Let's open our Bibles again to
John chapter 11. John chapter 11. Verse 35, shortest verse in the Bible.
Jesus wept. Jesus wept. What are we to take from our
Lord shedding these tears? We might ask, how could the Lord
have been grieved to tears knowing what he was about to do? He knew that their sadness in
the next few minutes would be turned to inexpressible joy. Why weep? Some have concluded that he was
weeping over their unbelief or that Perhaps he was weeping
over the result of man's sin. He's in a graveyard seeing what man has done to himself. Or perhaps he was weeping because
Lazarus who was at rest from the evils of this world and from
the sin of his own flesh would have to come back and do it all
over again. Many explanations have been given
as to why our Lord wept. To think of these explanations
as the only reason why he could be weeping I believe, is to lose
sight of our Lord's humanity. John presents the Lord Jesus
Christ all the way through as the God-man. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. It's only John that records our
Lord on the cross saying, I thirst, experiencing a very human response
to what his body was going through. In John chapter four, when our
Lord gets to the well there at Sychar, the scripture says, being
wearied from his journey, he sat on the well. Our Lord in the garden of Gethsemane
was under such stress that the capillaries in his skin burst
and he sweat blood. That's, that's a pretty, that's God doing that. What is
the Lord telling us? When hanging on the cross, he
looked down at the Apostle John. Scripture says the one whom he
loved And he told John the disciple, behold thy mother. And he looked
at his mother and he said to Mary, behold thy son. He cared for the physical needs,
showing compassion and concern for his fleshly mother, even
from that place. I think, well, let's look back,
if you will, to verse 33. When Jesus therefore saw her
weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned
in the spirit. And that's an audible groaning. His spirit groaned within him. and was troubled. And I don't know if you have
in the margin of your Bible, I do in mine, he troubled himself. He troubled himself over what
he was observing and over what he was experiencing. And then said, where have you
laid him? And they said unto him, Lord, Come and see. And Jesus wept. And there was
no doubt in the minds of those who were there as to why he was
weeping. For they concluded in verse 36,
then said the Jews, behold how he loved him. How he loved him. I love to think about Our Lord
being the fullness of the Godhead. He is the all-powerful, sovereign,
self-existent creator and sustainer of all of life. He's God. He's
God. But the scripture doesn't present
Him as God only. The scripture presents him as
fully God and fully man, fully man. We're gonna look at some scriptures
that tell us why that is, but I want you to think back with
me to the book of Exodus when the Lord gave Moses instructions
on how to build the tabernacle. And you remember the holies of
holies where the Ark of the Covenant was and the mercy seat where
the high priest went in once a year. And that holy of holies
was separated from the rest of the tabernacle with a bale. wasn't
actually a veil in the sense that it was a thin piece of fabric,
it was a very heavy curtain. And the Lord said when you make
the veil, you're to make the top part of the veil blue and
you're to make the bottom part of the veil red and where these
threads come together, you'll have purple. It is that veil that was rent
from top to bottom when the Lord bowed his head on Calvary's cross
and said, it is finished. And even all the way back there, the Lord wants us to know that
God became flesh and he dwelt among us. Now, Sunday we were
reminded of how that flesh veiled the glory of his deity and what
hope we have in one day seeing his face in the fullness of its
radiance and seeing him as he is and being made like him. What
a glorious day that'll be. But in the meantime, as we long
to see him and as we look upon him through the eye of faith,
we have this revelation. We have this revelation given
to us in scripture. Great is the mystery of godliness. This is a mystery. We cannot
comprehend the scope of God being man. But that's what Paul told
Timothy, he said, great is the mystery of godliness, God was
manifested in the flesh. We air We live in a day, well
it's always been this way from the very beginning from what
I can understand and from what the scriptures say. The deity
of Christ was always held in question and even today though
men who refer to themselves as Christian will give lip service
to Jesus being God They deny the essence of his deity when
they say that he can't save unless we allow him to or unless we
do our part or unless we exercise our will or perform a certain
work, whatever it might be. And so men are still denying
the deity of Christ. When John writes his epistles,
particularly in 1 John, he is addressing That heresy that came
into the church very early. That Jesus Christ was created
by God but that he was not God. And we find ourselves still defending
the gospel and still declaring the gospel against this heresy. But we err if we emphasize the
deity of Christ to the exclusion of his humanity. And what encouragement there
is for a sinner to be reminded that Jesus Christ, the son of
God, is a man. A man. That he wept at Lazarus' tomb. not because he was grieving over
the fact that Lazarus was gonna have to come back and do it all
over again, not because of their unbelief, but I believe he groaned
and made himself. He entered in, he wasn't caught
up in the emotions of the moment like we often are, the victims
of our emotions. We sometimes find ourselves getting
angry. We didn't decide to get angry,
we just got angry. We find ourselves sad, we didn't
decide to be sad. The Lord Jesus made this conscious
choice to enter into this experience with his loved ones, with his
disciples and with Mary and Martha. to weep with him and to grieve
with him showing the sincerity of his humanity. One of the early heresies was what was called Arianism. and
it denied the full deity of Christ. It said, you know, this false
prophet said that Jesus was a created being and it's the heresy that
so many hold to today. The Jehovah's Witness hold to
that, the Mormons hold to that, the Muslims hold to that. They
deny the deity of Christ and as I've said, ones who do acknowledge
the deity of Christ deny it in essence. And so, we see what
happens when you emphasize one aspect of the nature of Christ
to the denial of the other in the Catholic Church. The Catholic
Church in its defense of the deity of Christ over a period
of time so elevated the Lord Jesus that no longer was it possible
for the common man to identify with him. And so that's when
Mariology got started. They had to bring in a human
that the people could relate to, a person that lived where
they lived so that they could identify and she would be the
one to take their petitions to God. And to this day, Jesus Christ
in the Catholic church is unaccessible. But they have, you know, they
have all the saints and Mary and all the other systems by
which you can go through. That's what happens. The truth is that we have a God
who fully sympathizes with us. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
four. We don't need Mary. We don't need another man. We
have a man. We have the God man. Look at
Hebrews chapter four at verse 15. For we have not a high priest,
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
Mary and Martha were having very sincere, grieving feelings of
loss for their brother. And the Lord Jesus comes as their
high priest and he's not one who is unable to be touched with
the feelings of their infirmities. We have a savior who's touched
with the feelings of our infirmities. He weeps with us. Jesus wept
in God's providence and God's purpose. And he condensed this
glorious truth for us into two words. Jesus wept. Look at verse 15 in Hebrews chapter
four, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Yet when the Lord Jesus cried, you
said, well, Well, how can he identify with me when it comes
to the feelings of my sin if he was without sin? How can the separation that I sense from
God when my sin is ever before me, the sorrow that I experience,
the shame of my sin, All the problems that sin causes, how
can I, how can he identify with that? Yes, he can. Matter of
fact, he's experienced every one of our sins to its infinite
degree. When he bore our sins in his
body upon the tree, when God made him who knew no sin to be
sin, The sorrow that we feel for sin
is nothing compared to the sorrow that he experienced. Psalm 38,
the Lord Jesus, David's speaking prophetically of the Lord Jesus
and he says, I will be sorry for my sins. Oh, what sorrow
the Lord Jesus expressed when sin was imputed to him. Separation? Oh, we've never been
much bothered by the separation that we experience from God,
not compared to what he experienced. That's the reason that he sweat
great drops of blood. That's the reason. Yeah, I mean,
we flush when we get stressed, don't we? Why? Because the blood
vessels near the surface of our skin dilate when we get stressed. What if they were to dilate to
the point to where they burst and leaked into our sweat glands and then came out
as blood? I mean, that's what the Lord Jesus experienced. over the stress of being separated
from his father. He knows that better than we've
ever known it. The shame of sin. Oh, he could
not defend himself. He bore the guilt of our sin.
and suffered the full shame of it before God. You and I have
never experienced sin like he experienced it. And he did it
in the body of a man. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ is,
he's God. He's fully God. and fully man. Look at the next verse in Hebrews
chapter four. Let us therefore come boldly
before the throne of grace. We have a man, an advocate, Jesus
Christ, the righteous one, One who is able to sympathize with
the feelings of our afflictions and our sin. One who weeps with
us in our sorrow. And if all we see is his deity,
we might be tempted to hide as did Adam in the garden. But if the Lord's ever pleased
to reveal to us that yes, He's God and all that God is,
he is. But he experienced our humanity. In every way, he experienced
our humanity. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in our time of need. Oh, we have a need. And we have a savior who sympathizes
with us. And he looks at us and calls
us, come unto me. Come unto me, all you that labor. Take my yoke upon you. My burden is light. When we're
in the yoke with Christ, he bears the weight. He bears the full
weight of our salvation. He's saying, come, learn of me,
learn of me. Look at chapter five, verse one. For every high priest taken from
among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that
he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. Talking about he's comparing
Christ to these Old Testament priests. Who can have compassion
on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way for that he
himself is compass with infirmity. Those Old Testament priests were
sinners. But look what he says. And by
reason hereof he ought as for the people so also for himself
to offer for sins. So those Old Testament priests
had to offer sacrifices for their own sins as well as the sins
of the people. And no man taketh this honor unto himself. But
he that is called of God, as was Aaron, so also Christ." Not that Christ had to offer
a sacrifice of sin for his own sin, he didn't. God made him
sin who knew no sin. He was tempted in all ways that
we are yet without sin and yet What's said about this
Old Testament priest having compassion on the ignorant and those that
are out of the way, those that are compassed with infirmities
is true of our Savior. It's true of Christ. Let us not,
let us not shy away from coming to him. So also Christ glorified not
himself, to be made a high priest. But he that said unto him, thou
art my son today, I've begotten thee. And he saith also in another
place, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,
who in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and
supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able
to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. Here's our Lord's humanity. In
the days of his flesh, he experienced these weaknesses of the flesh
that we all, he hungered, he thirsted, he felt the emotions. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
two, over just a page or so. Hebrews chapter 2 look at verse 16, for verily he took
not on him the nature of angels but he took on him the seed of
Abraham wherefore In all things, in all things, it behooved him
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. For that he himself hath suffered,
being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." There's no feelings that we've
had or no experiences that we have that he doesn't know about,
that he didn't have. You know how many times we go
through something and we think of other people we just don't
understand until we meet somebody who's gone through exactly what
we went through and we know they understand. We know they understand
and we're able to to encourage a person who's been through exactly
the same thing that we've been through. That's what we have, brethren.
We have a savior who sympathizes with us. And when he wept at
Lazarus' tomb, he was experiencing the grief and sorrow of Mary
and Martha and those others that were there weeping. And in compassion
and in sympathy, he shows the tenderness of his heart towards
those that he loves. He wasn't a slave to his emotions
like we can often be. He experienced his emotions perfectly. How did it say over there in
John chapter 11? He was troubled or he troubled
himself. His love is a love that he chooses
to have. He's not falling in love or caught up
in love or You know, pulled by, no, he chooses and his love is
perfect, perfect love. Perfect love casteth out fear.
And his perfect love for us as the God-man takes away any fear
that we might have of coming before him. No, we... We err oftentimes when we try
to react to one error. You know, if we react to the
error of, well, I brought up easy believism last Sunday, I
think it was, you know, just pray this prayer. And men reacted
against easy-believism with what they call lordship salvation,
which is legalism. What you have is antinomianism
and legalism. And it's always that way if we
react against an error. If we act against the error of
men denying our Lord hid the fullness of his deity, we run
the risk of losing sight of his humanity. And that's what I wanted
to be reminded of tonight, that
we have a savior who is a man in every way. You know, the primitive Baptist,
and they are hyper-Calvinist, have reacted against the free
will gospel. It's interesting to me, you go
to certain parts of the country and you find free will Baptist
churches. I mean, they advertise their
heresy right on the sign. And so those Calvinists who came
along in reaction against the free will gospel developed a
doctrine of God's sovereignty that denies any means that the
Lord might have purposed to use in saving his people. So they
basically have concluded that God's elect are gonna be saved.
He chose a people before the foundation of the world. They
were all atoned for at the cross and they're all gonna be in heaven
whether they ever hear the gospel or not. There's no need to... You see what I'm saying? You
react against one error, you run the risk of erring in the
other direction. There are those who are very strong on what they would call
Sabbatarianism, certain things that that you can't do on Sunday
and certain things you must do on Sunday. And we know that the
Lord Jesus is our Sabbath and he's our rest. But what I see
people erring against what we preach about, you know, don't
come to church if you don't want to. And so you meet people and
I talk to people and we have people coming here. who have
concluded that public worship is optional. It's really not
that important, you know, take it or leave it. So what they've
done, they've erred from one to the other. We don't believe
in clergy laity. We don't believe that God has
a man on earth. Now we have the God man that
a person has to go through in order to get access to God. And
we don't promote a preacher as clergy and everyone else as laity,
we deny that and that's the doctrine of the Nicolaitans and the Lord
said he hates it. And so there are some who've
swung the pendulum the other way and said, well, we don't
need a preacher, we don't need a man to deliver to us a message
from God. We can have direct access to
God all by ourselves. And you see what I'm saying?
And the same thing, that's just our nature. We react against
one error, we find ourselves in another. How do we avoid that? We believe
what God says. Everything God says. And much
of what God says is paradoxical. It's not a contradiction. A contradiction
is that which stands against itself. A contradiction can't
be understood. You can't make sense out of nonsense.
Contradictions are nonsense. Men say God loves everybody but
he's going to take most of the people he loves and send them
to hell. God wants everybody to be saved. God's sovereign
but his sovereignty stops at man's free will and responsibility. That's nonsense. That's a contradiction. We don't believe in contradictions,
but we do know that there are paradoxes in scripture. And I
love that word paradox. Para means alongside. And dox
is the word we get our word doxology. It means that which is worthy
to be praised. That which is worthy to be praised.
And so what do we have? We have the paradox of our Savior
being fully God and fully man. It's not a contradiction, but
it is a paradox. It is two things side by side,
and both are worthy to be praised. Both are worthy to be praised.
Let us not lose sight of the fact that our Savior wept. at Lazarus tomb because he's
a man, he's a man. He entered in to all the feelings
and emotions of his children and he still does, he still does. There's one God and there's the one God-man whose
mediator between God and man. Let's close in reading the same
verse of scripture that we read when we opened the service, Philippians
chapter two. Philippians chapter two. Come boldly, brethren, before
the throne of grace, He sympathizes with the afflictions of his children. He feels our feelings and he's
felt them much deeper, much more perfectly than we could ever
feel them. Philippians 2 verse 5, let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. being in the
form of God, he's God and he thought it not robbery to be
equal with God. He didn't have to apologize for
declaring himself to be God, he wasn't robbing from God his
glory by declaring himself to be God but He made himself of
no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was
made in the likeness of men. He was made in our likeness and
being found in fashion as a man. In the margin of my Bible, that
word fashion has another word, it says habit. It wasn't just his outward appearance
that was in the fashion of a man. It was his habit. He ate like
a man, he slept like a man, he tired like a man. Everything
that you and I go through in this world was his experience. And he humbled himself to be
found in the habit of a man and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore, God hath highly exalted
him and given him a name that is above every name, that at
the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should
confess to the glory of God. Our heavenly father, thank you
for revealing the humanity of thy dear son and reminding us that he is able to sympathize
with our weaknesses. Lord, might we come quickly and
boldly to the throne of grace to find help in our time of need. We ask it in Christ's name. 116, let's stand together.