The word, radical, comes from the word root. Jesus came to transform Adam and his race at the root, redeeming us from slavery to sin and implanting the very nature of God in us through the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts. As Paul reminds the Romans, God ‘s purpose for us is “to be conformed to the image of his son” (Rom 8:29). Radical manhood begins with the heart attitudes that shaped Jesus—and we come to the second of these in this article. “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” (Matt 5:4)
What kind of mourning does Jesus want us to experience and which results in the joy of Christ’s blessing?
Jesus is not talking about human pain in general. Our Lord is not a sadist. Neither is he talking about the grief of bereavement. He is talking about the grief of repentance. The attitude he has in mind is the grief of godly sorrow over sin. This beatitude might be stated, Blessed are those who develop the capacity to properly grieve over sin, for they will be comforted. Here are 5 observations about how this heart attitude is lived out:
1. This is a fundamental attitude towards sin that refuses to take sin lightly. James tells us, “Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”The world’s attitude towards sin may be to wink at it, laugh about it, ignore it, excuse it, or minimize it. In sharp contrast, Godly manhood takes sin in general, and our own sin in particular, very seriously.
2. Developing my capacity to grieve properly over my sin happens when I stop seeing my sin primarily as breaking a rule and start seeing it as violating a relationship. Keeping his commandments has always been PERSONAL with God. In Deut. 6:5-6 we read, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.”Jesus repeated the same principle, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” God puts a relational context around the issue of our obedience. When you violate an impersonal rule, your conscience bothers you, you confess, no big deal. But when you violate a person because of your sin, especially one who is precious to you, it tears you up inside. David understood this truth when after his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah, he cried out, “Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” Blessed are those who take the time to reflect on how much our disobedience grieves the heart of God.
3. The more I develop godly sorrow over sin the less I will struggle with envying the wicked. In Psalm 73, Asaph reflects some of the feelings I sometimes have—feeling like the wicked are prospering, they’re getting away with sin, they are experiencing the good life. I must confess that I struggle sometimes with the neighbor across the street who drives a Porsche and who’s wife and kids drive Land Rovers. It must be nice to have no financial worries. I hear about Fifty Shades of Graybecoming a huge best-seller and for a moment I think, “Every other married couple is reading this to spice up their love life but my wife and I can’t.” Asaph tells us he envied the wicked “till I entered the sanctuary of the Lord and saw their destiny.” Sin always pays its servant. The wage is death. Paul writes, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction. (Gal 6:7-8). I need to learn to obey Romans 12:9 “Hate what is evil” because sin always breaks God’s creation.
4. Grief rather than anger over our child’s sin may have surprising consequences. One man told me the story of the first lie he ever told to his father. His father just stood there looking at the floor. He said absolutely nothing for a long time. Then with great heaviness in his voice, he said to his son, “I’m so sad to know that you have lied to me.” The dad was heartbroken and his son knew it. The son told me that to this day, he’s never lied to his father again.
5. The more I mourn because of what sin has done to this good world, the more easily I see that the Gay activist is not my enemy—HE IS BEING HELD CAPTIVE BY MY ENEMY. I may use my free speech and vote to oppose his views, but all the while, I must be weeping inside for him. Did you know that gay men are six times more likely to commit suicide than other men? God wants me to grieve over the recent decision of World Vision to redefine marriage to include homosexual partnerships. But to keep my heart right, I think Jesus would say I need to grieve just as much over the way the homosexual life style destroys, as all sexual sin destroys, the precious lives of those enslaved by it. On the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry Luke tells us that as Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city he wept over it. Jesus foresaw the horrible destruction that would befall Jerusalem in 70 AD because of its rejection of him. The archetype man stops to grieve over the destruction that sin always brings with it. I don’tknow aboutyou but Ineed to do this a lot more! It is a mark of godly manhood.
