1
00:00:00,050 --> 00:00:03,805
If you have your Bibles this evening,
let's turn to Matthew chapter five.

2
00:00:04,165 --> 00:00:06,685
So we're going through the Beatitudes.

3
00:00:07,045 --> 00:00:09,175
The bee attitudes.

4
00:00:09,805 --> 00:00:10,945
The bee attitudes.

5
00:00:11,005 --> 00:00:14,905
And um, we looked at blessed
are the poor in spirit for they

6
00:00:14,905 --> 00:00:17,635
shall inherit the kingdom of God.

7
00:00:18,155 --> 00:00:22,345
and then we're getting into, blessed
are those who mourn this evening.

8
00:00:22,345 --> 00:00:24,445
This sermon's title is
called Good Morning.

9
00:00:26,505 --> 00:00:27,045
gotta Do It.

10
00:00:27,045 --> 00:00:27,105
Yeah.

11
00:00:27,445 --> 00:00:28,135
good morning.

12
00:00:28,855 --> 00:00:33,795
And, and so let me read the Beatitudes
and uh, then we'll get started.

13
00:00:34,305 --> 00:00:36,705
I'm gonna start in verse one of
chapter five, seeing the crowds.

14
00:00:36,705 --> 00:00:40,425
He went up onto the mountain and when
he sat down, his disciples came to him

15
00:00:40,905 --> 00:00:45,885
and he opened his mouth and taught them
saying, blessed are the poor in spirit

16
00:00:46,155 --> 00:00:48,555
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

17
00:00:49,245 --> 00:00:53,445
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

18
00:00:54,255 --> 00:00:55,665
Blessed are the meek.

19
00:00:56,175 --> 00:00:58,065
For they shall inherit the earth.

20
00:00:58,665 --> 00:01:01,695
Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness,

21
00:01:01,755 --> 00:01:03,615
for they shall be satisfied.

22
00:01:03,825 --> 00:01:06,795
Blessed are the merciful for
they shall receive mercy.

23
00:01:07,035 --> 00:01:10,245
Blessed are the pure in
heart for they shall see God.

24
00:01:10,245 --> 00:01:15,405
What blessed are the peacemakers for
they shall be called the sons of God.

25
00:01:15,645 --> 00:01:18,765
Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness sake, for

26
00:01:18,765 --> 00:01:20,385
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

27
00:01:20,715 --> 00:01:25,875
Blessed are you when others revile you
and persecute you and utter all kinds of

28
00:01:25,875 --> 00:01:28,545
evil against you falsely on my account.

29
00:01:29,205 --> 00:01:35,175
Rejoice and be glad for your reward is
great in heaven for so they persecuted

30
00:01:35,175 --> 00:01:38,325
the prophets who were be for you.

31
00:01:38,445 --> 00:01:41,745
This is the word of the Lord.

32
00:01:43,905 --> 00:01:49,185
My wife thought she was marrying
Han Solo, but she ended up early

33
00:01:49,185 --> 00:01:51,104
on marrying Luke Skywalker.

34
00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:53,295
Let me explain.

35
00:01:53,460 --> 00:01:53,550
Yes.

36
00:01:55,740 --> 00:02:00,370
It wasn't too long after our marriage
that we were at church all the time.

37
00:02:00,710 --> 00:02:05,170
we were both helping, in the youth group
in junior high, uh, down at a church

38
00:02:05,170 --> 00:02:09,449
in Modesta But as became the weekly
practice after we left Sunday night,

39
00:02:09,449 --> 00:02:14,220
cleaning everything, some of the last
people to leave, getting ready mentally

40
00:02:14,220 --> 00:02:19,540
to get up early in the morning, to travel
to the Bay Area for work on our drive,

41
00:02:19,540 --> 00:02:22,600
it became like a worn piece of carpet.

42
00:02:22,850 --> 00:02:26,719
this conversation that happened
weekly, over and over, and

43
00:02:26,719 --> 00:02:28,129
it went something like this.

44
00:02:28,219 --> 00:02:30,259
Why don't they see my potential?

45
00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:34,159
Why don't they see that
if they just hired me?

46
00:02:34,654 --> 00:02:36,184
It would fix all their problems.

47
00:02:36,184 --> 00:02:40,625
Why doesn't God, like he
chose David when he was young.

48
00:02:40,775 --> 00:02:46,235
See this young, passionate kid
for his kingdom and pick him.

49
00:02:46,775 --> 00:02:48,605
Why doesn't, why is he stopping?

50
00:02:48,605 --> 00:02:50,255
Why am I being overlooked?

51
00:02:50,255 --> 00:02:51,724
Why am I being overseen?

52
00:02:52,115 --> 00:02:56,584
And um, finally my wife was like,
man, you're kind of a whiner,

53
00:02:59,195 --> 00:03:03,755
in so many words, kind kindly
endured for weeks and weeks and

54
00:03:03,755 --> 00:03:05,375
months and months and months.

55
00:03:06,065 --> 00:03:10,080
But there was a weeping that came out
of that for me, a weeping of, longing.

56
00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:13,865
A weeping of not having the thing
that I thought that I needed that

57
00:03:13,865 --> 00:03:16,025
would make my life fulfilling.

58
00:03:16,025 --> 00:03:21,845
Or I had convinced myself deep
down in my bones that God would get

59
00:03:21,845 --> 00:03:23,675
the glory the best way this way.

60
00:03:24,815 --> 00:03:27,454
And oh, why wasn't it happening?

61
00:03:27,454 --> 00:03:28,625
And it crushed my soul.

62
00:03:28,625 --> 00:03:33,125
It crushed my spirit to the point where
I just wanted to give the whole thing.

63
00:03:33,454 --> 00:03:37,755
there was another time in my life,
years and years later, it would be

64
00:03:37,755 --> 00:03:41,805
easy to say that it began in the moment
when I was sitting on the edge of a

65
00:03:41,805 --> 00:03:47,115
rented bed in a colorless hotel room
off of Pikes Place in Seattle on a

66
00:03:47,625 --> 00:03:53,425
cool, rainy, foggy Seattle night, the
lightless hours of the Seattle night,

67
00:03:53,454 --> 00:03:55,615
pushing at the thin honeycomb glass.

68
00:03:55,795 --> 00:03:59,635
I sat there in a cheap thrift store
bought button down, feeling the grainy

69
00:03:59,635 --> 00:04:04,915
seams of my own personal familiar
shame running under my fingertips.

70
00:04:05,545 --> 00:04:08,245
It would be easy to say that's when
I came to the end of myself, but the

71
00:04:08,245 --> 00:04:12,625
truth is, I'd been inching toward
that edge since I was a child.

72
00:04:13,345 --> 00:04:17,274
Since my earliest memory of hearing a
church bell echo across a parking lot

73
00:04:17,575 --> 00:04:22,195
and feeling nothing but a cold, hope
that something someone would answer back

74
00:04:22,825 --> 00:04:24,475
most nights I was too tired to pray.

75
00:04:24,475 --> 00:04:27,475
Most nights I lay on my back
and watch the shadows on the

76
00:04:27,475 --> 00:04:29,655
ceiling, multiply and collapse.

77
00:04:30,015 --> 00:04:32,625
But on this particular night,
I was outta distractions.

78
00:04:32,625 --> 00:04:33,525
My phone was dead.

79
00:04:33,525 --> 00:04:38,475
The mini fridge empty, and the
only thing to do was face what?

80
00:04:38,475 --> 00:04:39,945
I was left with myself.

81
00:04:40,275 --> 00:04:44,505
A dry husk of religious ambition,
a catalog of broken promises, a

82
00:04:44,505 --> 00:04:48,975
black box recorder full of last
chances and half-hearted apologies.

83
00:04:48,975 --> 00:04:52,755
This night, surrounded by the
white noise of neon and passing

84
00:04:52,755 --> 00:04:57,945
traffic, I addressed my words to
the ceiling and finally said, Jesus.

85
00:04:58,065 --> 00:05:01,455
I said, my voice struggling to
be anything other than a memory.

86
00:05:01,755 --> 00:05:03,195
I don't have anything left to give you.

87
00:05:04,455 --> 00:05:06,914
It was more of a
resignation than a prayer.

88
00:05:06,914 --> 00:05:11,085
The words splintered in my mouth,
half bumbled as if I was embarrassed

89
00:05:11,085 --> 00:05:15,225
to be heard, even by the indifferent
ghost in the neighboring hotel rooms.

90
00:05:15,225 --> 00:05:19,424
But as soon as I said it, the music of
my failures begin to play in my head.

91
00:05:19,424 --> 00:05:22,485
The years of striving to be
good, the compulsive apologies

92
00:05:22,635 --> 00:05:24,405
to people who didn't even care.

93
00:05:24,794 --> 00:05:29,235
The endless confession in penance,
the constant gnawing suspicion that

94
00:05:29,235 --> 00:05:32,205
my heart was fundamentally not enough.

95
00:05:32,205 --> 00:05:36,194
I built my entire life on
the architecture of effort.

96
00:05:37,245 --> 00:05:41,294
If I could just try harder, be better,
do more, love, more, hate myself,

97
00:05:41,294 --> 00:05:47,683
less than maybe, maybe I could close
the gap, but the gap always widened.

98
00:05:49,065 --> 00:05:52,784
And so in that cheap hotel room, 'cause
that's all Stockton could afford, I

99
00:05:52,784 --> 00:05:55,664
did what I'd been trained not to do.

100
00:05:57,075 --> 00:06:00,465
I gave up, not just on myself.

101
00:06:01,905 --> 00:06:06,975
But on the entire premise that I could
ever be good enough to earn the affection

102
00:06:07,275 --> 00:06:12,105
of a God who by all accounts, asked
for wholeness and got scraps from me.

103
00:06:13,725 --> 00:06:18,705
It was that at that moment, somewhere
between the resignation and the silence

104
00:06:18,705 --> 00:06:22,155
that I heard at the voice was not
outside of me booming or celestial,

105
00:06:22,395 --> 00:06:26,205
but inside a quiet current, moving
through the marrow of my bones.

106
00:06:26,414 --> 00:06:30,435
I'd read about the still small voice a
hundred times growing up in church, but

107
00:06:30,435 --> 00:06:32,565
I never expected it to sound like this.

108
00:06:32,565 --> 00:06:33,975
Not thunder, but a hush.

109
00:06:34,605 --> 00:06:40,155
The hush after a storm, not an earthquake,
but a gentle settling of the world.

110
00:06:41,025 --> 00:06:42,225
And here's what the voice said.

111
00:06:42,465 --> 00:06:44,115
You guys have heard this story before.

112
00:06:45,225 --> 00:06:47,145
If you fail every day, I love you.

113
00:06:52,515 --> 00:06:57,674
There are no cliches, no platitudes, no
conditions or contractual obligations.

114
00:06:57,733 --> 00:06:58,213
No.

115
00:06:58,393 --> 00:07:01,693
If you change, I love
you, or you try harder.

116
00:07:01,693 --> 00:07:04,543
I love you only if you fail every day.

117
00:07:05,143 --> 00:07:05,923
I love you.

118
00:07:07,393 --> 00:07:12,223
The words didn't erase my shame so
much as they opened it up, let the

119
00:07:12,223 --> 00:07:16,160
cold air in, and for the first time I
could remember I felt something moving

120
00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,830
inside the petrified forest of my chest.

121
00:07:19,670 --> 00:07:23,810
The first thing I did was laugh, a
bleak and voluntary chuckle because

122
00:07:23,810 --> 00:07:29,989
the proposition was so foreign to
me in my religious mind and heart.

123
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,109
I never once believed that God's
affection could exist outside the

124
00:07:33,140 --> 00:07:36,020
calculus of my successes and failures.

125
00:07:36,349 --> 00:07:39,530
In every sermon, in every altar
call, the underlying message

126
00:07:39,530 --> 00:07:42,320
seemed to me to be always the same.

127
00:07:42,409 --> 00:07:44,989
If you do, then you'll be loved.

128
00:07:44,989 --> 00:07:49,489
But now sitting alone among the fossilized
failures of my life, I was being told

129
00:07:49,609 --> 00:07:51,775
because you are a loved, you can fail.

130
00:07:52,070 --> 00:07:52,129
Hmm.

131
00:07:53,749 --> 00:07:55,700
I wept, but the tears
were different this time.

132
00:07:55,700 --> 00:08:00,020
Not salt water regret or the
acid of self recrimination, but

133
00:08:00,020 --> 00:08:01,489
something warm, almost sweet.

134
00:08:01,489 --> 00:08:04,969
Each sob felt less like a collapse
and more like a release as if

135
00:08:04,969 --> 00:08:07,430
my soul was finally exhaling.

136
00:08:07,609 --> 00:08:12,170
After years of pretending it didn't
need air, I wept until the corners

137
00:08:12,170 --> 00:08:15,950
of the world brightened, and as dawn
pressed against the bruised horizon,

138
00:08:16,070 --> 00:08:20,900
I realized that I had been living in
a grail scale universe my entire life.

139
00:08:21,410 --> 00:08:25,609
Now the colors bled in the faint
blue of the Seattle sky, the red of

140
00:08:25,609 --> 00:08:29,190
the traffic lights blinking through
the fog, the yellow gold glow of

141
00:08:29,300 --> 00:08:31,010
the city awakening in the morning.

142
00:08:31,220 --> 00:08:34,010
I had read that love makes all
things new, but I had never

143
00:08:34,010 --> 00:08:35,360
believed it until that moment.

144
00:08:36,679 --> 00:08:45,170
The voice patient as weather repeated
itself every day for the rest of my life.

145
00:08:45,530 --> 00:08:46,760
When I stop and listen.

146
00:08:47,690 --> 00:08:51,790
If you fail every day, I love
you, and I wept, and I healed.

147
00:08:51,940 --> 00:08:55,300
And fruit was planted in that
moment and my life was never saying.

148
00:08:55,300 --> 00:08:58,900
Blessed are those who mourn
for they shall be comforted.

149
00:08:59,650 --> 00:09:01,210
There are different kinds of mourning.

150
00:09:01,930 --> 00:09:05,690
There's a kind of mourning
that is self-focused, already

151
00:09:05,690 --> 00:09:07,910
convinced of its idol.

152
00:09:07,910 --> 00:09:10,820
Just need, it will weep to get it.

153
00:09:10,820 --> 00:09:11,480
It will weep.

154
00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:14,240
When it doesn't get it, it will
weep when it has it and it's

155
00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:17,390
not fulfilling and it destroys.

156
00:09:17,435 --> 00:09:21,755
Yeah, but there is this kind of
mourning that is talked about

157
00:09:21,845 --> 00:09:23,915
here in the Sermon on the Mount.

158
00:09:24,095 --> 00:09:27,125
The other is saving,
healing, and flourishing.

159
00:09:27,425 --> 00:09:32,405
And the Bible is incredibly realistic
and doesn't tell us how to avoid

160
00:09:32,405 --> 00:09:37,685
weeping, but because weeping will
come us all, how it cannot destroy

161
00:09:37,685 --> 00:09:39,845
us, but actually make us better.

162
00:09:39,845 --> 00:09:46,315
And actually in the process, further and
flourish our joy, which is insane, which

163
00:09:46,315 --> 00:09:48,715
we might have to even get into next week.

164
00:09:48,715 --> 00:09:53,095
Next week, we'll look at the comfort
part because that is crazy by itself.

165
00:09:53,665 --> 00:09:54,835
Who's our comforter?

166
00:09:55,375 --> 00:09:56,935
The Holy Spirit given to us.

167
00:09:56,945 --> 00:09:57,395
Boom.

168
00:09:57,995 --> 00:10:01,124
The more so I wanna look at
this evening, three things.

169
00:10:01,445 --> 00:10:06,035
the morning that saves, the morning that
destroys, and the morning that transforms.

170
00:10:06,035 --> 00:10:06,845
The morning that saves,

171
00:10:08,915 --> 00:10:09,610
Matthew five, four.

172
00:10:10,925 --> 00:10:17,105
And that is blessed are those
who mourn for they shall be

173
00:10:17,435 --> 00:10:18,935
comforted, the mourning that saves.

174
00:10:18,935 --> 00:10:21,845
We've been going through the Sermon on
the Mount, specifically the Beatitudes.

175
00:10:22,265 --> 00:10:25,085
We conclude with many other
Saint in history as we look at

176
00:10:25,085 --> 00:10:28,985
the Sermon on the Mount as you
read it, and it's high standards.

177
00:10:29,435 --> 00:10:32,315
This is the conclusion that
you should come to as you

178
00:10:32,315 --> 00:10:33,575
read the Sermon on the Mount.

179
00:10:33,975 --> 00:10:38,745
who will save me from the Sermon on the
Mount as you read the Sermon on the Mount.

180
00:10:38,805 --> 00:10:40,965
You know, Jesus says, oh, well be holy.

181
00:10:41,235 --> 00:10:42,135
as I'm holy.

182
00:10:42,345 --> 00:10:43,215
Okay?

183
00:10:43,435 --> 00:10:43,445
um.

184
00:10:44,335 --> 00:10:45,445
Over and over.

185
00:10:45,445 --> 00:10:50,695
The standard is not mitigated and dumbed
down so that you can jump over the bar.

186
00:10:50,905 --> 00:10:56,005
It is so raised so high that even if
you thought you could get through, he

187
00:10:56,005 --> 00:11:00,355
opens up the inward world of your heart
and you have no chance and no hope.

188
00:11:00,355 --> 00:11:02,605
Who will save me from
the Sermon on the Mount.

189
00:11:02,665 --> 00:11:05,065
And one of the beautiful things
about the Sermon on the Mount is

190
00:11:05,065 --> 00:11:09,685
Jesus actually gives the gospel at
the beginning of it and at the end.

191
00:11:10,315 --> 00:11:16,365
And it's so amazing, because growing
up I saw the Beatitudes as different

192
00:11:16,365 --> 00:11:18,885
things, almost like a personality test.

193
00:11:19,395 --> 00:11:23,345
You know, you take a personality test
or you do the Enneagram, you come away

194
00:11:23,345 --> 00:11:26,165
from the Sermon on the Mount, which,
which beatitude are you drawn to?

195
00:11:26,195 --> 00:11:27,275
Well, you're the meek one.

196
00:11:27,485 --> 00:11:31,115
Well, you're the one who shows mercy or
you're, and here's your promise, this is

197
00:11:31,115 --> 00:11:33,155
kind of your personality in the church.

198
00:11:33,740 --> 00:11:34,970
And guess what?

199
00:11:35,060 --> 00:11:40,430
It's not that, and it took me forever
to see it, but it is the gospel itself,

200
00:11:40,460 --> 00:11:42,320
the string of pearls of salvation.

201
00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:42,950
Think about it.

202
00:11:43,130 --> 00:11:44,510
Blessed are the poor in spirit.

203
00:11:44,570 --> 00:11:45,500
Nothing in my hands.

204
00:11:45,500 --> 00:11:47,680
I bring only to your cross eye clinging.

205
00:11:47,950 --> 00:11:49,840
The only need is what need.

206
00:11:50,500 --> 00:11:53,050
I realize I'm spiritually bankrupt.

207
00:11:53,140 --> 00:11:54,580
Blessed are those who mourn.

208
00:11:54,760 --> 00:11:57,040
This is the next pearl
and the string of pearls.

209
00:11:57,220 --> 00:12:02,530
Not grieving because you've been busted,
but because you realize you are busted.

210
00:12:04,210 --> 00:12:08,440
So the tax collector who beat his chest
and cried, God be merciful to me, the

211
00:12:08,560 --> 00:12:12,130
sinner, and this man went away justified.

212
00:12:12,310 --> 00:12:13,270
Blessed are the meek.

213
00:12:13,270 --> 00:12:13,840
What is that?

214
00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:15,370
That is strength under control.

215
00:12:15,430 --> 00:12:18,400
Literally, the picture is
of a bit bridled horse.

216
00:12:18,430 --> 00:12:23,230
It is those who have given the
reins of their life over to another.

217
00:12:23,470 --> 00:12:26,440
Ooh, we're starting to see
this beautiful transition.

218
00:12:26,770 --> 00:12:28,030
Blessed are the merciful.

219
00:12:28,300 --> 00:12:31,810
those who show mercy will
be shown mercy right now.

220
00:12:31,810 --> 00:12:36,190
We're starting to get out into the world
the same grace and mercy that we receive.

221
00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:40,180
It begins to spill out to the others
that we are in relationship with.

222
00:12:40,270 --> 00:12:43,180
And then he gives this amazing
identity gospel statement,

223
00:12:43,180 --> 00:12:44,560
blessed or the pure in heart.

224
00:12:44,890 --> 00:12:48,070
And it's an identity statement
that all mission flows out of.

225
00:12:48,100 --> 00:12:51,610
We don't do things to get a pure heart,
but because of the great exchange,

226
00:12:51,610 --> 00:12:54,850
we're clothed in the purity of Christ
that he won for us at the cross.

227
00:12:54,940 --> 00:12:57,730
And every fruit fruitful
thing flows from that.

228
00:12:57,780 --> 00:12:58,649
abiding identity.

229
00:12:59,145 --> 00:13:00,375
That he won for us.

230
00:13:00,405 --> 00:13:04,244
He says in Ezekiel 36 that he
ripped out the heart of stone and

231
00:13:04,244 --> 00:13:05,954
he gives us our heart of flesh.

232
00:13:05,954 --> 00:13:09,345
In second Corinthians five 17,
he says, therefore, if anyone is

233
00:13:09,345 --> 00:13:10,905
in Christ, he is in new creation.

234
00:13:11,054 --> 00:13:12,194
The oldest passed away.

235
00:13:12,194 --> 00:13:16,905
Behold the new has come, the peacemakers.

236
00:13:17,024 --> 00:13:18,405
Alright, so now we're starting.

237
00:13:18,405 --> 00:13:19,605
Now we're on mission.

238
00:13:19,935 --> 00:13:24,825
those who go out and make peace, this
is what we're told is our ministry.

239
00:13:24,825 --> 00:13:26,445
It's a ministry of reconciliation.

240
00:13:26,445 --> 00:13:29,985
In second Corinthians five, 18 to 20,
all this is from God who through Christ

241
00:13:29,985 --> 00:13:36,585
reconciled them to himself and gave us
the ministry of reconciliation Peace.

242
00:13:37,905 --> 00:13:42,525
The ultimate peacemaking, not, oh,
don't be, I hate tempers and conflict.

243
00:13:42,645 --> 00:13:42,855
No.

244
00:13:42,855 --> 00:13:47,415
The real true conflict is the cosmic
conflict between God and man, because

245
00:13:47,415 --> 00:13:52,665
if two kingdoms try to occupy the same
space, there's enmity and there is war.

246
00:13:53,340 --> 00:13:54,660
Blessed are the peacemakers.

247
00:13:54,930 --> 00:13:57,719
So he's given us the
ministry of reconciliation.

248
00:13:57,870 --> 00:14:01,170
And then as we go out and we are
those peacemakers, guess what?

249
00:14:01,170 --> 00:14:02,280
Not everybody's gonna love it.

250
00:14:02,489 --> 00:14:04,979
And so he says, blessed
are the persecuted.

251
00:14:06,810 --> 00:14:10,620
There will be resistance to this
message and to the citizens of heaven.

252
00:14:11,070 --> 00:14:16,020
And we saw that the best way, this
idea, this word blessed, one of the

253
00:14:16,020 --> 00:14:20,550
best translations I've heard is,
congratulations, your poor in spirit.

254
00:14:22,620 --> 00:14:24,780
Congratulations your morning.

255
00:14:24,959 --> 00:14:25,680
Finally,

256
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:29,670
congratulations.

257
00:14:30,390 --> 00:14:35,070
You're churning the reins of your
life over to the one who is good

258
00:14:35,219 --> 00:14:38,999
and gentle and lowly in heart and
will never yoke you with a burden

259
00:14:39,150 --> 00:14:41,040
that is too heavy or too severe.

260
00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:41,249
That's right.

261
00:14:43,410 --> 00:14:44,999
Congratulations your morning.

262
00:14:45,479 --> 00:14:47,040
Congratulations your morning.

263
00:14:47,729 --> 00:14:49,290
How many years did it take?

264
00:14:50,430 --> 00:14:53,520
My earliest interpretation
of this beatitude was this.

265
00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:58,170
God comes close to the bereave, the
heartsick, the inconsolable, and pours

266
00:14:58,170 --> 00:15:01,110
out this divine solace into that wound.

267
00:15:01,350 --> 00:15:02,310
maybe in a loss.

268
00:15:02,310 --> 00:15:04,230
And of course, there is
comfort in this reading.

269
00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:07,860
There is a balm for every widow's
night and every mother's tears.

270
00:15:07,860 --> 00:15:11,640
But as time passed, as I read and
re-read and live beneath the shadow

271
00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:14,580
of these words, a sense that the
comfort Christ promises in the Sermon

272
00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:18,900
on the Mount, and this verse in
particular, is even deeper than that.

273
00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:21,840
There is a mourning that
outpaces even death.

274
00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:26,010
The grief that rises from a place
even deeper than the grave, the

275
00:15:26,010 --> 00:15:29,850
ancient Greek, that flexible,
subtle tongue gives us clues.

276
00:15:29,850 --> 00:15:34,170
The verb of mourn in this
passage is pungent and bitter.

277
00:15:36,209 --> 00:15:40,979
Evoking, the wailing of the bereaved,
a lamentation that shakes the bones

278
00:15:41,009 --> 00:15:43,289
and leaves a stain on the soul.

279
00:15:43,410 --> 00:15:47,400
It's not the little one tear going
down the cheek that you see in

280
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:52,680
movies, but it is the wailing and the
lamenting and the whole body sobbing.

281
00:15:53,610 --> 00:15:57,660
This is not the polite sadness that one
wears to a memorial, nor the passing

282
00:15:57,660 --> 00:16:01,890
regret that flickers and dissipates
like the fog with the sunrise.

283
00:16:01,890 --> 00:16:02,400
Jesus.

284
00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:07,110
A rabbi with the eyes of a prophet was
calling forth the people who would know

285
00:16:07,110 --> 00:16:11,930
the contours of their own depravity,
not in the abstract, but in the full

286
00:16:12,020 --> 00:16:14,090
throbbing reality of their own hearts.

287
00:16:14,090 --> 00:16:17,890
He was not living or inviting
us to a stoic acceptance, or

288
00:16:17,890 --> 00:16:19,540
to the performance of grief.

289
00:16:19,780 --> 00:16:23,710
He was prying open the chest and
asking us to look directly at

290
00:16:23,710 --> 00:16:25,900
what we would rather never see.

291
00:16:26,230 --> 00:16:26,770
To mourn.

292
00:16:26,770 --> 00:16:30,460
This sense of the beatitudes is to feel
the whole weight of the world's fracture.

293
00:16:30,700 --> 00:16:34,540
It is to stand on the edge of your
own history, to gaze, unfortunately,

294
00:16:34,900 --> 00:16:36,910
into the abyss of your failures.

295
00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:40,150
The harsh word that
bruised a child's spirit.

296
00:16:40,780 --> 00:16:43,960
The secret resentment that
calcified into hatred.

297
00:16:44,755 --> 00:16:48,865
All the meanness and betrayals, large
and small, that have threaded themselves

298
00:16:48,865 --> 00:16:51,055
into the fabric of your history.

299
00:16:51,595 --> 00:16:55,405
It is also to mourn the distance
between what God made you for and

300
00:16:55,405 --> 00:16:57,655
what you have made of yourself.

301
00:16:58,105 --> 00:16:59,395
Jesus words carved deep.

302
00:16:59,395 --> 00:17:03,385
The morning he names blessed is
not self-pity, not a cultivated

303
00:17:03,385 --> 00:17:07,284
melancholy, but the honest sorrow
that springs from seeing yourself as

304
00:17:07,284 --> 00:17:12,233
you truly are, as God sees you and
not churning away in the face of it.

305
00:17:12,233 --> 00:17:15,534
Alexander McLaren, the old
Scottish preacher, brings us

306
00:17:15,534 --> 00:17:17,304
out with a surgeon's clarity.

307
00:17:17,513 --> 00:17:20,753
He says, the mourners whom
Christ pronounces, blessed are

308
00:17:20,753 --> 00:17:22,375
those who are poor in spirit.

309
00:17:22,615 --> 00:17:26,395
The mourning is the emotion
which follows upon that poverty.

310
00:17:26,395 --> 00:17:31,044
Again, it's the links in that
gospel chain and McLaren's reading.

311
00:17:31,044 --> 00:17:32,754
There is a sequence of spiritual logic.

312
00:17:32,754 --> 00:17:34,405
First comes the recognition of poverty.

313
00:17:34,405 --> 00:17:36,205
The empty hands lifted toward God.

314
00:17:37,660 --> 00:17:41,730
Then comes the grieving over what that
Poverty means, the rendering of the

315
00:17:41,730 --> 00:17:43,380
garments, the falling to the knees.

316
00:17:43,950 --> 00:17:48,270
Only those who have abandoned the
fantasy of goodness, who have let

317
00:17:48,270 --> 00:17:53,070
false hopes die, are qualified for the
blessing that follows their mourning.

318
00:17:53,310 --> 00:17:58,920
Unlike the self-inflicted wounds of
guilt, or the performance of remorse

319
00:17:59,580 --> 00:18:02,520
The diagnosis is unsparing but not unkind.

320
00:18:02,670 --> 00:18:06,240
It lays bare the truth that
every honest heart already knows.

321
00:18:06,570 --> 00:18:10,530
We are both made for
glory and marked by ruin.

322
00:18:11,460 --> 00:18:15,060
The beautific vision of the kingdom
is not for those who steal themselves

323
00:18:15,060 --> 00:18:18,660
against sorrow, but for those who
allow themselves to be broken by it.

324
00:18:18,660 --> 00:18:23,280
To be poor in spirit is to seed the
disaster and give it a name, to mourn us,

325
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:25,405
to sit among the ashes and to weep for it.

326
00:18:26,625 --> 00:18:30,195
When you at last, reach the end of your
illusions, when you look in the mirror

327
00:18:30,315 --> 00:18:33,405
and see, not a hero, but a beggar.

328
00:18:34,425 --> 00:18:36,255
You are precisely where Christ wants you.

329
00:18:37,545 --> 00:18:39,525
Luke 7 36 to 50.

330
00:18:40,255 --> 00:18:41,575
I'm just gonna recount it.

331
00:18:43,125 --> 00:18:45,405
this is one of my favorite
passages in the entire Bible.

332
00:18:45,405 --> 00:18:48,575
I mean, I've probably the most passage
I've preached, There are moments

333
00:18:48,575 --> 00:18:52,235
when a single house, a single table,
contains all the world's weight.

334
00:18:53,375 --> 00:18:56,585
Sometimes the architecture of life
is nowhere more evident than in the

335
00:18:56,585 --> 00:18:58,745
garment and arrangement of supper.

336
00:18:59,195 --> 00:19:02,645
The guests, the host, the unspoken
expectations, the gaps between

337
00:19:02,645 --> 00:19:03,965
the plates and the hearts.

338
00:19:04,835 --> 00:19:07,745
It was such an evening a gathering
swollen with anticipation.

339
00:19:07,775 --> 00:19:11,855
The air thick with both
invitation and accusation.

340
00:19:12,545 --> 00:19:15,875
When a Pharisee called Simon
asked Jesus to dine Simon's

341
00:19:15,875 --> 00:19:17,075
house was well constructed.

342
00:19:17,075 --> 00:19:22,175
The walls whitewashed and straight, the
floors swept to a near ceremonial shine.

343
00:19:22,925 --> 00:19:26,725
He had done what was required of a
man's, of his standing, provided a

344
00:19:26,725 --> 00:19:30,265
meal, extended a hand Welcome the
Rabbi whose tongues people wagged

345
00:19:30,265 --> 00:19:31,825
about all throughout Galilee.

346
00:19:32,335 --> 00:19:36,325
Yet he had done only what custom
demanded and not a shekel Moore.

347
00:19:36,715 --> 00:19:41,065
There was a calculation in his hospitality
as if he were conducting an experiment

348
00:19:41,425 --> 00:19:44,185
and waiting watchful for the reaction.

349
00:19:44,725 --> 00:19:46,695
They reclined at table as was the custom.

350
00:19:46,695 --> 00:19:50,325
Simon, his family, the other Pharisees,
each draped in the linen of their

351
00:19:50,325 --> 00:19:54,165
office, each measuring out their words,
each watching the teacher with eyes

352
00:19:54,165 --> 00:19:56,325
honed by years of debate and suspicion.

353
00:19:57,135 --> 00:20:00,165
The meal had barely begun when
a disturbance flashed at the

354
00:20:00,165 --> 00:20:04,395
threshold, a woman watching from
the margin she was known to the

355
00:20:04,395 --> 00:20:06,675
crowd, though no one spoke her name.

356
00:20:06,975 --> 00:20:09,555
Her story had leaked into
the cracks of every house.

357
00:20:09,915 --> 00:20:12,315
The debt she had incurred,
the bed she had shared.

358
00:20:12,585 --> 00:20:15,135
The way her laughter once peeled
through the streets, now were

359
00:20:15,195 --> 00:20:17,115
replaced by hush and stain.

360
00:20:17,775 --> 00:20:18,705
Still, she entered.

361
00:20:19,890 --> 00:20:24,870
She was neither invited nor wanted, and
yet something in the set of her jaw.

362
00:20:24,870 --> 00:20:29,070
The trembling of her hands,
said she would not be denied.

363
00:20:29,940 --> 00:20:33,330
She brought with her a small alabaster
philas, its contents, precious

364
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:36,000
ointment purchased at great cost.

365
00:20:36,330 --> 00:20:41,190
The kind of woman might save for
her own burial or her wedding night,

366
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:48,480
but she was here neither to marry, nor
to die, at least not in the usual sense.

367
00:20:49,500 --> 00:20:51,750
She came to lay something down
at the feet of the man whose

368
00:20:51,750 --> 00:20:53,100
words didn't unsettled her.

369
00:20:53,685 --> 00:20:56,625
Whose presence moved through the
city like a storm at harvest.

370
00:20:56,845 --> 00:20:59,365
the man at the table
shifted bracing for scandal.

371
00:20:59,365 --> 00:21:00,295
The woman did not flinch.

372
00:21:00,295 --> 00:21:03,715
She fell to her knees a sound like
a caught breath, escaping her lips.

373
00:21:03,715 --> 00:21:07,675
She placed the flask on the cool stone,
and then as if the dam of her pride

374
00:21:07,675 --> 00:21:10,195
had finally broken, she began to weep.

375
00:21:10,510 --> 00:21:14,035
Not the soft tears of piety
nor the gentle weeping.

376
00:21:14,035 --> 00:21:17,695
One reserves for funerals or weddings,
but the shaking uncontainable

377
00:21:17,695 --> 00:21:22,075
sobs of one who has reached her
bottom and found only darkness.

378
00:21:22,135 --> 00:21:27,151
The tears fell, splattering the rabbi's
feet, dust caked and travel worn  feet.

379
00:21:27,461 --> 00:21:29,951
the host had neglected
to wash her own hair.

380
00:21:29,951 --> 00:21:31,991
Loosened from its pins became a veil.

381
00:21:32,141 --> 00:21:35,771
She used it to mop up her tears, to
polish what others would not touch.

382
00:21:35,771 --> 00:21:37,661
She kissed his feet again and again.

383
00:21:37,721 --> 00:21:39,791
Her lips trembling wet and desperate.

384
00:21:39,971 --> 00:21:43,601
Then with trembling hands, she uncorked
The flask had poured the ointment.

385
00:21:43,601 --> 00:21:45,811
Its fragrance, instantly
filling the small room.

386
00:21:46,761 --> 00:21:53,121
Blooming over the roasted lamb and the oil
lamps announcing itself above all else.

387
00:21:53,121 --> 00:21:53,811
No one moved.

388
00:21:53,811 --> 00:21:56,121
The silence was holy,
and then it was broken.

389
00:21:56,121 --> 00:21:58,971
Simon watched the scene unfold
with a tightening of the mouth,

390
00:21:59,151 --> 00:22:01,101
a slight narrowing of the eyes.

391
00:22:01,461 --> 00:22:03,441
This is not how dinners in
his house were supposed to go,

392
00:22:03,561 --> 00:22:05,211
even with a notorious teacher.

393
00:22:05,211 --> 00:22:10,851
Among the guests, he saw in her actions,
not devotion, but indecency, he saw

394
00:22:10,851 --> 00:22:14,721
in Jesus, not a prophet but a dupe or
worse, a collaborator and her shame,

395
00:22:14,931 --> 00:22:18,231
he did not say this out loud, but his
thoughts radiated through the room as

396
00:22:18,231 --> 00:22:21,201
loud in their own way as the woman sobs.

397
00:22:21,201 --> 00:22:25,761
If he were a prophet, Simon
thought truly a man of God.

398
00:22:25,761 --> 00:22:27,381
He would know what kind of woman this is.

399
00:22:27,381 --> 00:22:32,751
He would recoil, he would call down fire,
at least rebuke her for the spectacle.

400
00:22:33,501 --> 00:22:36,621
He would uphold the boundary
between the holy and the profane

401
00:22:36,831 --> 00:22:38,781
as any man worth assault would do.

402
00:22:38,781 --> 00:22:41,901
But the Rabbi, as always seemed
to carry a different map.

403
00:22:41,901 --> 00:22:43,221
He turned to Simon, his voice.

404
00:22:43,626 --> 00:22:44,916
Even almost gentle.

405
00:22:46,206 --> 00:22:49,386
Simon, I have something to say to you.

406
00:22:51,246 --> 00:22:53,676
The Pharisee's mouth twitched
his tone clip just above

407
00:22:53,686 --> 00:22:56,086
condescension say it, teacher.

408
00:22:57,196 --> 00:22:58,306
And so the story unfolded.

409
00:22:58,306 --> 00:22:59,656
Two men owe to creditor.

410
00:22:59,716 --> 00:23:00,466
One a great sum.

411
00:23:00,466 --> 00:23:02,986
The other far less neither could pay.

412
00:23:03,046 --> 00:23:06,886
The creditor moved not by obligation,
but by something almost reckless.

413
00:23:07,516 --> 00:23:11,596
Forgave both debts, canceled them as if
the slates were never scratched at all.

414
00:23:12,106 --> 00:23:12,826
Simple.

415
00:23:13,756 --> 00:23:18,436
But the implications jagged in the
air, which of them will love him more?

416
00:23:18,436 --> 00:23:22,396
The rabbi asked Simon's answer was hedge
with caution, as if the question itself

417
00:23:22,396 --> 00:23:24,896
probate, the one who was forgiven.

418
00:23:24,896 --> 00:23:28,886
The larger debt, the teacher's eyes
flash not with triumph, but with

419
00:23:28,886 --> 00:23:31,016
an almost unbearable tenderness.

420
00:23:31,436 --> 00:23:32,876
You've judged rightly, Simon.

421
00:23:33,836 --> 00:23:37,376
Jesus looked up at Simon, then
let his gaze linger on the woman.

422
00:23:37,376 --> 00:23:41,216
The street glow spilling through the
lattice to stripe, her bent back.

423
00:23:41,216 --> 00:23:43,766
Her face red and slick
with tears was illumined.

424
00:23:43,766 --> 00:23:44,546
In the candlelight.

425
00:23:44,726 --> 00:23:48,956
Jesus spoke first to Simon, but with
the words aimed deliberately toward

426
00:23:48,956 --> 00:23:52,556
the woman as if her trembling needed
the full force of his attention.

427
00:23:52,676 --> 00:23:57,176
Simon, do you truly see this woman not
merely with your eyes, but with a heart

428
00:23:57,176 --> 00:23:59,126
that weighs the worth of every soul?

429
00:23:59,426 --> 00:24:03,626
Simon caught in the web of his own
in hospitality shifted uncomfortably.

430
00:24:03,836 --> 00:24:06,776
He glanced from the woman's
dripping hair to the clay floor.

431
00:24:06,896 --> 00:24:09,176
His fingers worrying the edge of his robe.

432
00:24:09,446 --> 00:24:13,766
Jesus said, when I entered your home,
his voice low and reverberate enough

433
00:24:13,766 --> 00:24:15,296
to command the courtyard silence.

434
00:24:15,296 --> 00:24:17,066
You offered me no water for my feet.

435
00:24:17,396 --> 00:24:19,736
The dust of the road
still clings to my skin.

436
00:24:19,766 --> 00:24:22,226
You did not think to send
even a servant with a basin,

437
00:24:22,226 --> 00:24:24,076
but this woman who you judge.

438
00:24:24,586 --> 00:24:27,346
Has washed my feet, not with
well water, but with her tears.

439
00:24:27,346 --> 00:24:29,656
Not with a linen cloth,
but with their own hair.

440
00:24:29,776 --> 00:24:32,086
Has any guest ever been received?

441
00:24:32,086 --> 00:24:34,336
So tenderly in your house?

442
00:24:35,206 --> 00:24:38,206
Simon felt the heat crawl up
his neck around the table.

443
00:24:38,206 --> 00:24:39,796
The other guest rabbis tradesman.

444
00:24:39,796 --> 00:24:44,171
A few idle aristocrats shifted in
place, eyes darting between Simon

445
00:24:44,296 --> 00:24:45,676
and the woman, like spectators.

446
00:24:45,886 --> 00:24:47,206
At a grotesque drama.

447
00:24:47,506 --> 00:24:51,046
The woman did not look up, but her
sobs previously suppressed, now shook

448
00:24:51,046 --> 00:24:53,386
her shoulders with open intensity.

449
00:24:53,956 --> 00:24:57,226
Jesus continue, and you gave me no
kiss of greedy, no sign of friendship.

450
00:24:57,226 --> 00:25:00,766
But from the moment I entered, she
has kissed my feet again and again

451
00:25:00,916 --> 00:25:04,606
as if to undo with each touch, the
pain of her whole is estrangement.

452
00:25:05,776 --> 00:25:08,536
Someone at the table, the
merchant, or perhaps the physician

453
00:25:08,536 --> 00:25:10,036
cleared his throat in discomfort.

454
00:25:10,486 --> 00:25:11,806
No one else made a sound.

455
00:25:12,136 --> 00:25:15,316
You did not anoint my head
with oil, as is the custom of

456
00:25:15,466 --> 00:25:16,846
the courtesy owed you a guest.

457
00:25:16,846 --> 00:25:22,786
But she here, Jesus Je did the now
overturned, alabaster jar, shining dly

458
00:25:22,786 --> 00:25:24,376
amid the crumbs and the spilled wine.

459
00:25:24,376 --> 00:25:26,026
She has poured perfume on my feet.

460
00:25:26,056 --> 00:25:27,286
It is her prize.

461
00:25:27,496 --> 00:25:31,816
The sum of her earnings, the only thing
she possesses of value and she spent

462
00:25:31,816 --> 00:25:38,236
it not on herself, but in this act
of love, as we find out from history,

463
00:25:38,236 --> 00:25:39,736
it would be the tool of her trade.

464
00:25:40,696 --> 00:25:44,086
She was a prostitute in the
town and so couldn't always

465
00:25:44,086 --> 00:25:45,406
make it to the shower in time.

466
00:25:45,406 --> 00:25:51,226
And so a little drip of that would make
her smell good and alluring once again.

467
00:25:51,226 --> 00:25:55,966
And she takes the tool of her trade,
her very way to earn, and she breaks

468
00:25:55,966 --> 00:26:02,596
it in front of the master saying, all
I am, all I have is in your hands.

469
00:26:02,656 --> 00:26:04,426
It's yours.

470
00:26:06,646 --> 00:26:07,546
At that word love.

471
00:26:07,546 --> 00:26:08,356
The woman's weeping.

472
00:26:08,356 --> 00:26:09,856
Still for a heartbeat, she dared.

473
00:26:09,856 --> 00:26:12,976
Look up at Jesus, her eyes swollen,
her face, streaked and raw.

474
00:26:13,366 --> 00:26:15,376
There was no condemnation in his gaze.

475
00:26:16,156 --> 00:26:22,546
Only a fierce inexplicable mercy
as if he saw not her history.

476
00:26:22,546 --> 00:26:25,036
Hmm, but her hope.

477
00:26:26,836 --> 00:26:31,726
Therefore, I tell you plainly Simon,
her sins, which are many, he paused

478
00:26:31,786 --> 00:26:35,296
and the phrase hung in the air,
honest as the grime on her cheeks

479
00:26:36,256 --> 00:26:41,296
are forgiven for she loved much, but
he who is forgiven, little loves.

480
00:26:41,686 --> 00:26:45,406
Little, the words were not a rebuke,
but a diagnosis spoken with the

481
00:26:45,406 --> 00:26:49,546
gentle firmness of a doctor exposing
a wound so it could finally heal.

482
00:26:49,996 --> 00:26:53,356
Simon recoiled stung and yet
unable to muster the certainty

483
00:26:53,356 --> 00:26:54,796
of his earlier judgment.

484
00:26:55,306 --> 00:26:58,666
The woman fur her part let out a
strangle to exhale as if some invisible

485
00:26:58,666 --> 00:27:02,896
cord about her chest had been severed
around the tables the murmurs began.

486
00:27:02,896 --> 00:27:05,206
Who is this who even forgives sins?

487
00:27:05,206 --> 00:27:08,056
The question was not rhetorical,
but electric with its own

488
00:27:08,056 --> 00:27:09,376
dangerous possibility.

489
00:27:10,156 --> 00:27:14,026
Jesus leaned forward his expression,
soft expression, softening with

490
00:27:14,026 --> 00:27:15,766
what can only be called joy.

491
00:27:16,546 --> 00:27:17,656
Your sins are forgiven.

492
00:27:18,676 --> 00:27:21,496
He said, speaking now directly to
the woman, and you would've thought

493
00:27:21,496 --> 00:27:26,806
the entire universe had been reduced
to this one trembling moment that

494
00:27:26,836 --> 00:27:32,056
all the laws of nature had bent
in to bear witness to her rebirth.

495
00:27:36,766 --> 00:27:37,786
Simon missed it right.

496
00:27:40,171 --> 00:27:41,611
Because what was the point of the story?

497
00:27:45,091 --> 00:27:45,901
Not Simon.

498
00:27:45,901 --> 00:27:49,531
You sinned a little bit
and she sinned greatly.

499
00:27:51,361 --> 00:27:54,421
It's that Simon, you're blind to
the fact that you have sinned.

500
00:27:54,421 --> 00:27:58,771
You are the one who actually owes
more, and you're religious blindness.

501
00:27:59,701 --> 00:28:00,901
You both need rescue.

502
00:28:00,901 --> 00:28:02,551
You both have no way to pay.

503
00:28:03,241 --> 00:28:10,471
And if you could recognize how great
a payment Christ made on your behalf

504
00:28:10,471 --> 00:28:16,981
for your rescue and your redemption,
what you see as an outrageous sign

505
00:28:16,981 --> 00:28:21,271
of devotion is the normal response to
the redemption and grace that I give

506
00:28:24,211 --> 00:28:24,961
the morning.

507
00:28:26,031 --> 00:28:26,781
another one.

508
00:28:27,591 --> 00:28:30,875
Uh, Luke 18, nine to 14, all
along the road up to Jerusalem.

509
00:28:31,295 --> 00:28:35,975
religious leaders had trailed in his
wake keeping careful record of his

510
00:28:35,975 --> 00:28:40,865
every infraction, and they're the ones
who's heard the story first from Jesus.

511
00:28:40,865 --> 00:28:43,505
And he said to them, let me tell
you what happens to a soul that's

512
00:28:43,505 --> 00:28:45,725
convinced of its own sanctity.

513
00:28:46,535 --> 00:28:49,235
There were two men, both of them
familiar characters in the city.

514
00:28:49,790 --> 00:28:53,780
The first of Pharisee, a man, not
only of position, but of reputation.

515
00:28:54,110 --> 00:28:58,790
His laces tied with careful knots and
his beard oiled white as a dove's.

516
00:28:58,790 --> 00:29:02,810
Wings walked to the temple in
daylight at the hour when the courts

517
00:29:02,810 --> 00:29:06,200
were full, and the air shimmered
with the voices of petition and

518
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:10,310
praised the second less welcome than
polite company was a tax collector.

519
00:29:10,490 --> 00:29:12,800
He wore his shame like a second tunic.

520
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,770
He kept to the alleyways,
avoided the eyes of neighbors and

521
00:29:15,770 --> 00:29:17,690
ducked the sneers of the market.

522
00:29:17,690 --> 00:29:19,850
Women who spat at his passing.

523
00:29:20,270 --> 00:29:22,880
The Pharisee made his way up to
the temple steps with measured

524
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:27,260
confidence, each stride as deliberate
as his recitation of the law.

525
00:29:27,380 --> 00:29:30,410
He paused by the treasury where
the coinage of widows and day

526
00:29:30,410 --> 00:29:33,650
laborers sang their meager song
and he let out his own offering.

527
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:37,670
Heavy musical, and multiple spill
out in the side of all heads.

528
00:29:37,670 --> 00:29:39,890
Turned some no and approval.

529
00:29:39,890 --> 00:29:40,910
The Pharisee smiled.

530
00:29:41,315 --> 00:29:44,615
Not noticing the tax collector had
slipped along the outer wall, staying

531
00:29:44,615 --> 00:29:48,755
beneath the carved lentils, decorated
with the lilies and pomegranates.

532
00:29:48,755 --> 00:29:50,765
They both made their
way to the inner court.

533
00:29:51,005 --> 00:29:54,815
The Pharisee chose a spot near the
front where the light fell best on

534
00:29:54,815 --> 00:29:58,535
his golden embroidered robe, and
the scent of incense was strong.

535
00:29:58,535 --> 00:30:01,865
He stood feet apart, hands held
high, and begin to pray in a voice

536
00:30:02,015 --> 00:30:03,785
just above the hush of the others.

537
00:30:04,085 --> 00:30:07,055
Holy Father, I give thanks that
I'm not as the other men are.

538
00:30:07,505 --> 00:30:08,345
I do not steal.

539
00:30:08,345 --> 00:30:09,035
I do not cheat.

540
00:30:09,035 --> 00:30:11,495
I do not visit the harlots
who haunt the colon aids.

541
00:30:11,705 --> 00:30:14,075
I fast, not once, but twice each week.

542
00:30:14,225 --> 00:30:15,965
A bar higher than the law requires.

543
00:30:16,085 --> 00:30:20,015
May I point out to you, God, I
give you with gladness a 10th of

544
00:30:20,015 --> 00:30:21,665
everything that passes through my hand.

545
00:30:21,755 --> 00:30:26,675
I keep myself clean and those who see me
especially know that I'm right with you.

546
00:30:28,445 --> 00:30:30,545
Especially he added
glancing over his shoulder.

547
00:30:30,545 --> 00:30:35,615
I thank you that I'm not like this
tax collector skulking in the shadows.

548
00:30:35,705 --> 00:30:37,445
Yes, I know what he is.

549
00:30:37,445 --> 00:30:41,285
A traitor, A Roman's dog, a man who
eats unclean food and takes the bread

550
00:30:41,285 --> 00:30:43,150
from the mouths of his own countrymen.

551
00:30:43,150 --> 00:30:48,190
But I Lord had never soiled
my garments with the world.

552
00:30:49,300 --> 00:30:52,780
One of the scariest things about
that prayer is he, thanks God.

553
00:30:54,940 --> 00:30:56,620
He's like, God, you did this in me.

554
00:30:56,620 --> 00:30:58,540
You made me this awesome person.

555
00:30:58,990 --> 00:31:03,095
You made me this, this awesome,
righteous, kind of person.

556
00:31:03,105 --> 00:31:04,245
it's you who did it.

557
00:31:08,265 --> 00:31:11,475
Behind him passed the marble pillars
and near the lattice work that

558
00:31:11,475 --> 00:31:13,215
separated the from the people.

559
00:31:13,935 --> 00:31:16,245
The tax collector was
a shadow among shadows.

560
00:31:16,245 --> 00:31:18,975
He pressed himself against the
walls of hoping the stone might

561
00:31:18,975 --> 00:31:23,205
swallow him up, let him vanish
from the gaze of both God and men.

562
00:31:23,505 --> 00:31:27,015
No one heard him at first, but if you
drew near, you would smell the salt

563
00:31:27,015 --> 00:31:30,285
of his tears and see how his fists
were clenched against his breast.

564
00:31:30,285 --> 00:31:31,125
He could not look up.

565
00:31:31,830 --> 00:31:33,810
He could not muster even a proper prayer.

566
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:36,510
His only words were choked and hoarse.

567
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:37,980
God have mercy on me.

568
00:31:37,980 --> 00:31:39,210
God, see what I am.

569
00:31:39,390 --> 00:31:40,110
Have mercy.

570
00:31:40,110 --> 00:31:40,920
I'm unworthy.

571
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:42,480
I'm a sinner, and I know it.

572
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:43,410
He stayed like that.

573
00:31:43,410 --> 00:31:47,160
And when the prayers ended and the
shofar blew, he waited until the

574
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:49,260
temple was nearly empty before he left.

575
00:31:49,500 --> 00:31:52,890
Jesus looked around at the people at
the self satisfied, at the desperate,

576
00:31:52,890 --> 00:31:56,400
at the ones who had given up on
ever being welcome in holy places.

577
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,290
And he said, I tell you the truth.

578
00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:01,530
It was not the Pharisee who left
the temple justified, but the

579
00:32:01,530 --> 00:32:05,850
tax collector, the man who boasts
of his goodness is blind to the

580
00:32:05,850 --> 00:32:08,070
distance between his heart and God.

581
00:32:08,250 --> 00:32:11,460
The man who knows his need for
mercy finds the door to God's

582
00:32:11,460 --> 00:32:13,530
own heart thrown, wide open.

583
00:32:14,820 --> 00:32:15,780
The crowd was silent.

584
00:32:16,410 --> 00:32:19,800
Some of the religious leaders, squirmed
and bristled, but the others, the

585
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,430
poor, the outcast, the ones who had
nothing but battered hope, went home

586
00:32:23,550 --> 00:32:27,390
with an odd swelling inside their rib
cages, A sensation that felt for the

587
00:32:27,390 --> 00:32:29,700
first time in years like hope itself.

588
00:32:30,555 --> 00:32:32,115
This is what Jesus meant when he said, B.

589
00:32:32,115 --> 00:32:34,635
Blessed are the poor in spirit for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

590
00:32:34,845 --> 00:32:37,395
B, blessed are those who mourn
for they shall be comforted.

591
00:32:37,635 --> 00:32:41,025
The tax collector's poverty
was not of coin but of spirit.

592
00:32:41,145 --> 00:32:44,145
He came to God with empty
hands as and was filled.

593
00:32:44,355 --> 00:32:48,885
It was the same lesson he taught wherever
he went, that God's favor did not rest on

594
00:32:48,885 --> 00:32:53,055
the perfect performance of the law, but on
the broken heart that longed for healing.

595
00:32:53,475 --> 00:32:57,255
It was not the self-righteous who would
inherit the kingdom, but those who mourn

596
00:32:57,255 --> 00:32:59,265
their failure to be what they ought.

597
00:32:59,355 --> 00:33:03,495
Those who longed for mercy more than
recognition the crowd, especially

598
00:33:03,495 --> 00:33:07,305
the ones who had been written off as
hopeless cases heard a door opening

599
00:33:07,310 --> 00:33:10,355
where they had always only seen walls.

600
00:33:10,955 --> 00:33:13,925
Now, the world didn't
automatically change that day.

601
00:33:13,925 --> 00:33:16,145
The Romans still ruled from their forts.

602
00:33:16,145 --> 00:33:18,935
The temple still echoed with
the prayers of the righteous

603
00:33:19,145 --> 00:33:20,795
and the tears of the desperate.

604
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:25,010
But in the olive groves and alleyways
and the hearts, the bruised and

605
00:33:25,010 --> 00:33:28,580
battered of those who mourn the
seeds of a different kind of kingdom

606
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:30,230
were already breaking ground.

607
00:33:31,190 --> 00:33:34,430
And so Jesus taught not just with
words, but with the whole shape of

608
00:33:34,430 --> 00:33:37,850
his life, that comfort belonged to
those who wept forgiveness to those

609
00:33:37,850 --> 00:33:42,620
who confessed and belonging to the
ones who thought themselves lost.

610
00:33:43,580 --> 00:33:49,610
The mourning that saves is not that I got
busted, but realizing that I am busted.

611
00:33:49,910 --> 00:33:51,080
Not an abstract.

612
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:56,090
Jesus died on the cross, is some
moral example, a good deed done.

613
00:33:56,450 --> 00:34:01,640
But the perfect, beautiful, spotless,
unblemished lamb of God took my place and

614
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,040
took my hideous dead of sin upon himself.

615
00:34:05,225 --> 00:34:09,034
I can't tell you the number of times
I've sat as a pastor and counseled

616
00:34:09,034 --> 00:34:10,895
men who have cheated on their wives.

617
00:34:11,074 --> 00:34:12,635
And it's like, it doesn't phase 'em.

618
00:34:13,295 --> 00:34:14,074
They hate it.

619
00:34:14,074 --> 00:34:17,405
They hate the consequences of
being found out and caught, and

620
00:34:17,405 --> 00:34:18,784
they want to do whatever it takes.

621
00:34:18,784 --> 00:34:23,074
They'll go to the to come meet five
times a week if it is, but it's

622
00:34:23,074 --> 00:34:25,355
only because of the consequences.

623
00:34:25,355 --> 00:34:30,335
I remember one man brought a letter
from his daughter that his daughter

624
00:34:30,335 --> 00:34:36,185
wrote to me or wrote to him just saying,
I think you're the worst person I've

625
00:34:36,185 --> 00:34:43,775
ever known because of his abuse and
threats and violence against the family.

626
00:34:44,255 --> 00:34:45,545
And he said, oh, you gotta read this.

627
00:34:45,545 --> 00:34:46,295
This is crazy.

628
00:34:46,324 --> 00:34:48,495
Just half-hearted, chuckled about it.

629
00:34:48,554 --> 00:34:50,925
And as I started reading,
I started weeping.

630
00:34:51,525 --> 00:34:54,735
I started crying and I'm like,
I've, what are you, how can you even

631
00:34:54,735 --> 00:34:57,045
sit here right now in this moment?

632
00:34:57,675 --> 00:35:00,795
Heard a story about, uh, AA and um.

633
00:35:01,515 --> 00:35:04,275
Somebody was going around the room and
sharing, and there was somebody new

634
00:35:04,275 --> 00:35:07,275
there, or he'd been there for a while,
but it was the first time he opened up

635
00:35:07,275 --> 00:35:08,685
and they said, will you finally share?

636
00:35:08,685 --> 00:35:13,635
And he talked about how he, in the
winter in a place where it's cold,

637
00:35:13,905 --> 00:35:19,005
it was in an old truck with his
daughter who was about six, five or

638
00:35:19,005 --> 00:35:22,455
six, and he stopped off at the bar,
said, I'll get, I'll be right back.

639
00:35:22,455 --> 00:35:24,075
I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna get one drink.

640
00:35:24,405 --> 00:35:25,305
it goes to midnight.

641
00:35:25,305 --> 00:35:29,265
He's in there for seven hours and his
girl gets hyperthermia and she loses

642
00:35:29,265 --> 00:35:31,675
her hearing, for the rest of her life.

643
00:35:32,305 --> 00:35:37,135
And he sat there and he just
said, ah, it's so crazy.

644
00:35:37,135 --> 00:35:39,715
He, I found, yeah, I
can't believe I did that.

645
00:35:39,895 --> 00:35:42,955
And the guy who led the
meeting was so outraged.

646
00:35:42,955 --> 00:35:48,235
He got up and he kicked the guy's chair
over and started yelling at him and

647
00:35:48,235 --> 00:35:50,845
saying, how dare you be so callous?

648
00:35:50,845 --> 00:35:51,865
That was your daughter.

649
00:35:52,015 --> 00:35:53,425
You were put here to protect.

650
00:35:53,545 --> 00:35:56,365
And finally he broke into
tears, ran, and he was healed.

651
00:35:56,415 --> 00:36:01,995
So hard for our prideful hearts
unless God intervenes to open

652
00:36:01,995 --> 00:36:07,875
our eyes to the true gap that is
between mortality and infinity.

653
00:36:08,145 --> 00:36:10,635
Between holiness and sinfulness.

654
00:36:10,695 --> 00:36:13,335
And thank God, congratulations.

655
00:36:13,395 --> 00:36:13,665
If you mourn.

656
00:36:14,265 --> 00:36:19,425
congratulations if you mourn and
weep, but that's not all there is.

657
00:36:19,425 --> 00:36:23,595
There is a mourning that destroys
this one's pretty quick, yet

658
00:36:23,595 --> 00:36:24,645
not all mourning is holy.

659
00:36:24,645 --> 00:36:28,395
There exist in evil kind of grief,
a self consuming poison sorrow.

660
00:36:28,605 --> 00:36:30,855
Paul writes of it in second
Corinthians seven 10.

661
00:36:30,855 --> 00:36:34,095
He says, for godly grief
produces repentance That leads

662
00:36:34,095 --> 00:36:36,255
to salvation without regret.

663
00:36:36,555 --> 00:36:41,625
Whereas worldly grief produces death
or worldly sorrow produces death.

664
00:36:41,625 --> 00:36:44,205
There is a morning that is
pretty early destructive, gnawing

665
00:36:44,205 --> 00:36:47,325
at the soul that festers into
bitterness and breeds only regret.

666
00:36:47,565 --> 00:36:52,485
Grief can either be the crucible in which
God transforms and heals the soul or the

667
00:36:52,485 --> 00:36:55,845
acid that dissolves it into futility.

668
00:36:56,115 --> 00:36:58,215
Scripture is full of
such cautionary tales.

669
00:36:58,215 --> 00:37:01,665
King Saul, when confronted
with his sin, offered up a tour

670
00:37:01,665 --> 00:37:03,795
of tears and breast beating.

671
00:37:04,005 --> 00:37:06,165
Yet his grief never
turned him back to God.

672
00:37:06,945 --> 00:37:09,585
It was a self-interested anguish.

673
00:37:10,575 --> 00:37:16,875
A hollow performance before others, not
a true repentance that heals Judases sct.

674
00:37:17,265 --> 00:37:20,535
When the enormity of his betrayal
crashed down on him, he wept and

675
00:37:20,535 --> 00:37:23,924
despaired and threw the blood
money at the temple priest, but his

676
00:37:23,924 --> 00:37:29,330
morning closed in on itself like
the night, and he fled the light.

677
00:37:30,150 --> 00:37:36,029
Sorrow did not bring him to grace, but
to a violent, final, silent despair.

678
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,020
Nowhere is this destructive form
of mourning, more vivid than

679
00:37:40,020 --> 00:37:41,790
the story of Ahab and Nabal.

680
00:37:41,790 --> 00:37:46,799
If you remember Ahab and Jezebel,
first Kings chapter 21, Ahab was a

681
00:37:46,799 --> 00:37:50,129
really bad king, and it was during
the time of Elijah, and Elijah was

682
00:37:50,129 --> 00:37:55,799
constantly calling him out and um, he
could not escape Elijah, but the king

683
00:37:55,799 --> 00:37:59,370
of Samaria, Ahab possessed palaces
and armies in every comfort of power.

684
00:37:59,370 --> 00:38:04,890
Yet his heart was so shrunken by self-pity
and envy that a single denial sent him

685
00:38:04,890 --> 00:38:08,520
spiraling into a pout worthy of a child.

686
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:10,259
He was the first pow pout fish.

687
00:38:11,129 --> 00:38:15,120
If you have little kids, you know,
Naboth, a humble farmer, tended his

688
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:20,640
family's vineyard on the edge of Jezreel,
uh, land passed down for generations.

689
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,620
Ahab coveted the vineyard for himself.

690
00:38:23,435 --> 00:38:25,654
He offered payment even a better vineyard.

691
00:38:25,654 --> 00:38:29,134
He tried in the language of deals
and contracts to purchase what

692
00:38:29,134 --> 00:38:33,125
was never his to buy, but Naboth
answered them with quiet dignity.

693
00:38:33,245 --> 00:38:34,504
So help me, God.

694
00:38:34,595 --> 00:38:38,465
I'd never sell the family farm to
you, is what he says Ahab returned

695
00:38:38,465 --> 00:38:42,795
to his palace, not as a king who had
heard, the just refusal of a loyal

696
00:38:42,795 --> 00:38:44,625
subject, but as a petulant child.

697
00:38:44,685 --> 00:38:49,605
And a black mood scripture says,
sulking over nab and je the T words.

698
00:38:49,665 --> 00:38:51,465
The scripture paints in vivid strokes.

699
00:38:51,495 --> 00:38:57,975
He went to bed, stepped his face
in his pillow, and refused to eat.

700
00:38:59,265 --> 00:39:05,955
Ahab sorrow was not for any real loss,
but for the thwarting of his own desires.

701
00:39:06,674 --> 00:39:06,825
Ah.

702
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:10,500
It's like me on that Sunday night.

703
00:39:11,970 --> 00:39:13,260
Why don't they see me?

704
00:39:14,260 --> 00:39:15,280
I'm the answer.

705
00:39:16,146 --> 00:39:17,116
It's the idolatry.

706
00:39:17,116 --> 00:39:21,641
It's the epi theia where we can take a
good thing and make it the ultimate thing,

707
00:39:21,911 --> 00:39:24,101
and then it becomes a destructive thing.

708
00:39:24,911 --> 00:39:26,831
It's the thing I require to make me happy.

709
00:39:26,831 --> 00:39:30,881
The bottom line at the bottom of my heart,

710
00:39:31,881 --> 00:39:36,411
this is not a grief as
transformation, but grief is wrought.

711
00:39:37,491 --> 00:39:41,601
Ab sorrow is not for any real loss, but
for the thwarting of his own desire.

712
00:39:41,871 --> 00:39:45,861
And this smallness, his soul shriver,
the the king lay in darkness utterly

713
00:39:45,861 --> 00:39:50,331
consumed by the one thing denied him blind
to the abundance that surrounded him.

714
00:39:50,481 --> 00:39:51,981
Evil morning is always like this.

715
00:39:51,981 --> 00:39:54,021
It churns our vision inward.

716
00:39:54,021 --> 00:39:57,321
It shades every disappointment
and the color of personal injury.

717
00:39:58,461 --> 00:40:01,731
It is a morning that resents a
sadness that demands the universe

718
00:40:01,881 --> 00:40:04,161
revolve around our appetites.

719
00:40:04,161 --> 00:40:07,311
It's the primal envy that will
not be satisfied until it eats

720
00:40:07,311 --> 00:40:09,351
the world and then it eats itself.

721
00:40:09,501 --> 00:40:13,221
It cannot receive comfort because it is
already decided that nothing is enough.

722
00:40:13,801 --> 00:40:17,101
Jezebel Ahab's wife entered the scene
with her own brand of ruthlessness.

723
00:40:17,156 --> 00:40:19,766
The plot she devised was
cunning as it was monstrous.

724
00:40:19,766 --> 00:40:23,156
Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab's
name, sealed them with his ring, and

725
00:40:23,156 --> 00:40:24,896
sent them to the elders of Jezreel.

726
00:40:25,076 --> 00:40:28,736
She orchestrated a mock trial,
bribed false witnesses, and had

727
00:40:29,156 --> 00:40:33,056
nuff condemned and executed on
trumped up charges of blasphemy.

728
00:40:33,356 --> 00:40:36,446
The vineyard thus unencumbered by
its rightful owner, was delivered

729
00:40:36,446 --> 00:40:37,436
into the hands of the king.

730
00:40:37,646 --> 00:40:39,506
Mourning had given way to murder.

731
00:40:40,381 --> 00:40:42,331
Jealousy had become injustice.

732
00:40:42,511 --> 00:40:45,241
And even then, Ahab's evil
mourning was not satisfied.

733
00:40:45,241 --> 00:40:50,731
He walked the stolen land, surveying his
new position, all the while oblivious or

734
00:40:50,731 --> 00:40:52,921
pretending to be oblivious to the cost.

735
00:40:53,281 --> 00:40:56,071
The prophet Elijah met him
there delivering God's judgment.

736
00:40:56,431 --> 00:40:58,441
Have you killed and taken possession?

737
00:40:58,741 --> 00:41:03,751
And the place where the dog licked up, the
blood of NAB dogs will lick your blood.

738
00:41:03,781 --> 00:41:04,831
Even yours.

739
00:41:05,431 --> 00:41:07,951
There was no comfort for Ahab,
no redemption in the mourning

740
00:41:07,951 --> 00:41:09,091
that never turns to God.

741
00:41:09,091 --> 00:41:11,911
Only the promise of further loss.

742
00:41:12,151 --> 00:41:16,591
Evil mourning breeds a legacy of regret.

743
00:41:16,591 --> 00:41:18,991
In the end, Ahab's line was cut off.

744
00:41:18,991 --> 00:41:23,091
His name became a by word for wickedness,
and the land he coveted was haunted

745
00:41:23,091 --> 00:41:25,641
by the memory of the innocent blood.

746
00:41:25,691 --> 00:41:29,411
Blessed are those who mourn, yes,
but only those whose mourning

747
00:41:29,411 --> 00:41:33,851
cracks the hard shell of pride and
allows the mercy of God to flow in.

748
00:41:34,121 --> 00:41:37,361
There is no blessing and grief
that breeds only self-pity or

749
00:41:37,361 --> 00:41:39,101
in pain that hardens the soul.

750
00:41:39,251 --> 00:41:40,691
There's no healing and envy.

751
00:41:40,691 --> 00:41:42,521
No comfort and tears of resentment.

752
00:41:42,581 --> 00:41:46,391
Only the morning that yields to
God brokenhearted, honest and open

753
00:41:46,511 --> 00:41:48,671
is the seed bed of true comfort.

754
00:41:49,121 --> 00:41:51,491
Abs story is a warning to us all.

755
00:41:51,491 --> 00:41:54,281
When we encounter sorrow,
do we let it turn us inward?

756
00:41:54,401 --> 00:41:59,141
Feeding a narrative of self-importance
and wounded entitlement, or do we allow

757
00:41:59,141 --> 00:42:03,581
it to open us outward to the possibility
of humility, repentance, and grace.

758
00:42:03,911 --> 00:42:07,601
The measure of our mourning is not
the depth of our emotion, but the

759
00:42:07,601 --> 00:42:09,941
direction it ultimately takes us.

760
00:42:10,841 --> 00:42:13,751
The measure of our mourning is not
the depth of our emotion, but the

761
00:42:13,751 --> 00:42:16,031
direction it ultimately takes us.

762
00:42:16,301 --> 00:42:17,501
Jezebel's kind of comfort.

763
00:42:17,501 --> 00:42:21,401
Swift, violent and unscrupulous is
the world's way of dealing with pain,

764
00:42:21,401 --> 00:42:23,111
but it ends in greater devastation.

765
00:42:23,231 --> 00:42:23,831
True comfort.

766
00:42:23,831 --> 00:42:27,431
The comfort promise by Jesus comes
only through the honest grief that

767
00:42:27,431 --> 00:42:31,421
faces our own sin, seeks God's mercy
and is willing to let go of what we

768
00:42:31,421 --> 00:42:33,371
thought we could not live without then.

769
00:42:33,371 --> 00:42:36,221
And only then do we find ourselves
blessed, not with vineyards or

770
00:42:36,221 --> 00:42:39,431
riches, but with the presence of
God himself, who wipes away every

771
00:42:39,431 --> 00:42:41,711
tear and gives beauty for ashes.

772
00:42:42,821 --> 00:42:45,401
Ahab's, dark morning left
unredeemed set in motion.

773
00:42:45,401 --> 00:42:48,221
A tragedy that echoed for generations.

774
00:42:48,641 --> 00:42:51,251
But just like everything else
in the gospel, the way we begin

775
00:42:51,491 --> 00:42:52,931
is also the way we continue.

776
00:42:52,931 --> 00:42:56,661
So the way into the kingdom,
the mourning, ah, the, the

777
00:42:56,721 --> 00:42:58,941
congratulations, you're mourn.

778
00:42:59,451 --> 00:43:03,111
God also gives us tears as the
Christian, in fact, maybe more

779
00:43:03,141 --> 00:43:06,531
so as a follower of Christ.

780
00:43:07,296 --> 00:43:12,636
Let me close by reading Psalm 1 26, when
the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion.

781
00:43:12,666 --> 00:43:14,076
We were like those who dream.

782
00:43:14,676 --> 00:43:17,616
Then our mouth was filled with laughter
and our tongue with shouts of joy

783
00:43:17,616 --> 00:43:19,116
and they sang among the nations.

784
00:43:19,356 --> 00:43:21,066
The Lord has done great things for them.

785
00:43:21,066 --> 00:43:22,776
The Lord has done great things for us.

786
00:43:22,896 --> 00:43:25,506
We are glad restore our fortunes.

787
00:43:25,506 --> 00:43:25,896
Oh Lord.

788
00:43:25,926 --> 00:43:32,916
Like the streams of the neb, those who sow
in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.

789
00:43:33,906 --> 00:43:40,086
He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed
for sowing shall come home with shouts

790
00:43:40,086 --> 00:43:44,406
of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.

791
00:43:45,636 --> 00:43:46,626
Psalm 1 26.

792
00:43:46,626 --> 00:43:51,546
In all its brevity is a meditation
on the mystery of human sorrow as a

793
00:43:51,546 --> 00:43:55,626
field in which future joy is sown.

794
00:43:56,646 --> 00:43:59,616
He who goes out weeping, carrying
seed to sow will return with songs

795
00:43:59,616 --> 00:44:01,236
of joy carrying sheaves With him.

796
00:44:01,506 --> 00:44:02,556
It's proceeding.

797
00:44:02,766 --> 00:44:06,036
Verse five reads, those who sow in
tears will reap with songs of joy.

798
00:44:06,246 --> 00:44:10,956
This is not as we're often tempted to
assume a trite spiritual aism meant

799
00:44:10,986 --> 00:44:13,476
to paper over the depth of desolation.

800
00:44:13,776 --> 00:44:17,076
No, the text is less of
a comfort than a summons.

801
00:44:17,286 --> 00:44:21,396
If you are weeping, it's asking
what will you do with your tears?

802
00:44:22,656 --> 00:44:27,156
That in the end is the question the Psalm
raises, and it is the question that hounds

803
00:44:27,156 --> 00:44:32,106
every honest soul to the very threshold of
faith giving that mourning is inevitable.

804
00:44:32,226 --> 00:44:34,386
How exactly then shall we mourn?

805
00:44:35,026 --> 00:44:36,376
don't Waste Your Sorrows.

806
00:44:37,666 --> 00:44:42,106
The notion of sorrow is something that can
be wasted as both bracing and liberating.

807
00:44:42,616 --> 00:44:44,776
It means your grief has a latent energy.

808
00:44:44,776 --> 00:44:47,296
It can be spent or invested or squandered.

809
00:44:47,866 --> 00:44:50,956
If you treat your tears solely as a
private currency for the purchase of

810
00:44:50,956 --> 00:44:53,266
self-pity, they will only impoverish you.

811
00:44:53,266 --> 00:44:58,126
But if you sow them, if you let them water
the ground of your soul and the lives of

812
00:44:58,126 --> 00:45:02,116
those around you, they become the means
by which your future self will sing.

813
00:45:03,526 --> 00:45:05,566
What are you doing with your tears?

814
00:45:05,806 --> 00:45:07,036
What are you doing with your tears?

815
00:45:07,036 --> 00:45:12,586
Culturally, we're tutored to see tears as
a kind of weakness or a personal liability

816
00:45:12,586 --> 00:45:17,946
to be expeditiously mopped up, or at
the very least, managed the workplace.

817
00:45:17,946 --> 00:45:19,656
The classroom, the sanctuary.

818
00:45:20,136 --> 00:45:23,466
Each has its own unwritten
protocols for how much sadness

819
00:45:23,466 --> 00:45:25,206
can be displayed and for how long.

820
00:45:26,211 --> 00:45:30,801
Even in the church, the place ostensibly
most at home with lament, we are inclined

821
00:45:30,801 --> 00:45:34,671
to speed toward resurrection toward the
joy in the morning without lingering long

822
00:45:34,671 --> 00:45:37,551
in the honest Soden, midnight of despair.

823
00:45:38,121 --> 00:45:40,971
But the psalmist indeed, the whole
tradition of the biblical lament

824
00:45:40,971 --> 00:45:42,951
puts a different question before us.

825
00:45:43,041 --> 00:45:46,641
What if your tears were not an
obstacle to growth, but the very

826
00:45:46,641 --> 00:45:48,171
water that made it possible.

827
00:45:49,311 --> 00:45:52,271
I think of the woman at Jesus'
feet or the tax man slumped in the

828
00:45:52,271 --> 00:45:56,231
shadows, whose whole prayer was a
river of quiet, helpless distress.

829
00:45:56,351 --> 00:45:57,491
God give mercy.

830
00:45:57,491 --> 00:45:58,751
Forgive me the sinner.

831
00:45:58,931 --> 00:46:02,561
That prayer rung from the heart of
grief yielded a harvest of righteousness

832
00:46:02,711 --> 00:46:07,301
while the sterile tearless performance
of the Pharisee yielded nothing at all.

833
00:46:07,511 --> 00:46:11,201
So again, what are you
doing with your tears?

834
00:46:11,441 --> 00:46:12,401
The biblical witnesses?

835
00:46:12,731 --> 00:46:17,051
Clear sorrow is not an end in itself,
but a necessary prelude to joy.

836
00:46:17,111 --> 00:46:21,221
It is the dark, wet place where
the seeds germinate, the furrow

837
00:46:21,221 --> 00:46:22,841
into which the future is poured.

838
00:46:23,081 --> 00:46:27,221
The question for us is not
whether we will grieve, but how

839
00:46:27,221 --> 00:46:30,341
will we do so when it comes.

840
00:46:31,151 --> 00:46:34,961
Will we let our tears evaporate into
bitterness or self-pity, or will we

841
00:46:34,961 --> 00:46:39,131
gather them up, take them out into the
fields of our lives and sow them in hope

842
00:46:39,131 --> 00:46:41,111
that God will do what only God can do.

843
00:46:41,291 --> 00:46:46,331
Turning mourning into dancing, ashes
into beauty and sorrow into gladness.

844
00:46:47,261 --> 00:46:49,901
That's a life of faith that's
following Jesus, right?

845
00:46:50,171 --> 00:46:54,191
It's a life that takes you both into the
heights of joy and the depths of sorrow.

846
00:46:54,191 --> 00:47:00,371
Often in the same season, sometimes
the same hour you will if you walk

847
00:47:00,371 --> 00:47:05,081
with God, live a life that is both
full of rejoicing and weeping.

848
00:47:05,831 --> 00:47:06,851
Let me show you what I mean.

849
00:47:06,851 --> 00:47:08,831
Look at the text, the
Psalmist's own experience.

850
00:47:09,041 --> 00:47:11,981
These people, the ones singing
the song, are not numbed against

851
00:47:11,981 --> 00:47:13,691
suffering by their faith.

852
00:47:13,841 --> 00:47:15,041
They're not immune from pain.

853
00:47:15,041 --> 00:47:18,311
In fact, faith has made
them even more alive to it.

854
00:47:19,061 --> 00:47:23,771
They have just come through are per
and are perhaps still trembling from

855
00:47:23,771 --> 00:47:25,991
a shattering world up ending or.

856
00:47:26,145 --> 00:47:26,445
Deal.

857
00:47:26,445 --> 00:47:30,435
They've been carried away into exile
and they've returned finally against all

858
00:47:30,435 --> 00:47:34,395
odds to their homeland, and the shock
of it is almost too much to take in.

859
00:47:34,545 --> 00:47:35,475
Listen to their words.

860
00:47:35,565 --> 00:47:38,625
When the Lord restored the fortunes
of Zion, we were like those who

861
00:47:38,625 --> 00:47:40,875
dreamed, we couldn't believe it.

862
00:47:40,935 --> 00:47:43,065
It was too much to dare and even hope.

863
00:47:43,875 --> 00:47:47,385
It is not just we rejoiced, it's,
we hardly dared believe it was real.

864
00:47:47,565 --> 00:47:50,925
There is a wonder, and it is
light, a kind of emotional vertigo.

865
00:47:51,315 --> 00:47:54,525
Our mouth will fill with joy,
our tongues with songs of joy.

866
00:47:54,525 --> 00:47:58,630
There it is joy, but not the mild or
polite kind, This is a joy that cracks

867
00:47:58,630 --> 00:48:00,520
open your ribs and leaves you reeling.

868
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,730
Joy is so big you can't even
fit it inside your chest.

869
00:48:03,745 --> 00:48:07,075
It's explosive, riotous, uncontainable.

870
00:48:07,195 --> 00:48:10,915
This is what happens when God says
something so radical, so unlikely

871
00:48:11,125 --> 00:48:16,915
that the only appropriate response
is awe, but don't stop reading.

872
00:48:16,915 --> 00:48:17,905
That's verses one to three.

873
00:48:17,905 --> 00:48:21,745
The very next breath is a
gasp, restore our fortunes.

874
00:48:21,745 --> 00:48:23,425
The Lord like the streams of the negi.

875
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:25,270
Do you see the shift?

876
00:48:25,270 --> 00:48:28,180
The song returns from
exaltation, depleting from

877
00:48:28,180 --> 00:48:29,920
laughter to a river of tears.

878
00:48:30,190 --> 00:48:33,610
The people who were just a moment ago,
the very picture of happiness are now

879
00:48:33,610 --> 00:48:35,920
desperate for rescue, parched and spent.

880
00:48:36,430 --> 00:48:40,140
The Negev is the wilderness a place
where water is a rumor, where life is

881
00:48:40,140 --> 00:48:42,270
fragile and hope feels like a mirage?

882
00:48:42,270 --> 00:48:46,380
To say make us like the streams and the
negev is to admit, we're dying of thirst.

883
00:48:46,500 --> 00:48:47,310
We are lost.

884
00:48:47,475 --> 00:48:51,795
We need you to do something as shocking,
as impossible, as springing rivers from

885
00:48:51,795 --> 00:48:57,645
a bone dry desert verses four to six
are not about triumph, but about pain.

886
00:48:57,945 --> 00:49:01,605
They're the kind of sorrow that makes
you plant your face in your hands and sob

887
00:49:01,605 --> 00:49:03,675
the kind that leaves you raw and expose.

888
00:49:04,665 --> 00:49:07,305
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.

889
00:49:07,515 --> 00:49:08,625
Do you feel the weight of that?

890
00:49:08,625 --> 00:49:11,385
The hope is real, but so is the suffering.

891
00:49:11,535 --> 00:49:14,295
There's no attempt to minimize
or explain away the agony.

892
00:49:14,415 --> 00:49:18,735
It is named and honored and given its
place in this world, says the psalmist.

893
00:49:18,855 --> 00:49:22,005
You will have both joy and
sorrow, laughter and lament,

894
00:49:22,185 --> 00:49:24,345
deliverance and distress.

895
00:49:25,335 --> 00:49:27,615
And here's the point
that's so easy to miss.

896
00:49:28,035 --> 00:49:30,705
This is not a defect
of the spiritual life.

897
00:49:31,705 --> 00:49:33,505
It's not a failure of faith.

898
00:49:35,185 --> 00:49:38,230
It's the way things are meant to be,
at least on this side of eternity.

899
00:49:39,290 --> 00:49:44,630
Faith does not flatten our feelings
or erase the ache of living

900
00:49:44,630 --> 00:49:46,010
in a battered, broken world.

901
00:49:46,010 --> 00:49:49,880
If anything, faith makes us feel more.

902
00:49:50,990 --> 00:49:54,770
I think of that scripture we read about
the heart of stone and the heart of flesh.

903
00:49:55,805 --> 00:49:56,465
What's it saying?

904
00:49:56,465 --> 00:49:58,865
It's saying, man, we
existed for ourselves.

905
00:49:58,865 --> 00:50:01,625
We are numb to other people's
problems and complaints because

906
00:50:01,865 --> 00:50:04,025
man, I just care about me and mine.

907
00:50:04,025 --> 00:50:05,945
I gotta take care of what's
right in front of me.

908
00:50:06,035 --> 00:50:10,565
And when he gives us a heart of flesh,
it opens this whole new realm to God's

909
00:50:10,565 --> 00:50:14,765
heart, to what he feels, to what he
sees, his tenderness and gentleness,

910
00:50:14,945 --> 00:50:16,540
how he's moved with compassion.

911
00:50:16,685 --> 00:50:21,365
It makes us feel more, think about it.

912
00:50:21,365 --> 00:50:23,135
It sharpens our hunger for justice.

913
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,180
It intensifies our longing for healing.

914
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:30,860
I love prayer meetings where we just
like heard the news and somebody

915
00:50:30,860 --> 00:50:32,960
just prays, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

916
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:38,420
And it's like a begging, plea, heal,
help where there's no other possibility.

917
00:50:38,510 --> 00:50:39,410
What is that?

918
00:50:39,590 --> 00:50:39,860
But a.

919
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:45,920
Aligning our heart with God's heart
heightens both the sweetness of joy

920
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:47,420
and the bitterness of disappointment.

921
00:50:47,630 --> 00:50:50,300
You'll never be less human
for walking with God.

922
00:50:50,660 --> 00:50:55,850
You'll be more so Your laughter will
be deeper, but so will your tears be.

923
00:50:56,090 --> 00:50:59,330
Let's be honest, most of us want a
life where the ratio of rejoicing

924
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:01,070
to weeping maybe is like 90 10.

925
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:02,870
That's mine.

926
00:51:03,620 --> 00:51:08,210
We like our stories to be mostly happy
with a couple manageable setbacks

927
00:51:08,210 --> 00:51:09,860
thrown in for character development.

928
00:51:10,155 --> 00:51:11,535
You know it's a good screenplay.

929
00:51:12,825 --> 00:51:17,475
We want our testimonies to be tales of
steady improvement with a neat little bow

930
00:51:17,475 --> 00:51:19,185
at the end, but the Psalmist knows better.

931
00:51:19,185 --> 00:51:22,095
The Psalmist knows that you
can live through one miracle.

932
00:51:22,095 --> 00:51:26,625
A rescue so profound that all the
nations notice and still wake up

933
00:51:26,625 --> 00:51:32,295
the next day in fresh trouble, in
need of deliverance all over again.

934
00:51:32,655 --> 00:51:36,015
This is the life of faith,
a life of awe and agony.

935
00:51:36,855 --> 00:51:42,435
Rescue and relapse, feasting
and famine, joy and weeping.

936
00:51:42,765 --> 00:51:43,755
Why is this?

937
00:51:44,145 --> 00:51:48,405
Because we do not follow an abstraction
or, or somebody 2000 years ago,

938
00:51:48,405 --> 00:51:51,585
who was just a good moral teacher
giving us the 10 steps to improve

939
00:51:51,585 --> 00:51:53,025
our marriages or get to heaven.

940
00:51:54,705 --> 00:51:59,175
Not a sanitized paragon of disaffected
virtue, but rather one himself

941
00:51:59,175 --> 00:52:01,110
was both a rejoice and a weeper.

942
00:52:02,085 --> 00:52:06,525
A mourner as well as a singer, one
who collapsed the binary inside

943
00:52:06,525 --> 00:52:11,615
himself, and both dignified and
modeled the faith that knows the

944
00:52:11,615 --> 00:52:15,035
full reach of the emotional life.

945
00:52:15,545 --> 00:52:18,575
If either there was a calling card,
a first impression, think about it,

946
00:52:19,625 --> 00:52:25,685
a statement of intent, it was the
inaugural miracle at Cana Jesus,

947
00:52:25,685 --> 00:52:30,635
not content to silently observe or
stand apart and dignified asceticism.

948
00:52:30,710 --> 00:52:36,710
He chooses as his very first public act,
the intervention into a faltering party

949
00:52:36,980 --> 00:52:39,110
to make a lame party a great party.

950
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:43,370
The manufacturer of a sudden
superabundance of excellent wine, the

951
00:52:43,370 --> 00:52:48,410
rescue of a social embarrassment through
a lavish, unnecessary act of festivity.

952
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:52,760
Cana, that obscure village provided
the stage for a miracle that was not

953
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:56,330
on its face, a rescue from death, a
reversal of disease, the conquering

954
00:52:56,330 --> 00:53:00,080
of the natural law, but a subtle,
almost mischievous elevation of joy.

955
00:53:00,860 --> 00:53:05,290
The text does not depict Jesus as
stoic guest, but as the very author

956
00:53:05,470 --> 00:53:08,800
of the Merriment, the Bringer of
Festival Joy, the architect of

957
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:13,210
communal delight, that he would choose
such an act to manifest his glory.

958
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:18,280
John two 11 is not only instructive,
but profoundly subversive of what

959
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:19,900
we might imagine glory to be.

960
00:53:20,170 --> 00:53:23,800
It's as if he says at the outset, I
come to bring festival joy to repair

961
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:27,550
not only the cosmic rift, but the
little cracks in human togetherness.

962
00:53:27,780 --> 00:53:33,000
The microfractures and the fragile
crystal of ordinary happiness, but it

963
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,910
is a short road from Cana to Gethsemane.

964
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,800
As he even said, woman, my hour
has not yet come as he's at the

965
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:44,910
wedding, thinking about his future
wedding and what he would have to do.

966
00:53:45,340 --> 00:53:49,840
To win a bride going to the cross
and then rising from the dead.

967
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:54,100
There is in the gospel a persistent
undertow of pain, a shadow that lengthens

968
00:53:54,190 --> 00:53:58,450
as the narrative progresses, and the one
who was first revealed as a party host

969
00:53:58,570 --> 00:54:00,580
is soon disclosed as a man of sorrows.

970
00:54:01,510 --> 00:54:05,605
You read through the New Testament
with careful and un jaundice eye, you

971
00:54:05,605 --> 00:54:10,195
will see that the emotional vocabulary
used of Jesus is often weighted towards

972
00:54:10,195 --> 00:54:12,295
the aching, the bereft, the heartsick.

973
00:54:12,295 --> 00:54:13,615
He has moved with compassion.

974
00:54:13,735 --> 00:54:14,875
He groans, he weeps.

975
00:54:14,875 --> 00:54:15,475
He's troubled.

976
00:54:15,535 --> 00:54:16,405
He laments.

977
00:54:16,435 --> 00:54:18,085
He is to borrow from the prophet.

978
00:54:18,085 --> 00:54:19,885
A man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

979
00:54:20,665 --> 00:54:23,755
He knows the taste of it, the scent, the
way it gets under your fingernails and

980
00:54:23,755 --> 00:54:27,385
stains, your voice, the same hands that
broke bread and poured wine at parties.

981
00:54:27,535 --> 00:54:31,045
Also clenched in righteous
anger at the temple, also lifted

982
00:54:31,045 --> 00:54:34,615
the face of the bereaved, also
pressed against his own chest.

983
00:54:34,615 --> 00:54:39,235
In agony, there is in Jesus the
full spectrum and there is no

984
00:54:39,235 --> 00:54:41,035
shortcuts through the valley.

985
00:54:41,410 --> 00:54:45,700
If you walk his road, your life will
be at times a wedding feast and at

986
00:54:45,700 --> 00:54:50,690
times a funeral, procession, sometimes
both, sometimes on the same day.

987
00:54:51,050 --> 00:54:54,890
If you follow Jesus, you inherit
not a life of unbroken gladness or

988
00:54:54,890 --> 00:54:59,150
endless suffering, but a braided,
doubled, oscillating story of both.

989
00:54:59,300 --> 00:55:01,760
You will throw parties
and you'll weep at graves.

990
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:04,850
You will dance and you will
collapse in prayer, you will be

991
00:55:04,850 --> 00:55:06,380
in your better moments of mixture.

992
00:55:06,500 --> 00:55:08,000
Never a monolith.

993
00:55:08,525 --> 00:55:12,215
But the most astonishing part, the
secret hiding in plain sight, is that for

994
00:55:12,215 --> 00:55:17,585
Jesus, joy and sorrow are not simply two
alternating states, but are interwoven,

995
00:55:17,735 --> 00:55:20,435
compounding generative of each other.

996
00:55:20,915 --> 00:55:25,325
You see this most clearly in Hebrews
12, where it said, where the joy set

997
00:55:25,325 --> 00:55:29,615
before him, he endured the cross.

998
00:55:29,615 --> 00:55:33,335
It's not that he endured the cross
and then was rewarded with joy.

999
00:55:34,145 --> 00:55:38,705
It was that the endurance of the
cross was itself some mysterious way,

1000
00:55:38,765 --> 00:55:41,715
energized by joy, infected with it.

1001
00:55:42,885 --> 00:55:47,355
They're not two adjacent things,
but simultaneously the joy was not

1002
00:55:47,355 --> 00:55:49,515
deferred, but braided into a suffering.

1003
00:55:49,515 --> 00:55:51,405
We're conditioned to think
in terms of sequence.

1004
00:55:51,525 --> 00:55:54,555
First pain, then pleasure, first
crossed then crown, but the life

1005
00:55:54,555 --> 00:55:57,945
of Jesus, and therefore the life of
faith for the life of the Christian.

1006
00:55:57,945 --> 00:56:00,435
The two exist together,
refracting each other.

1007
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:02,910
You are not made for monotone.

1008
00:56:03,210 --> 00:56:05,880
You're made for the whole symphony,
the fugue, the swelling, and the

1009
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:09,210
receding, and the minor and the major,
the slow movement and the finale.

1010
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:13,310
the faith Jesus invites us into as
large enough for the whole range, for

1011
00:56:13,310 --> 00:56:16,865
festival joy and for the dark night of
the soul, for everything in between.

1012
00:56:18,105 --> 00:56:22,185
In Psalm 30, verse five, you have this
famous verse, weeping Mayer for the night.

1013
00:56:22,365 --> 00:56:26,325
But Joy comes in the morning
this brilliant by all his books.

1014
00:56:26,325 --> 00:56:29,865
Derrick Kidner says that you see
many times in the Old Testament,

1015
00:56:29,865 --> 00:56:31,035
many times in the Bible.

1016
00:56:31,155 --> 00:56:34,845
He says, if you're a believer, what this
is saying is sorrow gives way to joy.

1017
00:56:35,380 --> 00:56:38,770
You may have sorrow, but if you believe
in him, in the end, you'll have joy.

1018
00:56:38,770 --> 00:56:39,880
Sorrow is temporary.

1019
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:40,840
Joy is permanent.

1020
00:56:40,930 --> 00:56:42,280
Sorrow gives way to joy.

1021
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:46,000
He says you're going to find that in
many places, weeping May Terry for the

1022
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:47,650
night, but joy comes in the morning.

1023
00:56:47,830 --> 00:56:50,470
But he says the New Testament
gives us something more amazing,

1024
00:56:50,470 --> 00:56:51,850
more profound, more shocking.

1025
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:55,060
He says The New Testament goes beyond
the Old Testament 'cause the New

1026
00:56:55,060 --> 00:56:58,210
Testament does not just say, for a
believer that sorrow gives way to joy.

1027
00:56:58,420 --> 00:57:02,620
The New Testament goes so far as to say
the most odd and most radical thing.

1028
00:57:03,050 --> 00:57:07,340
And that's, that sorrow produces
joy for the Christian in the gospel.

1029
00:57:07,340 --> 00:57:10,520
Through the gospel, through Jesus
Christ, sorrow produces joy.

1030
00:57:10,550 --> 00:57:11,420
What now?

1031
00:57:11,420 --> 00:57:14,510
The classic place where that's
mentioned though it's in many places,

1032
00:57:14,510 --> 00:57:18,680
second Corinthians four 17, where
Paul says, for our light and momentary

1033
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:23,955
afflictions are achieving an internal
weight of glory, which far outweighs

1034
00:57:24,265 --> 00:57:27,410
them old and the old King James.

1035
00:57:27,410 --> 00:57:29,275
It's that it produces.

1036
00:57:30,340 --> 00:57:32,500
It doesn't just say sorrows
will give way to joy.

1037
00:57:32,650 --> 00:57:34,240
The sorrows are producing joy.

1038
00:57:34,450 --> 00:57:35,620
They're creating the joy.

1039
00:57:35,620 --> 00:57:36,730
They're achieving the joy.

1040
00:57:36,860 --> 00:57:37,610
This is amazing.

1041
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:42,390
look at Jesus Christ, he was
the man of incredible sorrows.

1042
00:57:42,630 --> 00:57:46,050
He was in pain, he was rejected,
he was tortured, he was killed.

1043
00:57:46,140 --> 00:57:49,140
He sorrowed like no one has
ever sorrowed, but his sorrows

1044
00:57:49,140 --> 00:57:50,700
didn't just give way to joy.

1045
00:57:50,850 --> 00:57:52,950
His sorrows produced the joy.

1046
00:57:53,495 --> 00:57:55,235
His sorrows produced the glory.

1047
00:57:55,385 --> 00:58:00,335
It's not the light and momentary
affliction that he endured because

1048
00:58:00,335 --> 00:58:03,635
his was not light and momentary.

1049
00:58:04,170 --> 00:58:09,900
But the eternal God experienced something
on the cross of infinity and internality.

1050
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:15,540
If it's true, then there must be some
way which that pattern remains with us.

1051
00:58:16,050 --> 00:58:20,730
The only place in the Old Testament
is brought out here in Psalm 1 26.

1052
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:24,510
It doesn't just say, don't worry,
weeping may Terry for the night,

1053
00:58:24,510 --> 00:58:25,470
but joy comes in the morning.

1054
00:58:25,470 --> 00:58:26,160
What does it say?

1055
00:58:26,340 --> 00:58:29,430
Those who sow in tears will
reap with songs of joy.

1056
00:58:29,430 --> 00:58:32,460
The tears are watering something,
the tears are producing something.

1057
00:58:32,700 --> 00:58:34,470
The tears are not just
giving weighted joy.

1058
00:58:34,620 --> 00:58:39,660
The tears are producing joy, and what's so
incredible is the little word will twice.

1059
00:58:39,660 --> 00:58:43,830
He says, those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.

1060
00:58:44,475 --> 00:58:51,105
he who goes out weeping, carrying seed to
sow will return this is what we do know.

1061
00:58:52,545 --> 00:58:55,455
He says, if you keep us in times
of weeping, there will be joy.

1062
00:58:55,875 --> 00:58:57,945
It may be the fast kind,
it may be the slow kind.

1063
00:58:57,945 --> 00:59:01,325
It may be the sudden water course
of the desert flood, or it may

1064
00:59:01,595 --> 00:59:04,235
be that all we're doing to is.

1065
00:59:04,820 --> 00:59:10,490
Painstakingly slow, and we're just slowly
irrigating, thelander with our tears.

1066
00:59:10,490 --> 00:59:11,990
But we will have sheaths.

1067
00:59:11,990 --> 00:59:13,460
There will be harvest.

1068
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:14,870
There will be answer.

1069
00:59:15,110 --> 00:59:17,630
Every tear will be wiped from our eye.

1070
00:59:18,030 --> 00:59:20,040
There will be sheaths and may be fast.

1071
00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:20,970
It may be slow.

1072
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:22,230
Don't waste your sorrows.

1073
00:59:22,230 --> 00:59:24,060
If you sow in tears, you will reap.

1074
00:59:24,060 --> 00:59:24,870
It will happen.

1075
00:59:24,870 --> 00:59:27,120
Joy will be the final note in your life.

1076
00:59:27,270 --> 00:59:29,070
It'll be the final word in your life.

1077
00:59:29,430 --> 00:59:30,390
Well, the question is how?

1078
00:59:30,570 --> 00:59:31,560
How could that be?

1079
00:59:31,740 --> 00:59:32,940
How is it possible?

1080
00:59:33,060 --> 00:59:40,980
How is it possible that the joy
and the sorrow are weaved together?

1081
00:59:41,610 --> 00:59:46,830
Gospel joy produces deeper sorrow,
but gospel sorrow produces deeper joy.

1082
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:51,360
Number one, because I'm fully seen and
fully loved because God says over my

1083
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:55,170
life, if you fail every day, I love you.

1084
00:59:56,910 --> 00:59:58,650
I can look at myself realistically.

1085
01:00:00,135 --> 01:00:04,395
I could take the mask off all my
hunting for approval that I've spent

1086
01:00:04,395 --> 01:00:09,495
my life trying to get and to earn the
attaboys in my life, man, because I'm

1087
01:00:09,495 --> 01:00:11,865
approved by before the court of heaven.

1088
01:00:12,165 --> 01:00:14,685
'cause I'm clothed in the
righteousness of Christ.

1089
01:00:14,985 --> 01:00:17,955
Man, there is a humility that
can come into my life because

1090
01:00:17,955 --> 01:00:19,035
it wasn't anything I did.

1091
01:00:19,155 --> 01:00:19,700
What did I bring?

1092
01:00:20,025 --> 01:00:20,685
Failure.

1093
01:00:20,745 --> 01:00:21,585
That's what I brought.

1094
01:00:21,735 --> 01:00:24,945
And he brought love and he brought
righteousness, and he brought grace.

1095
01:00:25,005 --> 01:00:27,675
And he never stops, and he
keeps pouring it out every day.

1096
01:00:27,675 --> 01:00:29,055
And his mercies are new every morning.

1097
01:00:29,175 --> 01:00:31,755
And he keeps giving and
giving and giving and giving.

1098
01:00:32,055 --> 01:00:35,645
And that produces this humbleness
to face the world and to face other

1099
01:00:35,645 --> 01:00:38,915
people, to face others who are
jacked up, who've used you and abused

1100
01:00:38,915 --> 01:00:40,445
you, and stabbed you in the back.

1101
01:00:40,445 --> 01:00:42,995
It changes everything.

1102
01:00:43,995 --> 01:00:46,305
I hate sin, man.

1103
01:00:46,305 --> 01:00:46,845
I hate it.

1104
01:00:49,485 --> 01:00:51,105
I used to hate it for the consequences

1105
01:00:52,105 --> 01:00:59,285
I had this guy, who came and visited, I'm
wrapping, and he stayed at my parents'.

1106
01:00:59,285 --> 01:01:01,655
I was a kid and he, I
was cooking french toast.

1107
01:01:02,655 --> 01:01:04,905
And he kept saying two more.

1108
01:01:05,265 --> 01:01:07,905
it started out funny, two
more, two more French toast.

1109
01:01:08,505 --> 01:01:10,995
He must have gone through like two
loaves of bread and I was there for

1110
01:01:10,995 --> 01:01:15,255
like an hour and 20 minutes cooking and
by the end he was just like, two more.

1111
01:01:15,355 --> 01:01:21,655
I was just like so frustrated and so
over this human being, eating all our

1112
01:01:21,655 --> 01:01:25,075
food, you know, just like, I mean,
I'd never seen anybody eat so much.

1113
01:01:25,175 --> 01:01:30,215
For me, I think about that and I think,
man, I've taken off the grave clothes.

1114
01:01:31,265 --> 01:01:33,095
I've stepped into the
robe of righteousness.

1115
01:01:34,745 --> 01:01:38,945
And man, when I go back to the grave,
it's like me saying, Hey, Jesus.

1116
01:01:39,245 --> 01:01:39,725
Two more.

1117
01:01:41,915 --> 01:01:42,275
Two more.

1118
01:01:42,905 --> 01:01:44,915
See, I used to hate it because
I was caught and there were

1119
01:01:44,915 --> 01:01:46,865
consequences are inherent in sin.

1120
01:01:46,865 --> 01:01:50,045
Sin is something that
self-destructs, it's the.

1121
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:51,950
It just comes apart, right?

1122
01:01:51,950 --> 01:01:54,440
And so if you engage in it, you're
gonna come apart too, right?

1123
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:01,610
But see Christ on the cross who, for the
joy set before him, who I believe is you

1124
01:02:01,610 --> 01:02:05,960
and me, and right relationship with him,
he's looking at you and me restored.

1125
01:02:06,590 --> 01:02:09,320
He's looking at you and me, is
our names written in heaven?

1126
01:02:10,700 --> 01:02:13,970
And he's leaning into the
cross and during the shame.

1127
01:02:15,455 --> 01:02:20,495
And I just, it's so helpful to me because
it's like, if I go back to the grave,

1128
01:02:20,495 --> 01:02:22,145
I'm just like, I know I'm covered.

1129
01:02:22,145 --> 01:02:25,455
I know my sin is as far as the east
is from the west, but it's like,

1130
01:02:25,785 --> 01:02:27,105
you know what, that wasn't enough.

1131
01:02:27,105 --> 01:02:27,435
Two more.

1132
01:02:27,435 --> 01:02:27,945
Jesus,

1133
01:02:30,885 --> 01:02:36,235
that's the godly sorrow that Paul's
talking about, that holy like view

1134
01:02:36,235 --> 01:02:40,005
of the beautiful Jesus, on the cross.

1135
01:02:40,065 --> 01:02:40,185
Awesome.

1136
01:02:41,185 --> 01:02:44,635
But then think it's the sorrow
of repentance that produces joy

1137
01:02:44,635 --> 01:02:45,925
that you've never had before.

1138
01:02:46,165 --> 01:02:46,705
Teshuva.

1139
01:02:47,005 --> 01:02:48,895
It's that word that means come home.

1140
01:02:49,405 --> 01:02:49,915
Why?

1141
01:02:50,125 --> 01:02:53,875
Because every time we realize as
God reveals something in our lives

1142
01:02:53,875 --> 01:02:55,555
who the sunset free is free indeed.

1143
01:02:55,645 --> 01:02:58,910
He doesn't want us divided and.

1144
01:02:59,905 --> 01:03:03,595
Having the Epit Theia, the things
that we orchestrate and say,

1145
01:03:03,595 --> 01:03:05,875
well, yes God, but this too why.

1146
01:03:05,905 --> 01:03:08,845
And once he gets rid of that, it
exposes that idol in our life.

1147
01:03:08,845 --> 01:03:09,385
What are we?

1148
01:03:09,505 --> 01:03:10,045
We're free.

1149
01:03:11,065 --> 01:03:11,785
We're so free.

1150
01:03:11,785 --> 01:03:13,315
Because that's a bad master.

1151
01:03:13,495 --> 01:03:16,285
It can never do anything but destroy us.

1152
01:03:16,375 --> 01:03:18,985
Even the best things, a best
marriage on its best day.

1153
01:03:19,165 --> 01:03:25,285
If that is the ultimate value in your
life, it will destroy you only as good.

1154
01:03:25,825 --> 01:03:28,435
And he liberates and sets us free.

1155
01:03:29,435 --> 01:03:30,545
We often ask, why me

1156
01:03:31,545 --> 01:03:32,955
in the middle of pain and suffering.

1157
01:03:33,955 --> 01:03:37,245
But our why me is reframed as you begin
to see Jesus himself on the cross, And

1158
01:03:37,245 --> 01:03:41,535
you notice perhaps for the first time that
Jesus himself cries out, why me though?

1159
01:03:41,535 --> 01:03:46,630
Not in words exactly like that, but in
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

1160
01:03:47,790 --> 01:03:51,240
It's not a rhetorical question, but a how
pressed from the depths of abandonment,

1161
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:54,330
a cry that echoes through eternity.

1162
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:57,360
And I've looked into
this, I've studied it.

1163
01:03:57,360 --> 01:03:58,770
I, there's mystery to it.

1164
01:03:58,770 --> 01:04:02,550
God doesn't unbe become God in that
moment, but there is a pattern that

1165
01:04:02,550 --> 01:04:05,760
the writers are setting up in the
narrative, and that's that everywhere

1166
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:10,840
Jesus calls, godfather every single time
until the cross where he cries out, my

1167
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:12,550
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

1168
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:15,250
And in some ways beyond mystery.

1169
01:04:15,415 --> 01:04:20,275
the son loses the father in that moment
as the sin substitute taking on my

1170
01:04:20,395 --> 01:04:22,015
sin so that I could gain a father.

1171
01:04:22,735 --> 01:04:24,745
So that I could be brought
back and welcomed home.

1172
01:04:24,745 --> 01:04:25,495
I don't get it.

1173
01:04:25,495 --> 01:04:27,575
I don't understand it,
but I love him for it.

1174
01:04:27,575 --> 01:04:27,960
Mm-hmm.

1175
01:04:28,195 --> 01:04:32,455
And what happens to our, why me
is swallowed up in his, why me?

1176
01:04:32,455 --> 01:04:33,925
Because there wasn't the answer.

1177
01:04:33,925 --> 01:04:35,154
He had to go into death.

1178
01:04:35,305 --> 01:04:38,365
He had to take the sting, he did go down.

1179
01:04:38,365 --> 01:04:39,415
He was the payment.

1180
01:04:39,475 --> 01:04:46,045
He had to be swallowed up in the grave
for three days and then rise in victory.

1181
01:04:47,575 --> 01:04:50,785
But that's the worst thing in the
universe that ever can happen.

1182
01:04:50,785 --> 01:04:53,485
That became the best thing in
the universe that ever happened.

1183
01:04:53,575 --> 01:04:57,505
And so our why mes can get swallowed
up because he who did not spare his own

1184
01:04:57,505 --> 01:04:59,545
son, but gave him up for us all how?

1185
01:04:59,845 --> 01:05:03,265
Also not freely give us all things.

1186
01:05:04,135 --> 01:05:08,005
And guys, the story of what he's
gonna do with your tears, there's

1187
01:05:08,005 --> 01:05:10,285
nothing wasted that's sown.

1188
01:05:11,305 --> 01:05:12,865
There's nothing wasted.

1189
01:05:13,465 --> 01:05:18,175
Like even the nights that you don't even
remember anymore, the heartbreaks, those

1190
01:05:18,175 --> 01:05:20,995
will be brought up when it says he's
gonna wipe every tear from your eyes.

1191
01:05:21,415 --> 01:05:24,055
Psalm says that he keeps
your tears in his bottle.

1192
01:05:24,175 --> 01:05:25,255
What that means is.

1193
01:05:25,975 --> 01:05:29,785
From the time you were a kid and you
don't even have memories when you

1194
01:05:29,785 --> 01:05:33,665
scraped your knees on your big wheel
to the bully pushing you off the

1195
01:05:33,665 --> 01:05:39,095
jungle gym at the playground to someone
backstabbing you and taking your job

1196
01:05:39,095 --> 01:05:45,330
or whatever it might be, the pain that
agony man, he's gonna take the tear out.

1197
01:05:46,295 --> 01:05:51,365
Those nail scarred hands as he wipes
it from your eye, you'll be healed

1198
01:05:51,635 --> 01:05:54,065
and all that joy will come from.

1199
01:05:54,065 --> 01:05:55,895
And it's like having a
bad dream and a nightmare.

1200
01:05:55,895 --> 01:05:57,625
And you wake up, and
your wife's still there.

1201
01:05:57,625 --> 01:05:58,435
She's not dead.

1202
01:05:58,435 --> 01:06:03,654
Like the dream said, you're more happy
because of what you just went through.

1203
01:06:03,654 --> 01:06:08,185
And so too, having will be even
more joyous in the fact because

1204
01:06:08,185 --> 01:06:09,775
God will turn every sorrow.

1205
01:06:10,025 --> 01:06:11,585
Into that joy.

1206
01:06:11,675 --> 01:06:12,635
Let me pray for us.