My Tears

Q: What does the Bible say about suffering and tears?

The Bible shows that suffering and tears are often a part of the believer's journey, reflecting deep longings for God and the realities of trials. In Psalm 42, David expresses profound sorrow and anguish, stating, 'My tears have been my meat day and night.' This sentiment captures the believer's trials and the emotional depths they can experience when feeling distant from God. The Psalm illustrates that through deep trials, believers are reminded of their dependence on God's presence and sovereignty, moving from despair to hope. Ultimately, even in trials, believers are called to trust in God, knowing that He is our refuge amidst sorrow.

Q: How do we know Christ understands our suffering?

Christ fully understands our suffering as He experienced profound sorrow, tears, and rejection during His earthly ministry and on the cross. Christ's own experiences during His life provide the believer with a deep comfort. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus, showing His identification with human grief. The preacher highlights that, akin to David's despair in Psalm 42, Christ's own tears and cries from the cross reveal His understanding of human suffering. As He bore the sins of humanity, Christ experienced the ultimate separation from God and the agony of rejection. His tears reflect His compassion and the depth of His love for His people.

Q: Why is hope important for Christians during trials?

Hope is vital for Christians in trials because it anchors our souls and directs our gaze toward God's promises. The importance of hope in the believer's life cannot be overstated, especially during trials. David's questioning in Psalm 42, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God,' serves as a reminder that hope is crucial for spiritual endurance. In times of turmoil, believers are encouraged to place their hope in the Lord, who is characterized as a refuge during distress. This hope is rooted in the assurance of God's presence and the ultimate salvation He offers through Christ, providing strength and peace amidst despair.

Q: How does Christ's death relate to our sorrows?

Christ's death relates to our sorrows as He bore our sins and their consequences, suffering greatly, which brings understanding to our own grief. The sermon discusses how Christ's suffering and death hold profound significance for believers’ own sorrows. As He cried out on the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' He experienced the ultimate separation from the Father due to the weight of humanity's sin. In this moment of despair, He not only took on the burden of our sins but also our sorrows and tears. Understanding that Christ wept and suffered opens the door for believers to relate their pain to His, knowing they are not alone in their grief. His tears serve as a powerful symbol of His commitment to redeem our suffering.

Well, thank you for the welcome. It's a joy to be in your presence again and to come and worship our Lord with the Brethren here. Obviously we are mindful of our dear sister Cynthia in her loss. She's in our thoughts and our prayers today as are her family and We're mindful of her but we're also mindful of the joy that her husband, George, has entered into and thankful for this.

Now, if you turn again, please, to the passage we read to Psalm 42. This Psalm of David. I'll just read the opening verses again. As the heart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me. For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

The believer is often brought into some deep trials. Many places where we're brought into sorrow, despair even, trouble. circumstances that come like waves and billows that go over our heads where we feel like we're sinking where we feel like we have no strength no ability where we feel our weakness and where we long for the Lord's help we long for his presence and yet we feel him to be at a distance and yet all around we feel the oppression of the enemy and the taunts of those who hate us and hate our God, who cry unto us in our weakness, in our despair, in our trial, where is thy God? He's abandoned you, you're alone. Where is he? Your hope's in vain.

Often we're brought into such places And David was brought into such places so often, where he was so cast down, so alone, so oppressed, so persecuted, that the Lord was able to use him to write these many, many Psalms in which we see his cries for God, which we see his despair, we see his trial, but ultimately behind it we see his faith that rises up under his God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God. Yes, we all know trouble and we read here of David's trouble and David's tears. My tears have been my meat day and night. while they continually say unto me, where is thy God? My tears have been my meat day and night.

But we see David's sorrow and David's trial here. And we may relate to it through the sorrows and trials that we're brought into. But through these things, we see the trial, the sorrow, the hope and the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what a psalm this is.

What a picture of the travail of Christ himself upon the cross, cast out by man at a distance from the Father as he bore the sins of his people. longing for God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Taunted by man, where is thy God? If thou be God, if thou be the Son of God, call out unto God that he might send a legion of angels to save you. Where is he? Who are you?

And he says in his depths of his sorrows, my tears have been my meat day and night. Yes, we may know a little of this in our circumstances, in our trials. And sometimes we're so broken, so cast down, so alone, that we do feel abandoned by God. And our faith is tested to the very limit. Where is he? But truly, when God brings us into these trials, deep trials, deep sorrow, deep waters to walk through, fires that come upon us, when he brings us into the very depths of sorrow, at the same time, He puts faith in the heart to trust in him. These trials bring great blessing and ultimately great joy as we're led to trust in Christ our Saviour.

This trial of David was such that he could write with words that are our lord's words as he suffered upon the cross. Here, Christ says, my tears have been my meat day and night. Such was the depth of his sorrow. Such was the trial. Do you know something of that? daily sorrow. Tears that are your daily meat. If you do, you will have a glimpse of what Christ suffered, of what he endured upon the cross to save sinners such as you. Tears were his daily meat.

His meat day and night, while they continually said unto Him, Where is thy God? Tis were His daily meat in His life upon the earth as He walked upon the earth and was opposed. He came unto His own and His own rejected Him. His own received Him not. Men opposed Him. the religious world that should have received him, the scribes and the Pharisees that should have welcomed the coming of Messiah, questioned him and sought to find fault with him and sought to cast him out, sought to stone him, and in the end they put him to death.

Tears were his daily meat. In his sufferance, in his travail at Gethsemane as he saw the hour approaching when he would bear the sins of his people, when he would bear the judgment, the wrath of God against sin. Tears. My tears have been my meat day and night.

Hebrews 5 tells us of Christ, who in the days of his flesh, when he had 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, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Christ himself was brought through the deepest trials in his pathway. As he walked amongst sinners like you and I, sinners who rejected him, who had no time for him, who had no care for him, who had no ears for his gospel, who had no desire for his salvation, who said unto him, you're not God, you're not who you claim to be. If thou be the son of God, then do this, show us a sign, where is thy God? And we cast him out. You may say, how did I do that? I wasn't alive then, I wasn't there then. Every time you've heard the gospel preached and your mind has wondered, and your heart has desired other things, you've said, he's nothing. Is it nothing unto you all ye that pass by, Christ says.

Whose sorrow is like unto my sorrow? He bore the sins of all his people throughout all time. He drank the cup of God's wrath against sin. And when we hear of it, it's nothing. We go out to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. as if we must grasp at the little pleasures in this world and think nothing of eternity, nothing of our state before God, and nothing of His Son who suffered upon the tree, whose tears were His meat day and night. Yes, tears were his meat in his life as he was cast out, as he was rejected by those he came to, as they tried to stone him, as they cried out, crucify him, crucify him. And tears were his meat when they nailed him to the cross and lifted him up and he hung on that wicked cross, that stake, in the midday sun, in the place of sinners, bearing their sins, drinking the cup of God's wrath, his anger, his fury, his judgment against sin. Not Christ's sin, the sins of his own. Sinners.

Did he hang there for you? Were those tears he shed for you? Did he die, did he suffer for you? What is it to die? What is death? What was the death that Christ died upon the cross? What is the death that sinners that reject God to their dying day and are cast out from His presence in darkness and judgment, what is that death? It is eternal separation from God. To be cast out from His presence because of sin. Because of sin.

And here in the opening verses, David writes, Christ writes, we see the longing of Christ here to be with his God. As the heart panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

As he hung dying, bearing sin, it separated him from God. It set him at a distance. The very Son of God who had dwelt in the bosom of the Father eternally, none knew God like Christ did. And here at the cross, the death he suffered was to be separated from God because of sin. longing to be with his God. And yet, sin had set him at a distance. Men had cast him out, and God's fury and justice poured down upon his own son, unable to look upon sin, unable to have one that bore sins in his presence.

He cried out from the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And yet, throughout his suffering, in those hours of darkness upon the cross, rejected by man, at a distance from God, his faith in God His trust in God remained. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Hope thou in God.

And yet all the while he was cast out by all men, Even the disciples, even the apostles abandoned him at the end. The mob cried out, crucify him, crucify him. The thieves crucified with him cast curses in his teeth. The people that passed by jeered and mocked. And the father stood at a distance. Bearing the sins of his people, Christ was condemned, judged.

He endured unimaginable sorrow, immeasurable torment, unquenching fury. Oh, the tears that he shed, inward tears, tears he drank. Tears that were his meat day and night. Tears shed for who? For his own. For those who were lost in sin, blind and deaf to the truth, to the dumb, the lame, the lifeless, the dead. were they shed for you. We read elsewhere in the scriptures of the day when Jesus' friend Lazarus died and was laid in a grave and how his sisters besought the Lord to come unto him. And when Jesus heard and saw their sorrow, We read that Jesus wept. He wept.

He was moved with the feelings of our infirmities. He sorrowed with us. Elsewhere we read that he looked upon the people who were like those without a shepherd and he looked upon them and he was moved with compassion. He saw the state of man by nature.

Lazarus's grave, he wept. Why did he weep? Many reasons. He wept in sorrow for the loss of his sisters, for the loss that they endured. He wept in sorrow for his own loss of his friend, Lazarus. He weeps in sorrow for our losses and our grief. He wept in sorrow for what caused that, for sin and its consequence, death. He wept in sorrow for our blindness, our deafness, our unbelief.

Here he was, come to Lazarus' grave, come to Mary and Martha. Here is the Son of God, the one in whom is eternal life. And he says unto them, I am the resurrection and the life. I can but speak and the dead live. And they had no faith to trust and rest in him. We do not believe by nature. The spirit must give us life. He must touch us and give us faith to rest in Christ alone.

As Jesus wept, he also wept in sorrow over the cost that would be required to raise Lazarus from the grave. the cost to himself that would be paid, the price he must pay to deliver from sin. When he saw Lazarus in the grave, he knew what had put him there. He knew that sin was the cause and he knew that he must bear sin. The one who knew no sin must be made sin. He must bear the sins of his own people in his own body on the tree and be judged by the fury of God. What sorrow, what heartache this brought upon him.

Jesus wept. We all know loss. We all know sorrow. We all weep. But more than this, this sorrow of Christ, these tears of sorrow over our spiritual death, what sin has done to us, the way it's separated us from God, the blindness it's brought in, the foolishness it's brought into us, the fools that we've become, that though all around speaks of God, that though his witness is in creation, that though we are created beings, that though we are sustained and lived by his power, that though this world only exists because he made it and only exists for his glory and that everything the heavens declare his glory everything declares his person his work that he's given the scriptures the testimony of the scriptures gathered across thousands of years of many men's writings all speaking in unison of christ that though he sent the gospel to us And though He's created us with a conscience that says we are created by a holy and a living God, despite all this, we're dead in trespasses and sins. And we cannot see a thing aright. We have no understanding. We don't see Him, we don't recognise Him at His coming. And when we hear of him in the gospel, our minds wonder how hard-hearted we are. No wonder Jesus wept. No wonder tears were his meat day and night.

Oh, what tears have been shed because of the sins of mankind. You young ones, you children, do you know how many tears have been shed for you? Do you know how many tears your parents have shed for you? How many prayers they have prayed for you, for your souls? because they know that you like they, like them, are lost in sin by nature. They see themselves in you. You are what they once were until God came unto them with the gospel and opened their eyes and gave them life. Oh, the prayers they pray for your soul, the tears that are shed that you might be given ears to hear. that you might be given faith to see Christ the Savior, that you might be given life.

No wonder Jesus wept. No wonder he speaks of his tears. There was a father of a child that came to Christ, pleading his help for his sick child. And we read in Luke 9, straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Such was his desire that his child should live. And such is the desire of believing parents, that their children should live, not just with a fleshly life. but was spiritual.

Jesus wept, but as he wept for Lazarus, he had the power to quicken Lazarus unto life. Here Jesus wept for his children, those who lay dead in the grave because of their sins. We're all there. We're all like Lazarus. We're all dead in the grave in our sins. Dead in trespasses and sins. Until that day that Christ comes our way in the gospel and says unto us in our hearts in power, come forth. Lazarus, come forth. Come out of the grave and live. Follow me. I have borne your sin. I have paid the price in full. I have washed you clean in my blood. Follow me. Jesus Love for his own is so particular.

When he died upon the cross, He didn't die some general death that might be applicable to anyone. He bore the sins of every individual, every child of God, every elect child of God that the Father elected unto salvation from the foundation of the world. He knew them each by name. He carried the names of each of them upon His chest, upon the breastplate on His chest, like the high priest. He knew for whom He suffered. He bore the particular sins of each one for whom He died. It's so particular. It's so personal. And when He suffered, He suffered for their sins in particular. If He suffered for you, He suffered for you personally. You were one with him on the cross. He bore your sins.

Paul writes of this in Galatians 2, where he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me. and gave himself for me. He wept tears for me. He loved me. He bore my sins. I was there on the cross, nailed to the cross with him. My old man was crucified and put away. He loved me. He gave himself for me and I rose with him in newness of everlasting life. He loved me.

Jesus wept for me. Have you ever wept for him? Have you ever thought of the sorrow that Christ endured for you? There was that woman in Luke 7 who washed Jesus' feet. She stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. She wept for him. She knew who he was. She knew what he would do for her, a vile sinner. She wept that her sins would crucify him. would cast him out from the presence of the father, she wept for him. Has the Lord ever brought you to see Christ upon the cross, bearing your sins, loving you in death? Have you wept for him? Has he wept for you? Has he come to your grave? and called out, come forth by name.

For we're all there until the day he does. And unless he comes by, there we remain. People look at this world and think they're living, they're in the grave for a few moments until that grave becomes eternal and from which there's no escape. But what a mercy. If the day comes when Christ comes with his gospel and passes you by and calls out unto your dead soul in the grave, come forth. When he does, we can't do anything but come forth from the grave. We can't do anything but follow Him. We can't do anything but live. No matter how determined we are to shut Him out of our thoughts and affections, no matter how hardened our hearts have become under Him, if He comes that way, it will break us to pieces.

It will melt the hardest heart. It will bring tears to the hardest face. To the man that never shed a tear since he was a child, it will bring him to tears, it will melt him to know that Christ suffered in his place, that he loved me and gave himself for me. No death, no hard heart, no sin, no rebellion, no stiff neck.

No force of nature can prevent the power of such a call when the Son of God comes unto the graves of sinners and calls out, come forth. The hour is coming and now is when the voice of the Son of God shall call out unto the dead in the graves and the dead shall live.

Has He come to you? Has He come to you? When the Spirit of God blows upon a sinner with the Gospel, when He speaks these words into your heart, not as words on a page, not as words from a man, a preacher, not as words that are made up, but as the Word of God, by the power of God in the Spirit, when He speaks this into your soul, it's transforming everything changes the scales come off the blind eyes flesh comes back upon the bones in the grave and life is breathed into the soul and you live oh how the spirit quickens the hardest heart the deadest sinner unto life. It's irresistible, irresistible grace, the irresistible grace of the power of the gospel.

Come forth. As Lazarus died, he was laid in the grave, but on that day, soon, His sisters saw him again because on that day Christ was there. I am the resurrection and the life. He was there and Lazarus came forth living, risen again. But what happened that day? has happened countless times since. Every time God comes in His gospel and preaches in power to dead sinners like you and I, dead sinners live. This life is fleeting, it's passing, it's but for a moment. In a blink, this world will be over for every one of us. Believer or unbeliever, this world is about to be gone in a moment.

Yes, it may be yours, it may be centuries to go yet, but that's nothing. A day is like a thousand years in the Lord's eyes and a thousand years like a day, it's nothing, it will be gone in a moment. Our lives are fleeting. We're granted 70 years if God is pleased to give us or a little longer, sometimes much less. We do not know what a day will bring. But even if we live to a hundred, it's nothing, it's a moment.

It's fleeting and soon every one of us, every one in this room will stand the other side of the grave, the other side of this world in eternity before God. The vanity, the mirage of this world will long be gone. A distant memory and true reality will stand before us.

Either eternal life or eternal death. Either we will be with Christ or we will be forever separated because we would not receive him, we would not believe him, we cared not for him and he gives us what we want. If in this world we say, I don't want Christ, he could give it to you in a moment forever. And the other side of the grave, you'll be wishing you had asked him to be yours.

It's not long. But if he has come your way in time, in the gospel, and quickened you to life, and called you forth, if he's brought you to faith in Christ, then soon we will all be together with our Lord. We will all be together with our Lord, believers, in a place where there are no more tears, where there is no more sin, no sorrow, no travail, no death, just everlasting joy, life, peace, mercy in the presence of God and in the presence of Christ our Savior. In Revelation 21 we read, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.

Oh, what a hope there is. What a hope there is for those of us now who sorrow for loved ones, for our dear sister, how she knows that our dear George is in glory. And in a moment, she will be with him. And in a moment, believer, we will be with him. We will be with Christ around his throne. singing his praises forever, the one who shed tears for us as he hung in our place upon the cross, the one who loved me and gave himself for me.

Is he your hope? Is he your hope? O that his tears may not have been shed in vain, but O that his tears may have been shed for you. May you know that he cried, he wept for you, but he finished the work of salvation. Those tears were not in vain. Every tear brought in salvation that can never be taken away. Oh, can you say with Paul, he loved me and gave himself for me. Amen.

My Tears

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about suffering and tears?

How do we know Christ understands our suffering?

Why is hope important for Christians during trials?

How does Christ's death relate to our sorrows?

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My Tears

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about suffering and tears?

How do we know Christ understands our suffering?

Why is hope important for Christians during trials?

How does Christ's death relate to our sorrows?

Sermon Transcript

About Ian Potts

Comments

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