Grieving With Those Who Grieve

I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 12. for our time of study in the word this morning, Romans 12, we are doing a study through, various parts of the book of Romans, and we have been in chapter 12 for a few months now. And As we continue in our study of Romans chapter 12, we come this morning to verse 15. Paul is teaching us in chapter 12 how to unleash the glory and the freedom and the power of the gospel in our lives, and one of the things that he tells us to do in verse 9 is basically to walk in love.

And beginning in verse 9, he portrays for us what agape love looks like. We can look at verse 9 and following and observe what some would call a recipe for love, and Paul is telling us to love in response to the gospel, to love others, to love one another, and then he says, and here's the way that love behaves. And as he gives us these descriptions in verse 9, 1011, 1213, and 14 and 15, we come this morning to the second half of verse 15 where we will learn yet another way that love behaves.

Look what he says in verse 15.

He says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. And this morning we'll be focusing all of our attention on those final words of verse 15, weep with those who weep. So if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be grieving with those who grieve. Paul says in verse 9, love, and then among the descriptions of love.

I verse 15 to rejoice with those who rejoice and to grieve with those who grieve. Love will express itself. In the emotion of grief displayed through weeping in togetherness with others who are weeping. Now you may think that this is a downer of a way to begin to launch the Christmas season.

You may say, doesn't the Bible say tis the season to be jolly? well, the Bible does not say that that that I'm aware of, although it is to be a time of great joy. but we should be mindful of the fact that this is a difficult time of year for many people, many people who are even joyful this time of year. There are pains that come along with Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We have people in our church who for the very first time, This past week came into a Thanksgiving Day without a particular loved one, and they're looking ahead to a Christmas season and a Christmas Day without that precious loved one. There's so many memories that are associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas for all of us, and as a result of that, the absence of a precious loved one being with us. or a change in circumstances. is especially poignant during this particular time of year.

So this is actually a great way to begin. You may just make somebody's Christmas by keeping in mind some of the things that we'll be looking at this morning as we learn the art, the loving art of grieving with those who grieve. The way we'll break it down this morning is we'll observe 5 things that You're going to want to do in order to live out this ethic of Romans 12:15, and to actually succeed in grieving with those in your life who are grieving. Keep in mind, when you look at verse 15, Paul is not basically saying, hey, just live your individualistic life.

But if you happen to see someone rejoicing, or you happen to see someone grieving, well, then rejoice with them or grieve with them. No, actually this is a call, as we saw 2 weeks ago, into relationship with people. What he's calling us to do is to move towards others in such a way we move into relationship with them in such a way that we render ourselves vulnerable to their joys and to their griefs as well, to where their joys become our joys and their griefs become our griefs, and this morning, if your desire is to be loving towards others and to weep with those who weep, then there's 5 things that you'll want to do in order to live that out.

First of all, you'll want to begin by appreciating the fact that the capacity to grieve with those who grieve is actually a precious gift.

It may not excite you to learn this morning about grieving with those who grieve, but actually, if you look at this rightly, the capacity to grieve with those who grieve is actually a wonderfully precious gift from, from God. and imagine your life without it. In fact, let me just throw this at you, an inability to grieve with those who grieve is one of the key characteristics of a psychopath. How's that for motivation?

If you do not have the ability to grieve with those who grieve, you are criminally insane. And you may just make headlines one day. I was reading this week about psychopaths, and one writer says the psychopath is unable to feel sorry for others in unfortunate situations or put himself in another's place, and we would look at such a person and feel terrible for such a person who does not have that capacity. Another writer says what is very disturbing.

About psychopaths is the complete lack of empathy for people feeling little or no empathy for the people whose lives they they touch. So we can be grateful that we and most of the people around us to one degree or another, whether they're saved or unsaved, even the unsaved by the common grace of God have some capacity to grieve with those who grieve. And that leads to another observation that helps to illustrate why this ability is a precious gift, and that is that the capacity to grieve with those who grieve protects us from many evils.

Imagine what we would do if we had no empathy for other people, especially others in our life.

We have all done many things over our lives that we regret. so our, our personal history is full of many things that we are ashamed of that have brought hurt to other people, but we would all be able to say that both before coming to know Christ and since coming to know Christ, that there are many really dumb things that we've not done. Precisely because we knew the grief that it would bring to other people, and the thought of them being grieved by some terrible thing that we did was a grief to us, the mere thought of that.

And so we did not dare say what we were thinking or do what we were thinking upon because of the hurt that it would bring to other people.

Randy Alcorn in his book The Purity Principle, shares how there are times where he finds himself entertaining a lustful thought, and there's various things that he does in such a moment, and one of the things that he says that he will do sometimes is he will imagine that lustful thought being carried out to the fullest extent, all the universe of evil that's inside. Of that thought, he imagines himself acting that out, acting upon that lust, and then he imagines the look on his wife's face.

As he sits down with her to tell her what he has done, he imagines the look on his children's face as he has to face them. And disclosed to them what he had done.

And the mere thought of the grief that that would bring to them. is something that he has a hard time entertaining because that would be a personal grief to him to grieve them in that way. In fact, many times when we have thoughtlessly acted, we've spoken or acted out in ways that have brought hurt to other people. Once we came face to face with the hurt we cause.

We in that moment would happily say, had I known the hurt that this would bring. I most certainly would not have done what I have done. I did what I did because I forgot the hurt that this would bring, and so we can be grateful for this capacity that it does. protect us from many evils as we give thought to how our words and behavior would impact other people.

And I would also say this by way of illustrating why this ability to grieve with those who grieve as a precious gift from God. And that is because a willingness to grieve with those who grieve is a key to friendship, to ministry, to counseling, And to the overall health of the church, you remove this from the life of the church. You remove this from friendship and from ministry, and you have no friendship. You have no ministry.

You have no healthy church. Who wants a friend who does not grieve with them when they are grieving, who wants to receive the ministry of a person who refuses to grieve with them when they grieve, who wants to be counseled by somebody who does not grieve with them when they grieve? I would encourage you guys that 80% of counseling, and all of us are called by God to be counselors, 80% of counseling a person who is grieving is simply to grieve with them when they grieve. Sometimes we shy away from someone who is reeling with grief, because we're thinking, I don't know what to say to them.

what the most profound and eloquent thing that you can do to communicate the heart of God to such a person is to come alongside of them and listen and ask questions and just weep with them as they weep. This is a key to friendship, ministry, counseling, and the overall health of the church. 1 Corinthians 12:26. Paul says if one member suffers, all are supposed to suffer with it, and in the absence of that suffering together, you do not have a healthy church.

So as we look into this, this morning, just be encouraged with the thought that whatever this is, this is a precious gift and, and though we all have this ability to one degree or another, this Paul says is the way love behaves. And so it's an area that we want to grow and become better. And and so we want to live this out. And if you want to live this out, a second thing that you'll want to do is to realize all that you are being called to inside of this instruction to grieve with those who grieve.

Paul is calling us into much here. And I began a couple of weeks ago just making a list of all the things that Paul is calling us into and we only have time this morning to look at some of them and I am sure that you could add to this list as we look at what it is Paul's calling us into when he says grieve with those who grieve. What he's calling us into is to grieve with a person who is grieving over a sorrow that God has allowed into both. of your lives.

Maybe you, you both are going through the same difficulty, the same hardship, and Paul would say, you need to grieve together. Maybe you are a mom or a dad and, and there's some difficulty with your child that brings grief to both of you. Paul would urge you both to grieve together. And you might say, well, obviously we would do that, that goes without saying.

No, it doesn't go without saying. It is not automatic that a husband and a wife grieve together. They both may be grieving, but they handle their grief in different ways, and what commonly happens is they separate themselves and grieve separately. And Paul says, I call you to togetherness and to grieve together when you find yourself going through a difficulty that you both are experiencing.

When Paul calls us to grieve with those who grieve, he is calling us to grieve with the person who is grieving over a sorrow that God has allowed into their life and not yours. maybe they're going through a hardship, a difficulty, a trial, a tragedy that doesn't really personally affect you at all, and Paul is calling you outside of yourself into the grief of that other person and to allow yourself to be made vulnerable to the sorrow. And the grief. of this other person.

When one member suffers, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, all are to suffer together with that member. Paul is also calling us to grieve with a person who is grieving during a season in which we may find ourselves rejoicing. Maybe it's a really great time in your life where there's so much that you are rejoicing about and you come upon a brother or sister who is reeling with grief. Are you able in such a moment to set aside your joys, And to orbit around that brother or sister and their grief and to enter into that grief with them.

Also, we would include in this grieve with the person who's grieving during a season in which you find yourself grieving also. And I know this overlaps with what we've already talked about, but it gives me a chance to, to say something here that, you may be going through your own set of griefs and you come upon another brother or sister who is grieving, maybe a totally different set of griefs. Are you able To set aside your griefs and sorrows and enter into theirs and orbit around them for a while.

Are you able to look out of your griefs and actually see the griefs of, of other people?

A dear brother here at Cornerstone was sharing in the man forum a couple of weeks ago about how he had been diagnosed with cancer. And was just dealing with all of the issues and the fears associated with that diagnosis and the road that that lay ahead. But it dawned on him in his moment of grieving. That I am not the only one who has cancer.

My wife has cancer, because she has a husband who has cancer, and my children have cancer. And so I need to be there for my wife and for my children, and I dare not grieve alone. I must help them with their grief and grieve together with them. That's astounding to me.

and only the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of the gospel can, give a person that ability to step outside of themselves and to enter into the griefs of others in their life, even when they themselves are grieving. Along these lines, when Paul tells us to grieve with those who grieve, we can observe that Paul is telling us to grieve with a person who's grieving over a sorrow that may not be as great as the sorrows that you yourself are grieving over. in such moments, are you able to just be humble and set aside your greater sorrow and enter into what in your opinion may be the lesser sorrow or grief of of another person, or do you respond by saying, Whoa, you think that's bad?

Let me tell you what I'm going through.

when your teenager comes to you with some grief that you, with the benefit of years of experience, this is a relatively small grief compared to all that awaits them and compared to the griefs that you yourself have known, do you belittle or diminish their grief? and crowd out their grief with your own. Or can you enter into their lesser grief and grieve with them as they grieve? This call to grieve with those who grieve includes grieving with a person who's grieving over a sorrow that they brought upon themselves.

maybe this is a sorrow that you saw coming. Maybe this is a sorrow that you warned your, this other person about and said if you don't change your ways, if you don't choose differently, this is what's going to happen to you. And then sure enough, that's exactly what happened. They made the wrong choices and they brought grief and sorrow upon themselves.

In such moment Paul would say, go to where they're at and grieve with them as they grieve. Rather than feeling a smug satisfaction, and even a rejoicing over the fact that they got what was coming to them, Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son who made wrong choices and took his father's inheritance and went out and wasted it on sinful. And wasteful living, but he came to the end of himself and determined to go back to his father. And it says in Luke 15:20, and he got up and came to his father, but when he was still a long way off, his father saw him and literally his bowels churned for him.

The father felt something deep within his being, the feeling of compassion and sympathy for his son, rather than standing on the porch and thinking with satisfaction he got what was coming to him. See, the gospel releases us to do this because we know that we live in a fallen broken world because of the sinful choices that we all made in Adam, right? all that we experience of the brokenness of the world is something that we can theologically say we brought upon ourselves. And all of us within our lives have made many wrong choices that have brought great pain upon ourselves.

And yet Jesus Christ entered into that. And rescued us from that. It is the gospel that humbles us. And helps us when we look at someone who is experiencing grief and sorrow that they brought upon themselves.

We can look at that person and see ourselves there and say, Yes, that's me, that's me, and Christ did not leave me there but came to me and rescued me, and I will come to this person with deep compassion and sympathy rather than remaining distant with an I told you so attitude. This call to grieve with those who grieve also is a call to grieve with a person who is grieving over a sorrow that will be short lived. Have you ever confided in someone, some grief or sorrow, and they responded by saying, Well, you'll get over that.

Or have you ever said that to somebody?

Or that, by this time tomorrow, they will have forgotten about this or it won't be affecting them the way that it does today or by next week or next month, they're going to get through this. and that the grief and the sorrow will be short lived. And so that's an excuse to not enter into their grief with them. I would just commend to you the example of Jesus in John 11 when he shows up where Mary and Martha and Lazarus were, and Lazarus had been dead for 4 days by the time that Jesus arrived, and Jesus knows that he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

And look what it says, when Jesus therefore saw her, Mary, weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled and said, Where have you laid him? And they said to him, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. That's astounding to me, that Jesus would linger in the moment and weep with those who were weeping, even though he knew in 10 minutes, they're all going to be having a party.

He could have, we probably wouldn't have thought otherwise if he just remained calm and passive and, and happy and smiling, saying, you guys have no idea what's about to happen, and then, and he never entered with them into their, their grief. But no, he stays in the moment, and he gives them a precious gift. Not only will he give them the gift of a resurrected Lazarus, but he gives them the memory of him weeping. With them before he was raised.

So Paul says, grieve with those who grieve, be like Jesus and grieve with people who are grieving over sorrows that will be short-lived, even in light of eternity. Life is but a second compared to eternity. Someone comes to you with some grief or sorrow. Do you say, this is just a second compared to eternity?

Or do you enter into that grief or sorrow with them though in comparison to eternity that it will be short lived. This call to grieve with those who grieve, you're ready for this, includes grieving with a person who is grieving over hurts you caused them. Perhaps there are people in your life who are grieving because of you. They're grieving because of things that you have said and choices you have made and things that you have done that have brought them pain, and they're grieving as a result of hurts that you have caused them.

Paul would say, go to them and grieve with them as they grieve. Join them in their grief as they grieve over the hurts that you have caused them rather than being afraid to look at that. Being afraid to go there. or spending your time thinking about the hurts that they've caused you, rather than being open to looking at the hurts that you have caused them.

Number of months ago or a couple of years ago, we learned something about the nature of true apologies. Susannah Meadows of Newsweek magazine made a statement in an article that has stuck with me to this day. She said apologies are moral events that have real power to heal. When we sin and, and wound other people, we should not view an apology as some necessary evil that, well, it's just I got to go do it because it's what I'm supposed to do.

No, seize upon such moments. If you failed miserably and you brought her to other people, realize that you have the power by the grace of God to bring about a moral event. That has tremendous power to heal. And what all is embodied in a true apology?

Well, confessing your sin forthrightly, making a big deal out of your sin and your sin alone. Don't make light of your sin, to make light of your sin is to make light of what Jesus died for. And you don't want to do that. It involves taking full responsibility for your sin, lifting it off the shoulders of those around you and putting that responsibility on yourself.

A true apology involves rescuing other people from responsibility for your sins and taking that upon yourself, but also embodied in a true apology is grieving with the person you hurt. Being interested in the hurt that you have caused, and desiring to enter into that hurt and to own that hurt, and to grieve with them. With the hope that the tears that have formed in their heart fall from your eyes, tremendous healing comes from that, and then asking them. For forgiveness, putting yourself at their mercy, giving them the power to choose to forgive or not to forgive, to bow before them as it were, and to give them the freedom and the power to extend their hand to forgive or not.

These are the things that are embodied in True repentance, a truly heartfelt apology. I think all of us have been apologized to by people before who say, I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for what I said. I had a bad day.

and I was wrong. and they're not the least bit interested in the hurt they caused. They don't even want to go there. And you're sitting there saying, I'm ready to forgive, but they don't have a clue.

The hurt. That they have caused and they don't seem to be troubled by the hurt. They don't seem interested at all. I would encourage you when you apologize to say, here's how I think what I did or said has brought you hurt, but please fill me in.

Help me to understand because I want your hurt inside of me. This is part of what Paul would say is embodied in the call to grieve with those who grieve, grieving with others who are grieving over the hurts that you have caused. Are there people who are grieving over hurts that you have caused them? Another thing that Paul is calling us to in this instruction is to grieve with the person who is grieving before imparting wisdom to them.

in other words, grieving with someone who's grieving, even though your heart is just itching to your heart is full of wisdom that you are ready to impart to them. Paul would say, no, what I'm saying is grieve with someone before you lecture them. Grieve with them before you impart wisdom to them. Paul doesn't say preach to those who are grieving.

Lecture those who are grieving. No, he says, your brothers and sisters who are grieving, come alongside of them and weep with them, and grieve with them. Guys, I'm telling you, if you skip this step, you may have truly biblical wisdom to impart to them, but if you skip this step, your wise words will sound like a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Your wise words will be like fingernails on a chalkboard.

will be an irritant rather than a blessing. But if you're willing to enter into the grief of that other person and understand them and where they're coming from and grieve together with them, Then the words you speak will resonate and be helpful. The way I like to think of it is that, pain. There's nothing more isolating than pain, right?

when, when we're hurting, whether any hurt that it may be, there's, there's an isolation that comes with pain because we're thinking in that moment, sometimes rightly so, nobody gets my pain. Some may get it to some degree, others may not get it at all, but nobody knows exactly what I'm feeling. And so there may be plenty of people in your life, but you still feel lonely inside your pain. There may be people who love you and they love you and they're sympathetic to one degree or another, but they don't know fully your pain.

No one is fully inside of that circle of pain with you. And what we can tend to do when we encounter a brother or sister who's experiencing that loneliness of pain is we see their pain, but we stay outside that circle and we try to lob truth into that circle. We try to give wisdom and we're just throwing that wisdom into that circle, hoping that it helps them when Paul would say, No, no, no, what you need to do is get into that circle with them. And grieve with them as they grieve.

And if you're willing to take the time to do that, the words you speak, will resonate and bless. And minister. I remember talking to a lady a number of years ago, her and her husband had lost a child who died as a teenager and just a very painful season of their life. And she was telling me that one of the things that was an irritant to her was people saying, well, we know she's in a better place.

She's in heaven. And She said that really rubbed her wrong. But one day I was visiting with this man and his wife, and we were talking about that experience, and she pulled out a letter and she says, this is how to comfort people. And so I read this letter from this friend of theirs.

And it was a two page letter and this other person spent the first page doing nothing but weeping with them as they wept. I'm so sorry for the loss of your daughter. My heart aches with you and for you, and he did everything he could in that letter on the first page. To convey a desire and an interest to be inside that circle of pain with them.

And then what amazed me was on the 2nd page he said, I find great comfort in the thought that your daughter is in a better place. The exact same words that this woman said was an irritant to her. But when I got done reading the letter, she says, isn't that true comfort? And in my mind, I didn't say it to her.

I was thinking, wait, he, he said exactly what other people said. But what's the difference? He said it from inside their circle of pain rather than from outside. And so your heart may be bursting with just wonderful wisdom that you're just anxious to impart to someone who is grieving, but you must first grieve with them.

In fact, it's not like you grieve with them before you impart wisdom. You are imparting the wisdom of God when you grieve with them. You are revealing the heart of God. To them, In a powerful way.

This call to grieve with those who grieve includes the call to grieve with a person who is grieving, even though they are grieving in a way you think is inappropriate. maybe they're grieving longer than you think they should. Come on, it's been a week. Get over it.

It's been a month, especially when someone's grieving over a hurt you've caused them. Come on, get over it. It was yesterday. It was this morning.

Or maybe they're grieving with greater intensity than you think is appropriate. Maybe they're responding to a hurt that you've caused them and you're thinking, well, my hurt on a scale of 1 to 10 is a 2, and they're grieving to the degree of an 8. And you may just judge them for that. Rather than stopping to ask, maybe the hurt I caused them is connected to other hurts.

am I interested? And what those other hurts are, do I want to draw that out and really own that hurt? Maybe someone's grieving in a way that's actually hurtful to you. When someone's grieving, they're not reading some rule book and making sure that they're following.

all the precise protocols for grieving. Sometimes when people are grieving, they, they act out, they say things that you're on the receiving end, and it, and it hurts and it's easy in such moments to judge and pull away. I don't want to deal with this. But Paul would say no.

You need to make the same journey that Christ made and move towards their grief. Be with them in their grief. Love them by being willing to endure those hurts and the intensity and the length of their grief. As you grieve with them.

We could go on, but let's do one more tied to what we just looked at, and that is grieve with the person who's grieving, even though they're grieving in a way that's different from how you express your grief. Sometimes we get very narrow in our thinking and we think that the way I show my grief is really the legitimate way to show grief. And, and we conclude if someone's not grieving in the way that we grieve, well, then they must not be grieving at all. And that would be wrong.

And so we need to learn about each other, and there's different ways, and some of them are right and wrong, but people grieve in different ways. Some people may wear their emotions on their sleeve, their heart is on their sleeve, and exactly everything they're thinking and feeling because they express it all, everything you wanted to know and more than you wanted to know. And then there are others who, when they grieve, they, they pull in the shutters, they close up shop, and they go inward.

They bury themselves in their work.

They might drown their griefs in alcohol. My point is not to justify any way that people show grief. It's just a call to wisdom. Someone who's acting out in some particular way, do they need a lecture first, or do they need someone to come alongside of them and to care?

Where is that pain? Where is the grief? I'm interested. I, I want to know.

And so be aware of the fact that people grieve in, in different ways. Everyone, everyone sitting in this building, every single person is grieving over something and rejoicing over something. We all have joys and griefs, and God in verse 15 is calling us into each other's joys and grief, saying, I want you to rejoice and to grieve together. If you want to grieve with those who grieve, as Paul is challenging us to do here, then you'll want to do a third thing, and that is let the compassion of God revealed in the gospel shape and move you to grieve with those who grieve.

Stop and ponder the compassion of God for you, revealed in the gospel. Paul would say, there's a reason I waited until this point of the letter to tell you to grieve with those who grieve, because I've just given you an amazing picture of a God who has great compassion for sinners in their sin and in their sorrow, and in their grief. After giving us gospel truth for the 1st 11 chapters, Paul says, therefore, verse 1 of Romans 12, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, and this word mercies is the word that speaks of tender pity.

It's one of the words for compassion.

God did not just send His Son into the world to die so that you might have your sins forgiven and be saved. God did that because he was moved from within to do so by deep compassion. God felt something within his person as he saw you and me in our plight of sin. In our pathetic condition.

With the bondage and the sin that we brought upon ourselves, and God was moved. to act on our behalf rather than moving away from us. In our brokenness. The gospel ought to make us radically empathetic people.

The compassion of God ought to make us a radically empathetic people. That's why Paul at the end of Romans 8, after celebrating these incredible gospel realities, he says in chapter 9, verse 1 and following, he says, I'm telling you the truth. I'm not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart as he felt the plight.

of nonbelieving Jews. The gospel radically changes us if we allow it to do so, into a radically feeling and empathetic people, we should be moved by the compassion of God who loved us so much in our plight that he moved towards us, He sent His Son into the world, our world of brokenness and thorns and thistles to experience all of that himself. And Isaiah 53, we're told that Jesus He was a man of sorrows, and he was acquainted with with grief. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried when Jesus was on the cross.

Isaiah is looking ahead into the future, saying when the Messiah is on the cross, He is bearing not only our sins, but all of our griefs and all of our sorrows in order to be Emmanuel truly with us in our sorrows. And grieves what that means? It means that Jesus didn't stay outside our circle of pain and try to throw in salvation. No, he entered our circle of pain, every sorrow, every grief we've ever known.

Christ put that upon himself because he says, I want to be that one who loves you from the inside of your circle of pain. In the gospel, we learned that we have the ultimate empathetic friend. Whether others empathize or not, we have one in God. That leads to a 4th thing that we're going to want to do if we want to live out.

This ethic of Romans 12:15, and that is let the ongoing sympathy of God revealed in the gospel, shape and move you to grieve with those who grieve. God wasn't just moved by compassion to move towards us and save us, as we've studied the Book of Romans in chapter 8, we learn that God in an ongoing way is grieving with us as we grieve, we learned in verse 22 that all of creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And then Paul goes on to say, In verse 23 that we ourselves Those of us who are Christians who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption of sons, the redemption of our body.

But then not only does creation groan, and not only do we groan, along with all of creation, but Paul then gives us a wonderful truth, a wonderful gospel truth, and tells us in verse 26 that the Spirit helps us.

And our weakness. Because He Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep. For words. God groans.

God groans with you. Here we are groaning in our brokenness. And as we're groaning, we hear another groaning and say, who is that? What is that?

And we discover that it is God who is groaning with us. The Spirit of God. God gives us the Spirit inside of us to dwell inside of us for many reasons. One of those reasons is so that we always have a truly empathetic friend, who knows our groanings, who knows them better than we know them, and who perfectly knows how to express our griefs and our groanings to God when we don't know how.

We have ongoing sympathy from the Spirit of God. We can throw in Hebrews 4:15, where we're told that we do not have a high priest who cannot suffer together with us in our weakness, who cannot sympathize. He himself was tempted in all things, as we are, we have a high priest in heaven, who feels when we feel, who sympathizes with us. Now we realize that part of the reason that God is calling us to grieve with those who grieve in this passage is because it reveals his heart.

It reveals the heart of God. God says to you, I want your brothers and sisters to hear my groaning through your mouth. God's not up in heaven uncaring about the griefs of your brothers and sisters, but he says to you, well, what, I'm going to give you the responsibility to grieve with those who grieve. When he himself is not feeling any of that.

No, the only reason he would tell us to grieve with those who grieve is because in doing so, we're revealing something about his own heart. Towards our brothers. And our sisters. And when others grieve with us, we get to experience the heart of God towards us.

And our joys and in our griefs. Let me say this lastly, and we don't have a lot of time to develop this, but if you want to live this out and grieve with those who grieve, let the hope of the gospel shape and free you to grieve with those who grieve. Let the hope of the gospel. Both shape and actually free you up to grieve with those who grieve., the hope that we have of heaven, does not diminish our interest in grieving with those who grieve.

It actually is what frees us up to move towards grief. Without hope, I would never want to grieve with any of you. I would be afraid of your griefs, because I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what to think.

I wouldn't know how to handle my own griefs. But it's precisely because we have hope in Christ that we are most freed up to enter fully into the griefs of other people and to face our own griefs as well. You can jot this down. Hope in Christ tells us that there is always a joy in sight of every grief.

Our hope in Christ tells us that there is always some joy inside of every grief. Inside of every grief, there is some joy to be found either in the resolution of whatever was causing sorrow, or in the eternal resolution of that in glory as our sufferings end up giving way to an even greater weight of glory far beyond all comparison, or even Is this not true in your life that the griefs that you come to know in this life, actually, whether they get resolved in this life or not, drive you into some deep and joyful appreciation of some spiritual reality or truth that you would have never come to appreciate or rejoice in apart from that grief.

I've watched many of our brothers and sisters here at Cornerstone in circumstances they would never wish upon their worst enemy in times of heartrending grief and sorrow, and in such moments they are driven into a deep appreciation and rejoicing of realities in Christ that they would have never come to know and rejoice and apart from their grief. We know from the cross.

The cross is the greatest grief imaginable, and yet incredible joy comes forth from the cross. We learn in Romans 5 that we can exult in our tribulations, knowing that our tribulations produce perseverance and perseverance proven character and proven character, hope. And hope does not make ashamed because the love of God is spread abroad in our hearts. We know that about our own tribulations and the tribulations of one another.

We know in Romans 8:28 that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him. It is the certain knowledge of these things that there is joy to be found inside of every hope that gives us the freedom to move towards one another's griefs, and to freely grieve with them. And, part of why we move towards one another's griefs, it's a holy greed for whatever joy there is that will be found inside of that grief. When we grieve with a sister as she grieves, we thereby guarantee that her joy, when it comes, will be ours too.

So much happens when we grieve and when we join others. In their grief One of the things I've noticed in my own life and just in interactions with people in this church body, is that none of us, even our own griefs, we never finish grieving. We may lose a loved one and we grieve and then we stop crying every day like we once did, but we're not done grieving. I've seen people in this church when walking into a funeral service of someone that they did not know all that well, and they're already crying as they walk in.

I remember one lady doing that, and I said, Are you OK? And she said, I didn't even know this person real well. But I'm, I'm grieving over the loss of my husband from 7 years ago. She came to that funeral because she wanted to grieve the loss of this person along with others, but she found herself finishing her own grief.

She got to continue grieving the loss of her husband. When I grieve with you, when you grieve with me, we're not just entering into one another's griefs, we're actually completing or going further in our own grievings. As well. When we think of it this way, also, we realize that when we go through hardships, and God takes us deep into grief ourselves, He's always doing something in us, and one of the things he's doing in us is he is deepening our ability and capacity to grieve, to grieve with others.

As they grieve Opening our eyes to the wounds and the griefs of others. Paul is calling us into something that is rich and deep. This is the essence of community. We get to practice this in our relationships with one another in the church.

We get to practice this in our relationships with one another in our care groups, and in our families, in our marriages, towards our children, towards our parents, and thereby display the heart of God. Let's bow our heads together. If you're here today, and you've never come to the Lord Jesus Christ and cried out to him for salvation, you need to understand that you need to do that. You're not just saved and on your way to heaven because you were born into that or because you have come to church today.

A transaction needs to occur where you understand your need of forgiveness and salvation through Jesus, and you look to Him and cry out to Him to save you. That needs to happen. If it's not happened, I pray that you would even be moved by such a loving Savior we've seen displayed this morning. Other religions give us a picture of a detached God who's Arms are folded and seated peacefully detached from the agonies of this world.

And Christianity comes to you and says, look, here's the one who wants to be your savior. And it's the one who is dying upon a pole. His limbs wrenched and his brow beaten, plunged into godforsaken darkness, for you, he came into your brokenness because he wanted to be your savior. My prayer is that you will look at him today and say that is the savior for me.

Lord, you are a good and a gracious God. We're, we're moved by your kindness to us. We as Christians are of all people to be most empathetic, because of the empathy and the compassion that we have been shown in Christ. Help us to grow and to do better in our relationships with one another and loving one another in this beautiful way of grieving with those who grieve.

Thank you for this opportunity to give our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds and do much with them for the glory of Jesus. We ask these things in his name, and all God's people said,