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River Valley. I'm excited to be preaching this weekend and finishing off our series about Love youe Neighbor. Joining in with all of our campuses. Pastor Rob started us off in our first week talking about the Good Samaritan. Last week, Aaron Pierce preached an amazing message on a difficult week to preach and thought he did an amazing job. And I do have a little bit of damage control to do because he is from my campus, I'm from the Crosstown campus. And he did say crosstown's the best campus. And. And I don't teach that. That's not what I tell people to say. Maybe a better term we could use is favorite campus. Cause it's more maybe opinion rather than superiority. Since I've been in middle school, I've been a part of Apple Valley. I've been a part of Faribault, Minne, Trista, Burnsville campus. Rest in peace. Not all of them work out. 11 out of 13 is pretty good. Woodbury City, Lakeville, and now Crosstown. So I've been a part of many, many campuses and love what God is doing across all our campuses and locations. But everyone has a different feel. Every person is good at different things. And I just want us to all know that all of them are great. But you can have a favorite. And it might be just because I come from the everybody gets a trophy generation, but I just want us all to win. Okay? Everyone's good at different things. Some people are good with babies, some are not. Some people are great singers, other people are good listeners. There's all sorts of things that we're good at and not. And Mac and I, my wife, we got married young. And so we were still trying to figure out what we were good at or not. My father in law, who's in the room today, he wasn't exactly sure if we were ready to get married. So he got us a Strength Finders coach. We were engaged. He said he'd pay for it, which I thought was super helpful. I was pumped. I thought, okay, I'm getting coaching. This is great. I saw my results. Strategic woo. Futuristic command communication. I'm loving it. And I got to the bottom of the page and I saw my lowest score was empathy. To make matters worse, for my wife, it was one of her highest scores. So I realized it wasn't that he thought we weren't ready to get married. Maybe he thought I wasn't ready to get married. On the other hand, it was kind of a good excuse. Right? Just sorry. Empathy's not a strength. I'm not very good at just feeling what other people are going through. Sorry I can't get better. It's the lowest score I've got. But as a pastor and as a Christian, we definitely need empathy. Last week, Aaron talked about how broken hearts changed the world. So maybe I can ask, when was the last time that you cried? Maybe you say it was last week in church, maybe it was watching a movie, Maybe Homeward Bound, maybe up. The American Psychological association said women cry on average 30 to 64 times per year, about three to five times per month. Men cry five to 17 times per year, which is one to two times per month. I honestly thought it'd be a bit higher. Doctors say there are three types of tears. There's basal tears that keep your eyes healthy and protected. There's reflex tears that wash out irritants like smoke or onions. And then there's emotional tears. And interestingly, researchers have pointed out that humans are the only animal species that have emotional tears. There have been some studies and some people say that can't be right. My dog definitely cries. I know my wife is going to adamantly disagree with this, but the scientists have not found any significant evidence that dogs tears are in relation to their emotional state. Tears of emotion are uniquely human. I heard two political commentators talking on a podcast, and one of them said to the other, he said, I don't believe your wife should ever see you cry. And he said, I agree, you should never cry in front of your wife. Thought that was strange. And I said, ah, that must be why Jesus was never married. The shortest verse in the Bible in John 11 is Jesus wept. Jesus was told that his friend Lazarus was very sick. And instead of rushing to be by his side or heal him from afar, he waited to visit him until he died. And then after he had been dead for four days, he visited those who were mourning. And then he ended up healing him. It's kind of a confusing story, but the shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35. Starting in verse 32, he shows up. It says, now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him? Yeah. The obvious question in this story is why would Jesus weep if he knew just a few verses later that he was going to heal his friend Lazarus. It almost feels like maybe you hear about layoffs at your company and someone convinces you that you're being laid off. And you go into your boss and he's consoling you, and your co workers are consoling you. You call your family, you tell them the news, you pack up your things, and right before you're about to leave, your boss says, oh, actually, you. You're not getting fired. You say, why didn't you just tell me that at the beginning? Why do I have to go through all these emotions? So why would Jesus not just heal Lazarus from the beginning? Why would Jesus cry knowing that he was gonna heal him in just a short time? Some people thought that that's kind of what Jesus was doing. He was manipulating this. You see, in the next verse in 36, it says, the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? They were questioning Jesus. Why did he allow this man to die? Why does he allow pain? Maybe you've asked yourself those questions in the last couple weeks. One of the words that John uses to describe Jesus emotion in this time is a word that means snorting like a horse. I don't know if you've ever been so angry before. You didn't know what to say. That you just say, why would have Jesus felt that way? Maybe because people were questioning the love that Jesus had for his friend. See, sometimes we question God's love for us because of our circumstance. We question God's love for us because he allows us to suffer. We question God's love for us because he allows people to die. And Jesus is frustrated that people are questioning the love that he had for a good friend. And he says, oh, you don't know. You have no idea what I'm about to do. Some people ridicule you for showing people this type of love. How many of you know in our world, people want approval? They don't want true Christ like love. Christ like love tells you that you're doing something wrong. Christlike love tells you that you're gonna fall and you might hurt yourself pretty bad. Proverbs 3, 11, 12 says, My child, don't reject the Lord's discipline and don't be upset when he corrects you. For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights. Sometimes the world is mad at the church or they're mad at the Bible because it corrects us. And Jesus here, I believe he's trying to teach us something. Moment. Others think that he cried because he was angry at death. We've all lost loved ones before. It could have brought up memories of losing his earthly father, Joseph. Many scholars expect that Jesus father died in his late teens or early twenties. Maybe he imagined the suffering that he'd experienced soon on the cross, thinking that his mother and his disciples might doubt. They might see his death. They might see what he walked through. Or maybe he was just doing what good friends do and comforting them when they're hurting. The English theologian Charles Ellicott noted, he is conscious of the power which he is about to exercise and that the first result will be the glory of God in healing Lazarus. But he is conscious also of the suffering hearts near him. And the sympathy with human sorrow is no less part his nature than the union with divine strength. The sympathy of his human sorrow is no less part than his divine strength. Sometimes as Christians, we feel like we need to have all the answers. We feel like we need to have every verse memorized. We feel like we need to know all the theological beliefs. We need to be perfect. Nobody's going to listen to us if we don't have everything together. But can I tell you, the people in your neighborhood aren't concerned with your memorization skills. They aren't concerned with how much money you have in your bank account. They aren't concerned with what sport you played in college. The people in your neighborhood, the people in your family. They're asking, do you love me? Do you care? Am I important to you? Do you see me? Do you care about my needs? We can't talk about loving our neighbor if we don't see the people right in front of us. Jesus is teaching us. He's saying, I care about my friends. I care about my creation. I think of Jonah, if you know the story. He was asked to go to Nineveh. He disobeyed. He ended up getting swallowed by a whale. It's a great children's story. Gets spit up. Preaches to Nineveh, people that were incredibly evil. They were doing horrible, horrible things. Some of the most wicked people we read about in Scripture. And Jonah preaches to them instead of being happy that they actually repent and change their mind. Jonah's more excited about getting shade from a plant. He didn't want the people to repent. He didn't want them to get saved. That's why he didn't want to go. He was afraid for his own life. But he Was also afraid that God would repent. And sometimes people tell you, they say, you know, the Old Testament God, he's an evil God, and the New Testament God, I like the New Testament God a little bit better. Can I tell you, they're not different gods? Because what Jonah says to God in his response, in his frustration, he said, God, I knew you'd forgive because that is who you are. You're a God who is so loving that you would forgive these evil people. Maybe you felt that in this turmoil and division in our nation, maybe you felt like, God, I don't wanna forgive those people. God, I don't want them to repent. I don't want them to get saved. You're telling me that I might have to share a church with them? Jesus said yes. How can we say that if we know what Jesus has done for us? God can build his church in spite of us not loving our neighbor. But how much greater would it be if we also loved our neighbor? I was at a conference a few months ago and a pastor friend of mine came running up to me and he was super excited to tell me. He said, logan, Someone asked me the other day where I would least likely want to pastor. And I told them, Minnesota. I was not sure how to respond. You see, he wasn't called to Minnesota. He wasn't called to be here. You may say, God, I hate my neighbors. They're too sinful. God, I hate my co workers. They're so lost. Is that what one would say of one who wants to reach their neighbor with the message of Christ? How can we say that when Jesus, who fed the 5,000, had compassion on those who had nothing to eat? Jesus had compassion on the blind man near Jericho and healed him. Jesus was moved by compassion by the lepers. Jesus had compassion on the widow who lost her son and raised him from the dead. Jesus is showing us this love and compassion. And some of us struggle so much to have compassion for others because we. We don't think that God can love us. So how can I love somebody else? You've heard it said before that hurt people hurt people. Before we can love like Jesus, we must receive his love first. John 4 says, we love because he first loved us. If someone says, I love God, yet hates his brother or sister, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother and sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. If we can't love the people in front of us and love the people around us, how can we expect to love God, the disciple John, who wrote one John and wrote the Gospel of John. And what we're reading about, he called himself the Beloved Disciple. Now he wasn't bragging. He wasn't like me when I was a kid growing up in kids church. And we have something called a silly soda. It's a sprite with 17 shots of grenadine. But it was not time to have silly sodas. And I went up to the volunteer and I said, I would like a silly soda. And she said, you can't have one. I said, do you know who my dad is? She grabbed me by the ear, she brought me to the lobby, right to my dad. And she said, let me tell you what he just said. It's the last time I used that. And I did not get a silly soda. But you see, John's not here bragging by calling himself the Beloved Disciple. What John's saying is he says, I've seen Jesus so close and more than my identity or my name, I want you to know that I am loved by Jesus. I want you to know me. I'm the beloved. I've seen him up close. I've spent time next to him. Oh, how he loves. It's no surprise to me that the only time we read about Jesus weeping over Lazarus is in the gospel that is written by the Beloved Disciple. He says, let me show you. Let me show you how much he loves. Can I ask you a question? When did you fully understand that Jesus loved you? Have you? Some of us feel like in our brokenness and in our suffering, we can't feel his love. But let me tell you a time recently, I felt the love of God. Four months ago, three days after Mother's Day, Mac, my wife, had her fourth miscarriage in 18 months at ten and a half weeks alone after finding out we were pregnant. Being thrilled at the potential of welcoming two children this year, one through adoption as well as natural birthday, we went in for the second ultrasound. The doctor told us the news. There was no heartbeat. The baby was gone. Mac had what's called a missed miscarriage. Some of you know what that is means. Even though the baby had died, she had to induce labor. So as I watched her at our house in agony, lying on the bedroom floor crying because of her physical and emotional pain, tears streamed down my face. And as she was recovering, she came up to me and she asked, she said, were you crying when I was on the floor? I said, yeah. I didn't know what else to do because seeing somebody that I love going through so much Pain and knowing I couldn't do anything about it. The only thing I could do was to cry. Sounds a lot like empathy. This must be how Jesus felt for his friends when they saw Lazarus gone. This must be how Jesus feels for us when we go through pain and we go through suffering. But can I tell you, God exceeded the depth of our anguish with the significance of his presence. And some of us are wondering, God, where are you in my suffering? And God's saying, I'm right here. And sometimes God can use our suffering to draw him close and to draw us closer. Listen to what Jesus said earlier in the chapter. When he found out Lazarus was sick. Before he died, the sisters sent to him, saying, lord, he whom you love is ill. They knew he loved him. But when Jesus heard it, he said, the illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Jesus says, you don't realize the glory that I'm about to show. He said, I've healed the sick before, but I'm about to raise the dead. Sometimes our suffering is used so that God can get the glory. Other times we suffer because of our own mistakes. But not all of our suffering is because God doesn't love us. In fact, sometimes it's because he loves us. John Piper said, do not measure the love of God by how much health, wealth and comfort he brings into your life. If that were the measure of God's love, he hated the apostle Paul. Measure God's love for you by how much of himself he shows you. Sometimes our suffering allows us to turn away from all the things in this world that are distracting us and turn us right towards Jesus. That's how I knew he loved me. When I had nowhere else to go, God showed himself to me. The second time we see Jesus weep is shortly before he was betrayed in Luke 19. And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it. This is Jerusalem. And saying, would that you even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come up upon you when your enemies will set a barricade around you and surround you and hem in you on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children with you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, it is written, my house shall be a house of prayer, which. But you have made it a den of robbers. You see, right before Jesus was betrayed, he did this because people were making religion into something that was all about the legalism. It was about how it benefited those in power. It was about themselves. Jesus said, that's not what this is about. He wasn't weeping over the pagans. He was weeping over the people of God who he led out of Egypt, who he'd been there for, provided the entire Old Testament. He was weeping over them because in spite of him being good on his word, they still disobeyed. Verse 46. Jesus is quoting Jeremiah 7, which is the first time the temple fell. Listen to this commentary. This is about Jeremiah 7, but it's similar. It says a large part of the problem is the false trust which the mere possession of the temple and its rituals inspire. The people had persuaded themselves that this amounted to a kind of guarantee of God's presence and protection. Can I tell you, growing up in church does not guarantee your salvation. Being a pastor's kid does not guarantee salvation. Rituals don't save us. It's only Jesus who can save. We've seen, unfortunately, moral failures happen of pastors around the nation. And I remember when one prominent pastor fell. Pastor Rob got all of our staff together and we all knew what he was speaking to. But he looked at us all quite emotional. He said, none of us are immune to sin. The moment you think that because your church attendance is perfect or because you've read the Bible from COVID to cover, the moment, because of what you've done before will allow you to stay in good grace with God. It's not because of our works. It's because of what Jesus has done. It's because our relationship with him. None of us are immune. And I believe weeping is an antidote to this type of pride. Sister Martha Tennyson said this. She said, laughter is healing, weeping is cleansing, and if your eyes leak, your head won't swell. As I've asked people what I want prayer for in my new role as campus pastor, I've told everyone I want you to pray that the Lord would increase the burden for the people around me. God, I want a burden. I want to see the people in my community and I want to love them. I want them in church. I want them to experience what I've experienced. In John 14, Jesus says, Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that. The Father may be glorified in the Son. We've heard that before. And we do a good job of teaching people what it's not. Whatever you ask in my name, it's not a Ferrari, it's not a house, it's not a wife. Somebody's like, I want that. Name it and claim it wife. Come on, please. Please, Jesus. Sometimes we don't finish the teaching. We tell people what it isn't. It's not the fake lead pastor account on Instagram that says, please send three $500 Visa gift cards to Nigeria for our widow's offering. Hallelujah. Blessings and peace in the name of the Lord Most High. That's not Pastor Rob, I promise. What that verse must be talking about is, lord, would you give me a burden for the people of my community? He says, granted. God, would you help me see people the way that you do? He says, granted. Would you help me love in a new way? Would you give me empathy? Would you give me a love for the people around me, even if they disagree with me? God says, I'm granting that request. I encourage you at the end of this message and throughout this week to say those prayers. First, Timothy 2 says, it's pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and and to come to the knowledge of the truth. When you weep for those that are lost, you align with the heart of our Father. God wants all to be saved, but I believe Jesus takes us deeper still. Unfortunately, in a room full of Christians, sometimes we treat lost people like they're the ones who lost the other sports game and your team won and their team lost. And occasionally, throughout the panning of the confetti falling down, you see the hands on their head or them collapsed in their arms, frustrated that they lost the game. We feel like, well, us as Christians, we won. We've got salvation. We have eternal life. It's so sad for other people. They lost the game. Better luck next time. When you have an affinity for a team and they lose, you feel hurts. Let's not feel more for our sports team than we feel about the sadness of our neighbors that are going to hell. We must feel something. And that's what I believe. Jesus is teaching us in the love that he shows. He weeps for his friends. He weeps because people disobey God. I don't just want this for myself. In Romans, chapter 9, the apostle Paul, he says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. That I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could. I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from. From Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen. According to the flesh. He's saying, I wish that I could take their place. I love them so much that I wish I could trade it. But he says, I can't. I can't do that. It's weeping and anguish. The greatest New Testament communicator in the Bible, who understood the Gospel better than maybe anyone to ever live, was filled with great sorrow and unceasing anguish for those who are going to hell. Brings us to the third time that Jesus weeped, maybe a fourth if you count the cross Hebrews describes in chapter five. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reference. This is referencing Matthew 26, where it said. Then he said to him, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me in the garden of Gethsemane. And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. I read that and say, how could they? But then I realize, that's me. He said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for the second time, he went and prayed, my Father, this cannot pass unless I drink it. Your will be done. If Jesus was crying out in anguish, some say he was sweating tears of blood in this conversation he was having with the Father. This must reveal how terrible sin is. Second Corinthians 5 says, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. He tasted sin for the first time. He knew no sin. And he became it for you and for me, so that we could have a way to the Father. But it wasn't easy. Jesus, the God of the universe, crying out in anguish, is there another way he knows there's nothing. God, forgive us for saying sin is not a big deal. Forgive us for saying it's just a quick look. Forgive us. It's saying it's just a small lie or it was just a joke. Forgive us for being numb. Forgive me for comparing anything in this life to hell. God paints a picture in Sodom and Gomorrah, the lashes on Jesus back that he was whipped. He tells us the wages of sin is death. He warns us of the lake of fire. So what would motivate Jesus to take the worst of pain and to become sin on our behalf? John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It's the love of the Father that motivated him to send Jesus. It's the love of Jesus that motivated him to die on the cross. For you and me. When was the last time you remembered? When was the last time you thanked him? We see the evil in our world. We see the chaos around us. But sometimes it's the evil in the world that makes us realize that we're missing the good and the love of our Father. As I come to a close, this last lesson is really what wrecked me. In Philippians, chapter three, Paul, writing again, says, for many walk of whom I often told you and now tell you even as I weep, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite and whose glory is in their shame, who have their minds on earthly things. There are people who, knowing what Jesus has done for them, still choose sin and still choose death. There are people who celebrate when others are killed. There are people who celebrate when people are hurt. There are people who celebrate in their shame and in their sin and in their rejection from God. Paul says, how can that not make you weep? How can that not make you weep when you've experienced the love of the Father, when you know how good God is? And yet they look at him and they say, I don't want it. I want to be separate. Isaiah 59 says, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Several years ago, a man in our church had just lost his job. He went bankrupt and was struggling. But he said to himself, at least I have my health, my wife and my boys. That was until his wife told him the devastating news. She said, I cheated on you and I'm leaving you to be with another man. As our pastors were there trying to sort through the chaos, the mother packing up her things, preparing to walk out the door. The oldest of the boys, 10 years old, went and grabbed his mom's face. And he said, mom, you don't have to go. Stay, we'll forgive you. You don't have to go. Please stay. Don't go. She walked out the door. I'm sad because sin has a grip on people. But I weep because people have a grip on sin. And that's the message for us today. You don't have to go. You don't have to choose sin. You don't have to choose to be separated from God. Just like that young boy. I'm telling you. All the people of God are telling you. You don't have to go. You don't have to choose separation. You don't have to choose hell. You can choose Jesus. It's our prayer as Christians. It's for our neighbor, it's for our friends, it's for our family. Please don't go. What Jesus has done for you is enough. I know the love of the Father. I've seen it up close. Your suffering, your pain. It's nothing compared to the love that he brings to you. You don't have to go. God, I pray right now. God, I pray for everyone listening to this message. I pray for those of us that know your love, that we would weep for those that are lost, that we'd realize that you've given us everything. God, that our sorrow would move us to care for those around us. That our sorrow would move us to tell somebody about what you've done for us. Our sorrow would move us to push through awkwardness because we truly believe what you've done for us. We truly believe that there is a hell. God, I pray for all those in this place who don't yet know that love, who've not received it, who rejected you, that they'd accept the plea that you can receive forgiveness and hope in Jesus Christ. God, we pray this in your powerful and mighty name, Amen. And amen.