Tears are a language that God understands
John 11:32-44
One day when I was a fourteen year old teenager, I came across a letter in a Bible that my grandmother had on her bookshelf that was written and mailed from Morocco Africa in March of 1965. It was a letter from my 22 year old daddy written to my mother and the five month old son he had never seen that stands before you today. As he poured out his heart to the woman he loved and missed stationed in dark and dangerous country, I was able to see a side of my father that I’d never known before. My grandmother let me keep that letter and one day I showed it to my mother and she began to cry as she remembered the time and pointed out to me the tearstains on that letter, some of them were hers and the others were my father’s. At that time in their lives, tearstains on a letter spoke more to the heart of my mother than any written or spoken words ever could.
Tears speak more about what our hearts feel than any words could ever express. Those tiny drops of humanity that tumble from our eyes, creep down our cheeks and splash on the floors of our heart sometimes carry the message that our hearts ache and hurt. Tears are the messengers that sometimes substitute for our crippled words and spill forth carrying with them our deepest emotions. A tearstain on a letter speaks more than words ever could, Amen? A tear falling on a casket says what a spoken farewell never could, Amen? What summons a mother’s compassion and concern more quickly than a tear on the cheeks of her child? What gives more support than the tears on the face of a friend as we pour out our troubles to them? What do we do when the words just won’t come out right as all the nouns and verbs and adverbs and adjectives lay deflated at our feet? When even the loftiest statements seem empty, what do we do?
Beloved I want to tell you that Tears are a language that God understands! From the text we’ve just looked at we see that the Son of God, The Blessed Redeemer, The one who has the Power to wash away Sin has just entered the town and Martha has met him to tell him it’s too late: Lazarus is already dead! There is no mention of Martha moving Jesus by her conversation and her questions nor is there any mention of Martha pouring out her soul in His presence. No mention of that happening with Martha but with Mary it was a different story, wasn’t it?
1. Mary fell at the feet of the One she knew held the future and wept! She poured out her heart to the One who could make the difference and moved God to work in her circumstances.
The scripture says that Jesus was moved by the heartbreak of their souls and that His Spirit groaned inside him and He was troubled.
2. How many of us are moved by the heartbreak of our children or some disappointment that crushes their little souls?
Won’t we also move to do all within our power to help them and ease the pain? Show me a mother that won’t help her children when their hurt and I’ll show you someone who shouldn’t have children. As parents we do all within our power to make it alright or to put it in layman’s terms, WE MOVE TO KISS THE BOBO! * Come here baby and let mommy kiss it and make it all better and as their tears fall our souls are troubled also at their pain.
3. Why would you think that God doesn’t care about our troubles or the things that trouble us?
John 11: 35, the most quoted verse in scripture by our children during memory verse time, JESUS WEPT! Those two words let us know that God is concerned about the things that break our hearts! God wants so much to be a part of our everyday lives, did you know that? God is moved by the tears of his children! Jesus is moved by the tears of every one of us who have been washed beneath his blood to become his child!
In 1995 there was a young boy who was involved in an automobile accident in Amite Louisiana on Dummyline Road, his name was James. I was the Youth Director of Friendship Baptist Church and had been on vacation but almost as soon as I got home my phone was ringing. It was my pastor to tell me that James was probably going to die because he was to medical science, brain dead. They were calling in the family because they were going to reach a point that life support would be shut off and he asked me if I would try and go see them. I went to Charity Hospital of New Orleans and saw a broken body with absolutely no hope of survival from a head on collision. Yet for all the hopelessness of that situation our pastor felt led for us to have a chain of prayer that God would raise James up for His Glory. We started praying and made a 24 hour prayer chain and GOD HEARD THE PRAYERS OF HIS CHILDREN AND MOVED ON THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES TO RAISE UP A BOY THAT WAS BEYOND HOPE! I was there the day almost 6 weeks later when the backdoor to that little Baptist church opened and in walked, WALKED UNDER HIS OWN POWER, James Magee!
Don’t you ever try to tell me THAT TEARS AREN’T A LANGUAGE THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS! Tears are a language that God understands because the testimony of this blessed word of God is that he still answers prayer.
1. Wasn’t it the tears and the burden of the Israelites that moved God to remember his people and set them free from Egyptian bondage?
2. Wasn’t it the tears of a preacher’s widow that moved God to provide for her needs by filling all the empty vessels with oil?
3. Wasn’t it the tears of a little mother who had just lost her son to grab hold of the feet of the prophet and refuse to let go until God moved on her circumstances and raised her son from the dead?
4. Wasn’t it the tears of parents that moved the Son of the Living God Jesus to heal the infirmities in their children and cast out demons?
5. Wasn’t it the Lamb of God himself who wept on the outskirts of Jerusalem because He wanted so much to save them?
TEARS ARE A LANGUAGE THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS!
Think beloved of all the tears that must be shed in heaven as Jesus who died on Calvary that NONE might perish but all have everlasting life with him, sees each and every moment some lost soul cast into hell because they wouldn’t believe on him! He shed his blood that none might perish but every moment he sees men and women die and go to hell when his will is that we might obtain salvation. Hell wasn’t created for us but was created for Satan and all his demons! God created us to fellowship with him and live with him. I believe that Jesus has shed many tears for you if you’re here today and you’re lost. Jesus knows that time, the last time, you’ll reject the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to bring you to the place of repentance. You aren’t able to see that invisible line in the Spirit but Jesus does and for some of you this may be your last time to ever feel the Spirit of God stir your heart to try and birth you into the family of God.
Jesus said in John 6:44, "No man can come to me unless my Father who sent me draw him." Salvation isn’t a work of your flesh or your will or your want to BUT IS A RESPONSE TO THE CONVICTING POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AS HE WEIGHS YOUR HEART WITH THE BURDEN OF YOUR SINS! The express purpose of the Holy Ghost coming unto you as Jesus said in John 16:7-9 is to convict you of your sin when you’re a lost soul. In Second Corinthians 7:9,10 Paul says that godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. We need to get the truth of how a soul is saved from a devil’s hell.
IT ISN’T WHETHER YOU KNOW ABOUT JESUS BUT IF HE KNOWS YOU! Matthew 7:20-23, Jesus said that many who had prophesied and cast out demons in Jesus name and done many wonderful works would be die expecting to go to heaven but be cast into a devil’s hell because He never knew them! Yea beloved tears are a language that God understands when people reject the truth and won’t come unto him and Jesus stands at the edge of your heart today calling for you, knocking as Revelation 3:20 says waiting for you to let him in.
You might be here and think that you don’t deserve this kind of love, that you’re unworthy. No one has ever loved me before or I’ve lived such a bad life Brother Mike, surely God only wants to punish me. Jesus loves you just the way you are beloved and he’ll accept you and write your name in His Book of Life if you’ll only respond to Him right now. You may have been abused, mistreated, unloved, made fun of your whole life for the way you look, where you live, the clothes you wear or the things you’ve done but Jesus still died for you that you might have life and have it more abundantly as it says in John 10:10.
You may say well Brother Mike I don’t have any self esteem because of what’s happened to me, GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU TO HAVE SELF ESTEEM: HE WANTS YOU TO HAVE SELF WORTH! YOU WERE WORTH SO MUCH IT TOOK THE BLOOD OF THE KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, THE ONE AT WHOSE NAME EVERY KNEE WILL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS, TO PURCHASE YOUR SALVATION.
YOU’RE WORTH SO MUCH JESUS DIED FOR YOU!
Some of you may even at this moment be crying on the inside wondering if all this is really true and your head hangs low in your heart as you wonder. My best has never been good enough and I’m just ashamed of what I am but you listen to me, God will reach out a nail scarred hand to lift you up and put peace in your heart and joy down deep in your soul if you’ll only let him. Don’t resist God today! Tears are a language that God understands! Jesus called back a man four days dead in the grave, bloated and stinking, because of the tears of his children.
Invitation.
