes a deeper look at what the Beatitudes mean for each of us in our lives. Last week we looked at the first Beatitude, which talked about how the poor in spirit will be blessed because they will receive the blessings that come with the Kingdom of God. This week, as the title suggests, we’re going to look at how those who grieve are blessed. Join me in Matthew 5:4 to read what this Beatitude says.

4 Great blessings belong to those who are sad now. God will comfort them. 

At face value, it’s easy to interpret this. Those who are sad will be comforted by God. Simple enough, right? What if I told you it is more profound than it sounds. Let’s dive into it. 

The Feeling of Grief

In this verse, Jesus speaks of mourning over sin specifically. This is already different than how we think about it. When we think of grief, we think about mourning over someone or something that we lost. Sin could technically fall into that category, but I think that’s a conversation for another day.

This verse speaks on the godly sorry that produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. To talk more about that, let’s head over to 2 Corinthians 7:10. It says this:

10 The kind of sorrow God wants makes people decide to change their lives. This leads them to salvation, and we cannot be sorry for that. But the kind of sorrow the world has will bring death.

“Grief” here refers to the sorrow that is according to the will of God and produced by the Holy Spirit. True repentance is something that cannot occur without genuinely feeling sorrowful over your sin. The concept of this grief “leading” to salvation was something added by the translators. Paul uses it here to say that repentance belongs to the realm of salvation. Repentance is something that is at the very heart of and proves one’s own salvation. It follows this pattern:

• Unbelievers repent of their sin initially when they are saved.
• Then as believers, repent of their sins continually to keep the joy and blessing of their relationship to God.

Paul also expands on this concept of grief by talking about the grief of the world. Human sorrow is unsanctified remorse and has no redemptive capability. It’s not more than the wounded pride of getting caught in a sin and having one’s lusts go unfulfilled. That kind of sorrow leads only to guilt, shame, despair, depression, self-pity, and hopelessness. 

I really find this concept of worldly grief fascinating, especially in today’s culture. The ideas listed at the end of the last paragraph are discussed a lot in the mental health community. (To my best knowledge. I’m not a mental health expert, but a strong advocate.) I mentioned before how I’ve been working on improving my mental health. Some of these concepts have been brought up in my journey. We tend to feel this way because these concepts are very observable and tangible in today’s world. We live in a time of social media comparisons and feel guilty that we’re not what someone else is showcasing. We live in a time when we feel ashamed because other people our age are “more successful” than us, even though success is a subjective term. Because of this art of comparison, we feel depressed about ourselves and how we think we’re progressing through life. Then we feel hopeless that we’ll amount to anything in life because we’re not what others are showcasing. If these feelings are intense enough, it could even lead to suicide because people don’t feel like they can continue their life journey since they can’t keep up with others. Again, this is very much my perception and not an actual mental health evaluation of the world. 

I want to lead the closing paragraph in this section by saying that social media showcases parts of a person’s highs. It doesn’t show the struggles, hardships, and issues they dealt with along their path. It doesn’t show the sleepless nights, the anxious thoughts, the depressing attitudes. It shows none of that. Therefore, don’t compare yourself to what you see others post because that’s what they want you to see. Don’t fall victim to the art of comparison. That’s the earthly sorrow that happens way too much. As this beatitude shows, though, God will comfort us when we feel this sorrow and grief. We will receive the blessings from God to lift us out of this grief journey and learn to feel confident in the path He is guiding us on.

Comfort Us 

As we’ve spoken on before, the comfort mentioned here refers to the comfort of forgiveness and salvation. To dive into this a little deeper, join me in Isaiah 40. We need to read verses 1 and 2.

1 Your God says, “Comfort, comfort my people.

2 Speak kindly to Jerusalem and tell her, ‘Your time of service is finished. You have paid the price for your sins.’ I, the Lord, have punished you twice for every sin you committed.

This prophecy is addressed to God’s prophets. It instructs them to emphasize comfort to captive people in a foreign land many miles from Jerusalem’s home city. God has some great plans for Israel to receive a great blessing because they are his covenant people, who are never permanently cast away. God mentions that they repented for their sin. The cruel slaughter and captivity at the hands of the Babylonians were sufficient payment for their past sins. Now, after this worldwide dispersion, Israel will be able to return to their land in peace and in the glory of the Messiah’s kingdom.

This concept of comfort that Jesus preaches about in the Sermon on the Mount was prophesied in Isaiah’s book. God tells their prophets to preach on the idea of comfort. After all the hardship and struggles they endured because of their individual sin and overall sin, God will make things better. This simple concept that no matter how sinful we are throughout our life, God will comfort us along the way. Guiding us with each step to becoming more Christ-like. It was as simple as the beatitude states, but I feel like we learned a lot more about why this concept was a beatitude. It’s an interesting fact to me that this Beatitude came through as a prophetic statement by Jesus. A sign of his own learning of the Old Testament and how to apply it to a modern Christ-like approach to living.

Summary and Preview

Today we learned about the Beatitude of grief. We learned that grief is about the grief we feel over our sin and how we need to truthfully acknowledge our own sin to accomplish true repentance. Only through this will we find salvation. We also learned that grief was prophesied in the book of Isaiah. This shows us how Jesus validates the Old Testament teachings and teaches how we can apply them to our lives. 

Next week we look at how we can be humbled throughout our lives. Until then, stay blessed.