THE HOPE CHOICE

Blessed to mourn?! Honestly, we don't like to experience sorrow and we HOPE we won't. We'd wish for life to go great with nothing but sunshine. How many times have I heard people say just this week, "AARRHHGG - ALL THIS RAIN!" But the Arabs have a proverb that says, "All sunshine makes a desert." Still, we would have written this second Beatitude as "Blessed are those who have no tears at all." However, we'll never understand the paradox of the words of Christ from Matthew 5:4 until we understand what he meant when he said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

This second Beatitude actually grows out of the first that said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3) We discovered the meaning of the first Beatitude to be, I admit I need help. That I'm powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing, and my life is unmanageable. Since we realize we have indeed made bad choices, and our tendency is to do the wrong thing, there should be an emotional response we have every time we fail God.

That brings us to the next healthy choice we'll talk about this weekend; THE HOPE CHOICE. My hope doesn't come from being self-sufficient but in the all sufficient Christ. The mourning Jesus speaks of here which brings Christ's blessing is not about unfulfilled dreams or personal tragedies. The mourning here is about grief over sin. Haddon W. Robinson in The Christian Salt & Light Company says this: "The second Beatitude is the emotional expression of the first. The poor in spirit are those who sense their need of God and who mourn over their sins." Learn this truth:

My mourning determines my comfort.

This weekend we'll talk about that. If we mourn the wrong losses, we'll certainly turn to the wrong comfort. When I place my hope on goods rather than God, my mourning will reflect my values, rather than reveal my comfort. In other words, when we mourn over the wrong things, our comfort will be as sad as our mourning, and we'll miss the blessing we've been promised. My mourning over stuff becomes the stuff of my mourning whereas my mourning over sin becomes my pathway to comfort. THE HOPE CHOICE will teach us healthy choices, resulting in good outcomes, regardless of the situations we face.

See you at the HOPE PLACE this weekend!

Pastor Steve