Why is Christ Crying?

Luke 19:41

Jesus: a man’s man.

The picture that moved me.

M.R. DeHaan: “True tears are not camouflage but the picture of the soul on the canvas of the emotions.

1. Because a city has rejected him.

• Drugs, Materialism, Apathy
• A burden comes from exposure to needs.
• Most Christians have found a place of comfortable spiritual seclusion where they’ve constructed a glass house of self-sufficiency entirely draped with black curtains of indifference.
• Like the religious leaders of Jesus day, religious and social status has trumped genuine spiritual conviction.
• Poll the churches of Brewton, AL and tell me if you don’t have nearly two whole generations of people that have forsaken the house of God.
• Mark 4:16-17

And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;

And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.

• What would you expect from a bunch of people that have never seen or experienced the power of God, just religious obligation with a spoonful of hypocrisy.
• What about the next two generations of church leadership.
• I’m not suggesting a new wave of social and political activism from the church, but that we exercise the power of God unto salvation that has been committed to us.
• If God might pull the scales back from our eyes long enough for us to behold the hell-bound condition of this community it might cause us to want to tell some sinner about Jesus.

2. Because families are hurting. (John 11:35)

• Sickness and disease
• Rom 12:15 ‘weep with them that weep’
• The Lord Jesus may or may not have a miracle in store for that particular need, but he has a hedge of peace and comfort.

3. Because his own have forsaken him. (Heb 5:7)

• Matthew 26:38

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

• He knows he’s about to be separated from his Father, one of his own will betray him, one of his inner circle will deny him, and the rest will forsake him.
• “Holy Father, Keep through thine own name them which thou hast given me, that they may be one even as we are one.” John 17:11
• Can you imagine the tears of despair and sadness that the Prodigal’s Father shed for his own beloved son.
• The only appropriate response to the realization that you’ve forsaken your Saviour (Luke 22:62)

4. Because of those that would reject him.

• What begins in the Garden is consummated on the cross.
• Not my will, but thine be done. / Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
• Then finally, It is finished.
• He experienced our eternal judgment… including the weeping and gnashing of teeth…

5. Because of one sinner that repents.

• The bitter tears of the Prodigal’s Father must surely have turned to tears of joy as he sees he precious child return to his proper home.
• Luke 15:24

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

• Luke 16:7

Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.