Because of the comfort of the gospel, we are BLESSED. Not blessed because we have more money or opportunity or resources to avoid dealing with the brokenness of this world, but blessed because we are in a relationship with the God who is making all things new through the life, death, resurrection and return of Jesus.

So what?

I want to give you three things to do with this (as if you haven’t gotten enough yet).

The Christian State of Mind

First, the result of being poor in spirit/mourning is where we predominantly live as Christians, and that result is BLESSEDNESS. 

We cannot be rich in grace and not poor in spirit. There is no making much of forgiveness and redemption by making light of sin. But the result of those things is BLESSEDNESS, and that is the state in which we live. 

We are constantly recognizing God’s holiness, and constantly recognizing the depth of our sin, and therefore constantly growing in our blessed state because of Jesus’ work on our behalf and our new citizenship in the kingdom of God.  

The Whole Gospel Church

Second, let’s be people and a church who embrace the blessing associated with mourning … this is the whole gospel. There are too many alternatives that want to make following Jesus a mere matter of pragmatism and prosperity … following Jesus for a goal other than Jesus Himself. That’s not good news. There is no comfort in a message from a church that doesn’t call you to be poor in spirit and mournful. We should be mournful for the people who go to churches where that is the case.

The Gospel for the World

Third, because there is a relationship between mourning for our sin and mourning for the sin of this world, let us be gospel-centered ministers for social change. There is a difference between us and other charities that champion for positive social change without Jesus. We are motivated by the fact that the kingdom of God is near. And the kingdom of God is entirely just. The kingdom of God is entirely right. There is no pain or sorrow associated with any sin in the kingdom of God, and that is where our citizenship lies.

James Montgomery Boice says it best: “The second beatitude is a call to involvement in the social arena—in the struggle of blacks for true equality, the plight of underpaid workers, pollution of our natural resources, education, ethical problems in politics, medicine, and business, and other contemporary problems—just as Christians were formerly active in the war against slavery, child labor, lack of freedom of the press, and immorality. We should mourn for such things. And we should mourn deeply enough to do something about them.”