In Matthew 5:3-4, the message centers on poor in spirit and those who mourn. Explore Matthew 5:3–4 and Jesus’ teaching on the poor in spirit and those who mourn as He describes life in the kingdom of God. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The sermon follows the biblical text into practical discipleship, connecting doctrine with identity, character, and daily obedience. It challenges listeners to examine the assumptions shaping their lives and to allow the truth of Scripture to renew the way they think and respond. The emphasis is not merely on understanding the passage, but on becoming the kind of people whose lives are formed by it.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Matthew 5:3-4, poor in spirit and those who mourn, matthew 5, poor in spirit. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Matthew 5:3-4 teach about poor in spirit and those who mourn? It also considers how should poor in spirit and those who mourn shape the way Christians live?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does Matthew 5:3-4 teach about poor in spirit and those who mourn? | How should poor in spirit and those who mourn shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Matthew 5:3-4 in everyday life?
Matthew 5:3-4, poor in spirit and those who mourn, matthew 5, poor in spirit, those who mourn
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But I want to start a new series today called Citizens. Everyone say citizens. Um it it was kind of funny. I uh driving in this morning. Did the fog clear when y'all came to church today? Um it was like I was driving on another planet or in another planet because you know driving down my road. I feel like sometimes when you're driving and you're in a familiar place, you can kind of zone out a little bit. Anybody done that before? You shouldn't cuz that's how accidents happen. But I feel like when you're familiar with it, it's just kind of like, oh, you know, this is the same road, this is the same highway, whatever it is. But for whatever reason this morning when the fog came in, it was like I was in a new place and it was just like, oh, I I have to pay attention a lot more because this doesn't look familiar to me anymore. Like, it was so thick and soupy. When the sun hit it, everything just like turned white and I thought I was in Seattle or something. It was just a really interesting moment. And and with that take as we look at the biatitudes for the next few weeks is is what this series is going to be about. I want us to ask the Holy Spirit to allow us to see it in a new way. Because I think sometimes we can approach scripture maybe that we've we've read before and we just go, "Oh, I know I know what this is or I haven't I or I've driven down this road before. Like I can kind of zone out, right? I can kind of like this is this is just normal." But I'm praying today that God brings in the fog and allows us to pay attention to maybe something different that he wants to show us. Uh because for the next four weeks, we're going to be focused on the biatitudes. And it comes from one of the really one of the most famous passages of scripture that we have in the New Testament, which is Matthew 5:7, which is commonly called the sermon on the mount. You all familiar with the sermon on the mount? Okay. during this time and and even prior to all of this this sermon happening, Jesus is popping off. He's blowing up. He's going viral. He's got huge crowds of people. He's healing tons and tons of people. And and it gets to this point in Matthew 4:25 where it says that great multitudes followed him and they came from many different regions. And so when when we go back and look at it, you got people coming from from Syria, even Egypt and all these different places. is they've heard of this man of God that can heal this man of God, this rabbi that's like no other. And so he's got this crowd of people coming all around him. And even when we reference the disciples in this, this isn't just the 12. He's got tons and tons of people that call themselves disciples during this time. And by the end of this message in Matthew 7:28, it says, "And it was so when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at his teaching." These three chapters again, they make up this great sermon. And I I know that Jesus preached this more than once. Um you can actually look in Luke 6, he preaches a similar message, but it's not on a mount, it's on a plane. And so like for for me, I don't know if you if you follow any other speakers and stuff on on Instagram or Tik Tok, I feel like there's a lot of evangelists that kind of have their same message that they preach wherever they go. Like I'm going to go preach over here and I'm going to preach the same message over at this church. There might be a little bit of change in difference, but it's the same message. And really, this is this is boiled down to what Jesus is wanting to show us how to be a citizen of the kingdom. And when we go through the whole description of this and and actually if you sit and read Matthew 5 through7 and you read it out loud, it's really only about 12 to 15 minutes. I mean, I I want a message like that today. Can we be 12? Can I be 12 to 15 minutes today? Like, come on. Amen. Thank you, Pops. But really, it's boiled down to the essentials. And so, like, and I'm not trying to be weird or anything, but there's so much more that Jesus could have said when you have all this attention and all these all these people, but really this is what the Holy Spirit wanted to have conveyed and written and transferred to us. And again, it's it's important to note as well that even as we looked at Ephesians, that was all from Paul. And Paul has a very different teaching style than Jesus. He taught differently than Peter, Paul, James, John. Again, all inspired by the Holy Spirit, but all different styles. And throughout the entire Bible, there are different writing styles, which should affect the way that we read them hermeneutically. There's poetry, there's prophecies, there's songs, declarations, histories, stories. We can't read one book or one author the same way that we read another because it's a different writer, different style, and really a different personality. Again, like Paul, he he likes to have the big run-on sentences, as we experienced in Ephesians. He likes repeating points in different ways. I like doing that, too. Peter is bold, to the point. James is eloquent and painfully instructive. That's my opinion. John is loving, purposeful, and who his audience is. And Jesus is God. His style of teaching is God's style of teaching. If you want to know what God sounds like, listen to Jesus. When God spoke through Paul or Isaiah or Jeremiah, David, all these different people, it was an inspiration of God, but expressed through their personality. But Jesus's personality, he is God. So this isn't like some different expression. This is God speaking through Jesus. I just I need to set this up because I think sometimes we can get into this comparison game. And it's so beautiful when we read these words and know they came straight from the throne room. In the sermon on the mount again, Jesus tells us how to live as citizens of the kingdom. This was Jesus's declaration, his manifesto, if you will. This is what my kingdom is all about. This is what I've come to do. I am a king. This is my kingdom. And this is how its people need to operate. The sermon on the mount, this these three chapters, it doesn't talk about political blessings or material blessings. It talks about the spiritual implication of the rule of the Messiah in our life. Even the early Christians throughout the New Testament made reference to this teaching at the core of their doctrine and what they were called to and it was radically displayed in their disciplehip. So with this series again I I don't want to dive into salt and light and all the things that we can get into in the sermon on the mount. I want to focus in on the biatitudes. Everyone say biatitudes. >> Let's read these together. Not with me. I'm just going to read it and you guys hear it. Matthew 5 3-12. It says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Let's pray. God, we love you. We thank you for this word. We thank you that it is you speaking. We thank you, Jesus, that you came and laid your life down for each and every one of us. And you left us these words, this scripture to show us how we ought to live as citizens of your kingdom. Help us to hear it. Help us to apply it and grow in it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Biatitudes in in the Latin translation means the blessings or maybe in a fun way we can say the beatitudes the attitudes in which you should be. The biatitudes are a way to live that become really an attitude when people see us. They see a life marked by God glorifying Jesus. All of these things that we read in this scripture, it should be something that people see within us. Jesus sets the goals of the citizens of his kingdom. And if you're going to be a citizen of the kingdom of God, you will have these qualities that we just read about. And you'll also be learning and growing in these qualities and character traits. I think it's interesting sometimes we can often look at this passage and we think of it like it's a spiritual gifts test where we go like, "Oh, I'm the peacemaker." Like that's my that's my spiritual gift. Like like I'm a prophet or an apostle or I have these different gifts in my in my walk in life or I I've got the gift of faith or you know, oh, yeah, I'm merciful. So God's merciful on me, you know, and we can pick and choose all of these different things. Like when you get a weird box of chocolates and there's the one, y'all know what I'm talking about. It's that weird coconut one that nobody wants to eat and you Well, that's me. That's I'm sorry. You may be all about the coconut, but there's like I bite into it and then I might slip it back if I'm like not not about it. No, that's just me. Okay, this is not a box of chocolates. This is a bag of M&M's. Okay, they may all be different colors, but it's all chocolate. These are all things that we need in our lives. Okay, we can't pick and choose. This is for every one of us as believers. We all need to grow in these attributes as citizens of the kingdom of God. If you claim to be a Christian and your lives don't show any of these attributes, I would question whether or not you're really following Jesus. Mic drop. Pin drop. Love it. Jesus begins by saying, "Blessed." What does blessed or blessed even mean biblically? In the Greek, the blessed actually means happy. Happiness in the godly sense of the word, not in the modern sense or the the word that is actually used is called macar macaros. Everyone say macaros. Macaros. It's kind of fun. It means happy. It means approval or even god approving. And there's so many scriptures that that even speak to this of blessed are you. I'm approving you, God in heaven. Again, our modern happiness is often around being comfortable or entertained or I'm having fun. I'm happy. Right? But when we look at this, it's not a feeling. It's a proclamation. You are happy, but it's not about material or emotion. Again, in Christian culture, we can often look at blessings as God giving us things. There's material blessing or wealth. Or, I'm blessed today cuz I got that parking space up front, right? Or I'm blessed today cuz I got that new job or I got that new house. God really blessed me with this car or this opportunity or, you know, favor ain't fair. I'm I'm too blessed to be stressed, right? But really, this blessed or blessed word has an eternal meaning and value to it. Jesus even said this talking about the day of judgment in Matthew 25:34. It says, "Then the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed or blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." On that day, Jesus and in judgment day, Jesus is going to judge between the blessed and those who are not. Jesus knows what the requirements are for being blessed. And if we want to be blessed citizens of God, disciples, true followers of Jesus, this passage, the biatitudes, is the roadmap for us to continue to grow more and more in that. And again, in our in our Ephesians series, we really got into a lot of deep stuff with the heart being a dwelling place, what it looks like to be a true follower, talking about unity, being sons and daughters, what it means to be the church. But as we look at all of this, we want to hang on to all of these attributes and grow in all of them as citizens. And I and I want to say this because I sometimes it can be confusing, but Jesus did not come to preach the gospel because he is the gospel. He came preaching the kingdom. And so it's important for us to focus in on this. So verse one, we're going to we're just going to hit two today. I planned on doing three, but worship was just too good today and we went a little long. And that's okay. All right. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Does is it like saying that I'm insignificant or I'm worthless or I have no value? No. It means that we confess that we are sinful, rebellious, and without any ability to make oursel approve before God. That's it. Think about think about poverty. Um, think about those that are poor and have nothing when it comes to money. They have no assets, maybe nothing in the bank, no property. They're bankrupt. They have nothing. And so when you're poor in spirit, it's realizing that I on my own have no spiritual assets of any kind. It is not in in in my power or my ability. I am spiritually bankrupt. It doesn't matter how long I may have been a believer or a follower of Christ. Like when I really look at my life, I have nothing when it comes to God. Again, the Greek word for poor actually just means very poor, like a beggar. It's almost like it's almost like a a posture in a way a description of a posture of crouching down cowering down begging like this that when you are when you are poor in spirit that's your posture from a spiritual standpoint and if you don't get anything in that day it's it's it's all about survival. If you don't receive anything then you may starve. That's that's the attitude and the heart that that Jesus is saying that we need to be taking as citizens of the kingdom that we would we would lean on the Lord and say, "God, I need you today. Whatever you have for me will sustain me. And if I don't receive from you today, I don't know if I can make it another day." That is the attitude that and that's the first thing that Jesus says. This should be your posture when it comes to your relationship with God. that we need him. We are fully dependent on the giving of God into our lives so that we can survive. And if we don't, we may not. Spiritual bankruptcy, no bargaining power with God. Doesn't matter again how long I've been a follower of Jesus. This should be our posture. It's an absence of pride, a complete absence of self assurance. And it's it's literally saying happy and blessed is the man or woman who is spiritually bankrupt and recognizes that we are spiritually bankrupt. No one can come to God, no one can get to heaven without first recognizing their poverty of spirit. And this is really a a heavy thing to fathom, especially if if we may have achieved some level of of influence, whether it's in our lives, in our workplace, even within the church, years of being a believer. Again, spiritually bankrupt means nothing I bring to God, there's nothing that I can bring to God of any worth or value. Whoever I think that I am, whatever I thought I did, it is nothing in comparison to him. Again, I'm pushing hard on this because Jesus says this first. Out of all the other things that he could have said, he says, "You need to be poor in spirit. Don't think so much of yourself that you think you have something to offer to God." Again, remember when Paul says, "I count it all as loss. I count it as rubbish compared to Christ." Again, no one enters the kingdom of heaven thinking that they have something to offer God. And and it's really funny even as I was thinking about this to to even start to engage in this attitude of being poor in spirit. It is not selflo. It is not sitting back and going, "Oh god, I'm nothing. Oh god, you know, I have nothing to bring." And it and sometimes we can have sort of this attitude of like, "Oh, I hate myself." you know that that God God you know it's it's all on you Lord and I feel like it leads into this like false humid humility of saying all I am is because of Jesus but I really did a lot of work here right and we can play this game of of of oh I'm nothing I'm nothing but I can do something you know if you use you know and and it's this attitude that we can have it it really is it's nothing sarcastic it can't be passive aggressive it can't be false humility it has to be genuine from the heart recognize izing that there is nothing that I am there is nothing that I can do that God can't do better. Again, it's it's needs to be our response to the working of the Holy Spirit within our heart that brings out this attitude of spiritual poverty that he's working within my heart and the work that's being done I I know I can't do myself. We lean back into him and say, "Lord, have your way with me. Do only what you can do." and and and in our faith walk when we look at all of these different blesseds, they really kind of build on each other. But let me just tell you, you will never outgrow being poor in spirit. There's you're not going to reach I'm not going to reach a place in my life where I'm like, I don't have to be poor in spirit anymore because now I'm a peacemaker. It's always coming back to that first step. We have nothing to offer. We need to constantly recognize that we need God. And we need to walk in obedience and faith because all I can give him is my life, my obedience, and my faith. >> That's it. That's all I have to give him. Again, God may have given you abilities or dreams of purpose, but without him, without our obedience, it's dead works and fantasies. Right? Y'all are being quiet. That means the Holy Spirit is either working in this place. Well, just lean on that. It's the Holy Spirit for sure. Let's go. Look at this. In Isaiah 6 1-5, many of you know this verse. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, this is Isaiah, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple and above I'm sorry. Jesus man, I want this. I want us to be standing before God like this as a church. We saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the saraphim. Each had six wings. With two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew. And one called out to another and he said, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. We are singing about that today. That Jesus at the center of it all. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called and the house was filled with smoke. And Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. This is the attitude that we need to be taking. Woe is me. When we come into his presence, like I I I I appreciate scripture says, you know, come boldly into his throne room. We come boldly, but we still need to come saying, God, woe is me. I am nothing without you, and I need you. It's that poor in spirit. It's that humility that gives us the boldness for him to say, "Ask anything of me and it'll be done." It's not in my works or my achievements that God sees me. He sees our hearts and he knows where our hearts are at. So again, it can't be this self-loathing attitude of like, "Oh, I'm nothing without God." He sees your heart. He sees what is happening within you. He sees the selfishness. He sees the pride. And he sees whether we've laid it down and say, "I really need you." Or if we're just playing games again, I can't save myself. I need Jesus. I can't discipline myself into being the perfect man or woman. I'm spiritually incapable of becoming who Jesus saved me to be without him. Someone grab me a tissue. I'm like falling apart up here. Thank you. >> Yeah, too good. >> I might need more. We'll see. Thank you. God is so good. All right. I'm going to take a sidetrack for a second just because I need to speak to this. But God has been shaking shaking this church up. God has been shaking up my heart in this season and things are breaking off to where we're going to get to a point where we are running so fast we're going to look back and go that's where we were. I don't know if any of you else feel this or sense this. This isn't just like for our church, but like there are families in this room and there are testimonies that I continue to hear of God working in ways that only he could work. >> There's there's there's unity taking place within the body of Christ in this place. I just I just listened to this this guy. It it it frustrated me to pieces. This guy was like, you know, there's a prophetic attack that's taking place in the month of September and October where where churches are going to start falling apart and all these different things. And I'm like, bro, you got the wrong church >> because God is moving in this place. >> Like, we're we're we're touching heaven in worship. Like, I know I'm playing a lot of wrong notes on the bass, but God is still moving. Are y'all ready? >> Are you expectant? >> And and and and it's funny too because like I I we could easily say like, oh, Ephesians and biatitudes, all this stuff. This is basic level Christianity, you know, give me the deep stuff. How how is this not deep? >> Like the the places that God is calling us to, we think deep and we think this way. But when when God says deep, it's this way. that we would continue to come to that place of like, I need Jesus. I don't need another podcast. I don't need another, you know, holy word because I'm going to forget it in two days. >> I want something deep within my heart to shift and change that I'll be transformed. >> And so, even as we're we're in this series, like this is the starting point. Jesus says this first that we would be poor in spirit. And he says it for a reason because it's really the foundation of our faith that we would be at this place. It's the first beatitude because it all begins with this. It's the first step. It's funny too cuz like we uh we we lived overseas for a little while. My son was actually Nikki was born in Thailand and it was very difficult to get his citizenship. Different countries are are interesting. I know some countries you can be a dual citizen in different places, all the things. In Thailand, where we lived, you cannot do that. Even if you have one parent who is Thai, you cannot be Thai. Both parents have to be Thai in order for you to have Thai citizenship. And so he was stateless, as they called him, for like a month, which was kind of funny. Like I I I thought it was funny. It was very humorous. We finally, you know, did all the all the things and we're figuring out, you know, how do we make him an American? You know, where do we have to go? And this is all kind of like right before COVID hit. And so it was really interesting. Um, and it's funny too, many of you in this room, if you've had to get citizenship changed or whatever, it's a lot of hoops that you have to jump through, right? It's a lot of embassies and stuff that a lot of stamps, a lot of signatures, a whole lot of stuff that has to happen. I see the heads nodding here. Like it's it's it's real, right? But what's really interesting is the first step in the process is it's actually really simple. It's just signing your name. Like just got to sign your name on this paper and that's how you start the process. And when I look at all of the the blessed biatitudes, Jesus makes the first step in the process really low for everybody. Like it's kind of like if you had a stairwell or you had a ladder and the first rung was gone and you had to jump in order to get to the the next one. Don't I'm not going to jump like that again. That was really weird. But like if you have to if you have to jump to get to it, it makes it that much harder. There's some people in this room. I love you. You may not be able to jump over that step. And that's okay. I I I did a really poor job jumping as well. But he makes that first step nice and low so that everyone can start here. like everyone can be poor in spirit. It it really allows no one to disqualify themselves. Again, if we if we say, you know, ah, you know, if pure if purity was the first step, we'd all be screwed, right? If if being righteous and merciful was the first step, like we're in trouble. Thank you. That was good. We're in trouble. again being a peacemaker, all these different things. It would disqualify many of us from even starting down the journey of becoming a citizen, but we can all be poor in spirit. We can all recognize our lack of spirituality. Jesus's criteria is not about what we have, but it's based on what we don't have. You could be poor financially tomorrow, right? All you got to do is spend all your money. I'm not suggesting you do that. Yeah, you're good. Thank you. But that's the idea of spiritual poverty because in an instant, you can spend yourself before the Lord. You can lay it all down in a moment. And I think sometimes we we try to make it more complicated, but really it's just no, I need to die to myself completely. And Jesus says, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. People who are poor in spirit, they receive the kingdom of heaven. That's it. Because as long as you believe that you're good enough or you have the spiritual resources in yourself to fix your problems, you're never going to receive from God what you need to be saved. You don't got it. We are bankrupt spiritually. The kingdom of heaven is not based on merits or influence, social status, financial wellbeing. It's given to the despised, the destitute, the diseased. It was given to the tax collectors, the prostitutes, and the sinners. Those who were so poor that all they had to give to God was faith. I believe I believe. I believe being poor in spirit. Again, it puts all the other biatitudes into perspective because they can't be fulfilled in our own strength. We have to recognize that we are nothing without Jesus. And we're going to pray. We're going to pray about that today and just take a moment to recognize and lay that all down. The second one, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Nobody mourns unless you're poor in spirit. And no one is meek towards other people until they've humbled them themselves and their view of themselves. If you don't sense your own need and your own poverty, you'll never hunger and thirst after righteousness. And if you have too high a view of yourself, you're never going to be merciful to others. In that mourning, I can't pronounce the Greek word, so I'm I'm not going to say it, but it means intense mourning. This isn't just I'm sad or I'm depressed. Like it's deep deep mourning and weeping and crying and and it's not I'm sad because of the consequences that I'm having to deal with because of my sin, but it's a deep grief before God for being sinful in nature. The weeping is for the low and needy condition. And even Jesus, even Jesus mourned not over his own sin, but he mourned over the effects of sin on each and every one of us. That's why Jesus wept for each and every one of us. He wept over Lazarus. When we can mourn for the lost, this this is such a a a a huge thing for us and and it's transformed my life. I think sometimes we can mourn and we can weep for ourselves and our own lostness and our own sinfulness, but when when we look at the life of Jesus, he wasn't sinful. So, he was mourning for the people that were lost. >> If we want to be like Jesus, we need to start mourning for the lost. We need to start weeping for those that are far from God. We need to get on our knees and we and we can't give up. We can't just sit back and go, "Oh, God will take care of it." No, we need to weep. We need to allow God to to work in our hearts because I think sometimes we can build up this resentment towards God when we're not praying for others. And and I I've seen it happen many times where when you have someone who is close to you who's far from God and we just have to like sit back and let go and let God. And I'm here for that. I've preached messages like that before. Like trust the Lord. I'm here for it. But we have to mourn for the lost if we want to be like Jesus. There's lost people in this world and they are destined for a life of separation from God unless we reach them. And it really should break our hearts. It should break our hearts that there are those far from God. And when we can mourn and weep over our own sin and the fallen condition of the world, it produces this lifestyle of repentance, when we're constantly being sanctified and growing in salvation. There's transformation and it sets us on fire to reach those that are lost. We need to be about the lost. Like I understand the church is about equipping the saints, but in our hearts as we're being sent out, we are being equipped to reach the lost. >> And so it should move us when we see people not living for Jesus. It should break our hearts on on on some level that there are lost people >> far from him. This needs to become a daily practice that we weep again for our sinfulness and we pray and mourn for the lost again. Why? Because those who mourn this way, it says they shall be comforted. They shall be comforted. I think I think someone needs to get this today. Maybe you're you you're so entangled with the the how and the why of how to reach people or or how to make this happen and we we've put it all on ourselves. But if we would begin to weep and lay it before God, we would be comforted. like the anxiety that you may be feeling or the pressure that you may be feeling in your life, if you would just stop and mourn over the fact that you can't really do it without God, he'll comfort you. I I think there's a lot of us here today, myself included, we just need to be comforted by the Holy Spirit. He is the comforter, but we've taken it onto ourselves that we have to handle this or we have to fight for this and battle for this. And I love that. I love the fighter spirit. I love the boldness. But if we can weep over our sin and weep over the areas that we we're struggling in and weep over the lost, the Holy Spirit will comfort us in those moments and lift us up. >> Listen, God allows grief in our lives and and and not as a destination. This isn't a destination of that you should be like perpetually mourning for the rest of your life. That you should be perpetually crying and being like overly weepy like Jeremiah the the weepy prophet. But grief is a pathway for us to the comforter. It's a pathway for us to engage with the Holy Spirit. The first time I can remember experiencing the presence of God, I was about 9 years old. We were living up in southern New England. dad was leading this this youth conference. There was hundreds and probably over a thousand students there and there was a missionary that began to to share about I think it was people in in Bangladesh or or or some country and the Holy Spirit just overwhelmed me. Like it's it's one of those moments where if you if you've been in faith for a while, you look back and it's like this was pivotal. Like this was this is where I plant my flag and go that's when everything changed. That was this for me. And I just began to weep. And I can remember like it might have been Lucas or or one of my other brothers and they're looking at me like what is wrong with you? You know, and they're just like like why are you like literally one of them asked like why are you crying? And I was just like I don't know but I just God is here. I I I don't fully understand but I just I feel the presence of God in this moment. I'm and I'm I'm weeping for for people that haven't gotten to experience this yet. I'm weeping because I know that I need Jesus. And there are moments in worship that I weep. There's moments when I'm preaching that I'm crying. I'm a big crybaby. I'm sorry. But what I love about it is the Holy Spirit always comforts me in those moments. Like we can't be afraid to mourn because it's almost as if if we keep it all inside, the Holy Spirit's like, "Okay, cool. handle it yourself. But when we release it to him, the Holy Spirit comes close. Again, comfort in the Greek, it's pericleasos. It's the Holy Spirit. He's the comforter. Jesus said, Jesus is saying, when you mourn, when you're broken, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. I'm going to strengthen you through the Holy Spirit. I'm going to come down alongside you. I'm going to relationally be there for you. I'm going to wrap my arms around you. And there's even like physical benefits to weeping and re releasing those things. There's there's l
