I’m supposed to be happy…when I’m sad?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m supposed to be happy…when I’m sad? Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to communicate the freeing truth that God’s not mad at his children. Steve invited our friend Pete Alwinson of teach us all this week. Pete is a former pastor, founder of ForgeTruth.com and the author of Like Father Like Son.

Pete Alwinson:
Thank you Matthew. And it’s so good to be with you again on Key Life. My name is Pete Alwinson and I’m sitting in for Steve Brown this week, thankful that he has a little time to get away. And, it’s been great to be with you so far this week. Hey, listen, we’ve been talking about the Beatitudes and the Kingdom Manifesto. That’s what I’ve titled it. And, you might remember that I said that the Kingdom Manifesto is Jesus’ way of saying that a whole new day has arrived. A manifesto is one of those things that someone presents when they want to say, Hey, listen, the past is behind us and it hasn’t worked. It’s not been good, but I’ve got a whole better way. The Communist Manifesto has been presented as a way of getting rid of everything in the past. Karl Marx in 1858, thought that the Communist Manifesto was the way forward. Many people adopted it. It never worked, but they’re still trying to adopt it today. But Jesus, the King of the universe has brought his Kingdom Manifesto and it has never been surpassed. And it will never be surpassed. And so, we looked at the first Beatitude, yesterday. Let’s take a look at the second Beatitude, Matthew 5:4.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Now, I want you to note that, I don’t know, I struggle with this because I’m kind of a positive and upbeat and outgoing person and I don’t get depressed all that much. And so, when Jesus says.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

You’re happy if you mourn, it goes against my temperament and I think he kind of goes against our temperament as a country. We’re kind of an extroverted country who expects positive leaders and we want to be happy, we want to have fun. And so, I guess I want to say, Hey, blessed are those who are radically happy, not those who are mourning, but bottom line is. I didn’t write the Sermon on the Mount. And so, there’s more to it than we understand. And so, when Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn, it’s definitely related to what he said in the first Beatitude when he brought up this whole idea of

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And remember I said yesterday that all of the Beatitudes build on one another. So, this second Beatitude builds on the first, if you’re poor in spirit, then you will mourn. Now, what am I going to mourn? Well, the reality is, Jesus is saying, blessed are those who have been poor in spirit and have come to the end of themselves and see that they really have nothing to offer God. And so, they actually, when they see themselves and they see the poverty of their spirit, they mourn over their own sin. And do you see how radical that is because we live in a day and age, where everybody’s trying to explain themselves, we’re always trying to say, no, I didn’t do that, I’m not that bad. And we’re always trying to celebrate what we do well. But here, there’s a logic spiritually to what Jesus says. He says blessed are those who mourn over their own sin, who see that their offenses are to the King of the universe, not just to other people, that they feel bad for their workaholism or their alcoholism or their unfaithfulness or they’re lying or stealing or manipulating or cheating. And this big idea here, is that when you’re poor in spirit, you will know it. And you will mourn over your sin because you will see that your sin has only brought desolation to other people. My daughter, Jessie is the third of our children and she’s better than your daughter, I want you to know, she’s wonderful. And, we call her Jessie, the warrior princess. She is a lacrosse coach at a local high school. And she really interacts with kids whose lives are really broken so much of the time. She told me the other day that one of her girls, said to her, Hey coach, my dad’s coming to a lacrosse game this week, for the very first time. Then she said, he doesn’t like me very much. And my daughter told me that and both our hearts sank. There’s so many people, so many kids, so many young people in our country who are hurt because of the dysfunction and the sin and the brokenness in their own families. And, some of these parents don’t even see what they’re missing and how they’re hurting their kids. But blessed are those who mourn over their sin, who see the sad and negative implications of their sin. Now, I want to tell you what he’s not talking about here, when he talks about being sad and mourning over sin. He’s not talking about those people who are mourning when their evil plans come to nothing. I mean, there’s a lot of evil people, a lot of despicable leaders in history that are thankfully dead. There’s a lot of leaders today that are not good leaders, unfortunately very much alive, still hurting so many people. And sometimes when bad people, get away with things, they mourn that their bad plans came to nothing. I just finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s Killing the Mob. And it was a fascinating read. I really enjoyed it. But there’s a lot of times when those wise guys came to nothing. I learned that the mob is still alive and well. I learned a lot from this book that, Hey, Frank Sinatra really was connected to the mob. So, was JFK’s dad, Joseph Kennedy. So was JFK, while Bobby Kennedy wanted to wipe out the mob. I wonder what, I wonder what their Thanksgiving dinners were like? But you see, when you mourn because bad plans are thwarted, you’re unrighteous, it’s called evil mourning. Some people mourn, of course, when they’re sad, when bad things happen in their life. And, of course we should mourn about that. I was working at a Panera the other day and a guy I hadn’t seen in a long time came by. Yes, I was working, I was working on a message cause I had to have a quiet place to work. And the guy hadn’t seen in a long time came up and told me that his dad had died. And that’s a big deal. And then he told me that his wife had filed for divorce and that’s a big, big deal. And he was mourning over these bad things that had happened in his life. And, you know, we need to learn to mourn. And, most of my ministry these days is to men. Guys, we need to mourn, we need to be willing to cry, over the things that have gone wrong in our lives. And there are a lot of bad things in this world. We need to mourn when our kids lecture us that we’re not woke enough or when our marriage isn’t as good as we want it to be or we get sick with COVID, when we lose our job, when there’s disunity in our church, when we see police officers committing, there’s so, so much that we can be sad about, and we need to mourn, looking forward to Jesus coming again. But what Jesus is talking about more than anything else is that those who mourn over their own sin are really happy. So, let me ask you how do those who mourn over their sin, how are they happy? Well, let’s talk about it just for a second. Blessed are you who mourn. And here’s, what’s helped me to understand this text more in my life. Number one, when you are sad over your own sin, you show that you’re truly converted. You’re born again, that you really are in sync with God. Have you ever talked to somebody and they didn’t know you were a Christian. They said, Hey, I’m a Christian too. I didn’t know you were a Christian. And you go, whoa, it never showed. But when you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness or excuse me, when you mourn over your own sin because your sin is bad, it proves, it proves that you’re born again and truly converted because unconverted people do not mourn over their own. So, let me give you a truth. If you have never grieved over your own sin in the presence of God, you’ve never been in the presence of God. I believe that’s absolutely true because our God is a consuming fire. He’s a God of holiness and justice and grace as well. And by his grace, he’s brought us to the end of ourselves and enable us to see our sin. And mourn over it. So, when you are sad over your own sin, it proves that you are born again. That’s a very good thing. Secondly, when you’re sad over your own sin, you immediately see an area of growth for you to take the next step in this great character thing called the Christian life. We’re not, we’re not born again by being good, we’re born again by faith in Jesus Christ. It’s all by his grace. But, what he begins to do in the process of redeeming us after he’s redeemed us, is to develop us in the image of Christ. And it’s a wonderful thing that he causes us to mourn over our own because our sin then opens up to us areas of growth into which his character can begin to move. And then lastly, when you’re sad over your own sin, you stop and consider what Jesus came to do and what he will do in the future. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. And so, we’re really happy when we mourn over our own sin. We see the reality that mourning over our own sin brings us to grace. You take it to heart.

Matthew Porter:
And that was Pete Alwinson, teaching us again. You probably know Pete from Friday Q&A, but of course he’s also a former pastor, and oh, by the way, just a fantastic Bible teacher, as we’re seeing this week. By the way, if you missed any of this, week’s broadcasts with Pete, be sure to catch those at keylife.org. So much great content to check out. We have a station finder tool that will allow you to know which radio stations near you will be playing Key Life and Steve Brown Etc. We also have transcripts for Key Life. Each one is meticulously edited by my buddy, John, to enhance your study. Also at Keylife.org you’ll find our digital magazine, sermons, video versions of Steve Brown Etc, Key Life Connection and even a link to our brand new Key Life app. And all of it is still free, thanks to the generous support of listeners, just like you. If you’d like to donate, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. Or you can mail your donation to

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