Morning, guys. How's everybody doing? We're in Luke chapter 23. Do a turn there. Luke 23. We are in our 93rd week in Luke. Can you believe that? We'll only be in Luke for probably a few more weeks. After Luke, we're going to have a few weeks doing our distinctives. And after that, the next book, you know what the next book is we're doing? Lamentations. And then, after that, you know what we're doing? 1 John. And after that, you know what we're doing? Galatians. And after that, you know what we're doing? Genesis. Genesis. Somebody said it. It's like five years from now. Yeah, I know, right? I know. Well, all those other books will be shorter. Yeah, but Luke, this is 93 weeks in Luke. This is 93. So we're in chapter 23. And we're going to be in verses 26 through 31. I have to tell you, this morning is gonna be a little more teachy than preachy, okay? Because there's just some content here that we need to look through that's just urgent and essential for us to get. So we're gonna be a little more teachy than preachy, but our goal remains the same. Our goal, as we gather as a body every Sunday, no matter what it is we do, is one thing, to be reminded of the need that we have of a great Savior. And then, after we're reminded of that need, to have our eyes put on that Savior, that we would rest in Him and rejoice in what He's done for us. If that's not why you're here, boring, useless, nothing to do but sit and stare at me. But if you are here because you want to be reminded of how great a Savior you have, that's the work we're going to set our minds to try to stumble through together as best we can. And as I said this morning, we're in chapter 23. Let me start reading at verse 26 for us. 26 through 31 says, and as they led him away, They seized one Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus. And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them, Jesus said, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? Let me pray for us. Father, we come before you now, a people who confess to you our need of your help to even hear and understand your word rightly. You have given such a wonderful means to us in the gospel, and yet we know that unless you by your spirit work in us, nothing's accomplished. And so We confess this morning and we rejoice this morning in the fact that the power this morning does not lie in the preacher or the hearer, but in you, the God who gives such good gifts to your people. So would you work this morning, Lord, to convict and open eyes, give us a sight of you, that you would be loved. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. There are times, guys, that A fear grips me. It's a fear that grips me. And the fear is that there might be, at any Sunday, a group of people that are there that are not really in Christ. Now to be honest, that same fear grips me about myself often. I'm sure you've all had such experiences in which you think, how in the world is it that I could be in Christ? But really, sometimes I wonder, are there a number of those in our midst that think that they're Christians, but in reality, they're not? I hope you all understand that you can be somebody who knows the gospel, knows the facts of the gospel, and says you believe the facts of the gospel, and yet be lost. I hope that you know that. I hope that you know you can be somebody who knows reform doctrine better than Calvin himself and be utterly lost. No regeneration at all. I hope you understand you can be somebody who's heard of law and gospel and loves the idea of law and gospel and be totally unregenerate. I hope you know you could be somebody who signs up for missions, has a clean, good-looking life, who is a outstanding member of your Christian community, and yet be totally, absolutely far from the Lord. You can be somebody who takes a stand in our culture for righteousness, and votes in the way you think is the right way, and calls out people on their sin all around you, and be unregenerate. Brothers and sisters, it's possible that you could look okay, look really good on the outside, but there'd be nothing going on in the heart. You could be a church leader, elder, deacon, doesn't matter. You can be in these places and not be regenerate. And friends, I'm not saying this because I'm trying to have you leave here today with less assurance. That's not, the goal is not for you to leave with less assurance. The goal today is for you to leave with more assurance, but in the right things. So would you take a moment with me this morning, please? Would you take a moment, whatever it is that's on your mind, whatever distractions are there, would you take a moment this morning and consider these things with me? Can you imagine, brothers and sisters, that there could be some here today in this room who, if they died today, would face hell? They would face total separation from God and from the rest of us forever. Isn't that serious enough that we should stop and think about it? Isn't that serious enough that I should just stop the service and say, we're going to think about this? The stakes are too high. The stakes are too high for us to assume and pretend and play church and feel good about ourselves. No. No. There's someone in this room who you're sitting next to, or you might be one in this room this morning who is not regenerate. Isn't it worth us stopping and considering this? Because we can't think that we are a people who don't need to consider it. We can't think that because we've gone to church, we can't think that we don't have to consider this. Because the truth is, sometimes the people that look like they are the closest to being holy and righteous are really those who are the farthest from the kingdom of God. Those who look like they're getting things very right sometimes can be those who have gotten everything wrong. I know that because of our text today. Because in our text today, we encounter something fascinating. We encounter a group of people that look like they are on the right side and they're responding rightly to God, but they are damned, they're judged. Let me show you these people in our text. Now again, understand these people will look like they're getting things right while they are still under judgment. Now the group I'm talking about, are the women mentioned in our text in verse 27 who were told are weeping. Let me show you. Look at verse 27 again. And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who are mourning and lamenting for him. So you know where we are in the gospel. Jesus is headed to the cross. He's headed to the cross. Simon of Cyrene is bearing the cross next to him. Jesus is headed there. Big crowds are following. And there's this group of women that's going along with him. And this group of women are wailing. We've seen a lot of people in the past chapters alongside Jesus and interacting with Jesus. And none of the people that we've seen so far look like good people. We've seen the people that came and arrested Jesus. None of us would look at them and go, oh, they're on God's side. We saw the people mocking and beating Jesus before the trial. None of them looked like they were on God's side. We saw the Jews who tried Jesus, didn't look like they were on God's side. We saw Herod mock Jesus, doesn't look like he's a good guy. We saw Pilate, he looked like maybe at first he was trying to be a good guy, trying to side with Jesus, but ultimately when the cost was too high, he gave up as well. Now here's the first group that we see in the text that really seem to be somewhat on Jesus' side, to publicly wail and lament. I mean, culturally, that's not something we do. Back then, culturally, if a tragedy happened or something sorrowful was taking place, there would be people that would weep and wail publicly, beat their breasts and cry. That's what these women are doing for Jesus. Listen, these women, they're not mocking Jesus. That's not what they're doing. They're not seeking Jesus's harm. That's not what they're doing. Here are women who are seeing Jesus be mistreated and beaten, headed to his execution. They weep for him. What do you make of these women? They surely seem to be doing something wonderful. Surely they must be part of God's kingdom, right? Look, they're clearly moved by what they see. They're moved by it. You know, you want to be really convicted this morning? I could stop us right now, read into the next chapter, and tell you about what they're seeing and weeping about. And we'd look around, and you know what? We wouldn't see many tears. In other words, our reaction wouldn't be as big as their reaction to this. I could read the story, and I know we could come up with excuses for why we wouldn't weep. Well, we're not seeing it. We're just hearing about it. Oh, I've heard it so many times before. No matter what you say, the truth of the matter is this. These women in this text are having an emotional response to what they're seeing Jesus go through that would make us look like stone-hearted fools. But here's the shocking thing. that we see when we look at these women. Though they seem to be people on God's side who are favored by God and blessed by God and the ones who in the crowd would be most part of God's kingdom, the opposite's true. We find that these are women who are under judgment themselves. And that's not my opinion. It's what Jesus says to them. Look how Jesus responds to their crying in verse 28. Are you following me so far? Do you understand what I'm saying so far? I started out by asking you, what if somebody in here is not in Christ? And then I said, sometimes people that look like they're part of the kingdom, maybe they're not. And here we have a text in which we have people that look like they're doing something good, something maybe we would see someone do and go, hey, that looks decent. They must really be good Christians. Look at how they're weeping. And I'm telling you, they're judged. They're not in the faith. And I'm asking you to think about this because what if it's the case that one of us is in that position? And I'm not doing this because I'm trying to take assurance from you. I want you to have real assurance. Are you following me? So let me show you what Jesus says to these women that shows us that they're judged. He says in verse 28, returning to them, Jesus said, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, blessed are the barren and the womb that never bore and the breast that never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it's dry? Now before we look at all the details here of what Jesus has said, just simply notice verse 28. and what Jesus instructs these women to do. Jesus gives, this is a command here. Don't weep for me. Instead, command, weep for yourselves and for your children. Brothers and sisters, you don't tell people who you are blessing to weep for themselves. You don't tell people whom God has favored and are part of the, weep for your children. These, in other words, these are words of judgment. This is judgment. The rest of the words of Christ make this clear in this section. Listen, he says, blessed are the barren. That's not good news. Blessed are the barren. Jesus is referring to the coming judgment in AD 70, a few years from this point, where the Jews will be overrun by the Romans as part of God's judgment upon them. He's explaining at that time, things are gonna be so bad, it'd be better if you didn't have children. He's explaining they will cry in fear for the mountains to cover them, to hide them from the wrath of God that's coming. And he says, if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? Meaning, if the Romans do this to Jesus, who they think is innocent, what are they going to do to Israel as instruments of God's judgment when they see Israel as the enemy and come and attack them? Words of judgment. This is Jesus announcing judgment. God is going to judge this nation. And so this is what we see that's so shocking. You can be someone who is lamenting Christ's death. You can be someone who's weeping over the suffering of Jesus and feel sympathetic toward him and yet be totally lost and under judgment. Brothers and sisters, sympathy for Jesus. care for him, feelings for him that what happened to him is unjust, feeling emotional about it, singing hymns and feeling overwhelmed as you consider the sufferings of Christ. That doesn't make you a Christian. Doesn't make you a Christian. If this is hard to understand, let me give you an example that might help. A number of years ago, there was a movie that came out. Some of you might remember it. It was called The Passion of the Christ. Does anybody remember that movie? The Passion of the Christ was a movie that chronicled in detail the graphic sufferings of Christ. Many people went and saw it. Many people went and saw it. And as they watched it, you know what they did? They cried. And they left weeping hysterically. It probably doesn't surprise you to hear that many of those who wept at that movie were unbelievers. You weren't Christians. You see, you can weep at Christ's sufferings. You can have a great deal of sympathy. You can even look at what he did and go, that's beautiful. What a beautiful, loving sacrifice he made. You can do that. You can have that attitude toward Christ and what he did and yet be damned. How shocking is that? You see, if you look at yourself and just ask, have I wept for Christ? Have I felt sorrow over his... If you stop this morning and examine yourself, try to determine, am I a Christian? Okay, have I thought about him carrying that beam and his mother there at the scene crying and felt just so overcome with emotion as I thought about how humbly he gives himself and quietly goes without speaking to die and you're moved at what he says and what happens. All that can happen and it alone means nothing. It's nothing. It counts for nothing. What I mean is it's no sure sign of salvation. It's no guarantee. God has worked redemption in your heart. It could mean you're nothing more than those people who went and saw the passion. It could mean you're no different than the women in our text mourning for Jesus, who Jesus says, no, you don't understand the judgment that's coming upon you. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it's bad. to weep or feel emotional over the sufferings of Jesus. Christians do do that. Christians, when they sing songs about Christ's suffering, they feel great emotion as they sing those hymns. That's good. That's what should happen. But friends, that alone is not enough. That alone is not evidence of redemption. In order for that to be a Christian response, In order for that to be a Christian response, in order for that to be indicative of salvation, something else must come first. Do you know what must come first? You see, there are many who claim Christ and have responded like these women and who go about living their lives looking pretty clean, church-going, clean-looking people, but they're lost because there's something they've never learned, something that's never happened to them. Do you know what must happen first before you can weep for Jesus in a way that's Christian? Before you weep for Jesus, brothers and sisters, you must first weep for yourselves. Friends, please hear me. Please hear me, please don't be distracted. Think about what I'm saying. Before you can really see Christ do his cross work and understand it and marvel at it in a right way, you must first have the law fall upon you such that it reveals to you your need. Without that happening, you are simply like the women in this group. You might have some care or sympathy for Christ and think what he did is so beautiful and loving, but you're still under judgment because you don't really understand what it's about. Brothers and sisters, in these verses, as Jesus speaks to these women, he's not just being poetic when he says, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves. Those are imperatives, they're commands. Jesus is commanding us to do something essential, something that must be done first if we are to see him in his suffering properly. Guys, Jesus is telling us that what must happen first is we must weep for ourselves. First of all, it's just beautiful to see. Here's Jesus suffering horribly, painful, horrible suffering. And as He goes, He sees these women and He loves them. He cares for them by giving them this instruction. That's beautiful in and of itself. He stops to tell them, don't weep for me. He gives them right instruction, weep for yourselves. Judgment's coming, women. Weep for yourselves. So listen, we must first weep for ourselves before we can weep for Christ. Now, if you hear me say all this, and you go, well, that seems a bit of a stretch to me. He's saying it to these women, he's not saying it to me. Why do I have to weep? It seems like a little bit of a stretch. How does this apply to me? How do I know I myself should weep first? My answer to you is, because the Bible repeatedly, again and again, in both the Old and New Testaments, shows us that before you come to God, there is a proper lamenting or weeping that you must bring. Over and over, the Bible shows us that. Let me show you. Turn to the book of Joel. Let me show you something, Joel. Old Testament, after Hosea, go to Joel. I'm saying we have to weep first before we can understand Christ's sufferings and weep properly at what he's done. I'm saying that Jesus, when he says to these women, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves, is revealing something essential we must understand. We must first weep for ourselves. And I'm telling you, it's not just I'm pulling that out of this text in some random way. It's all through the Bible. There's a weeping that we must have first. So Joel chapter two, There's a bunch of examples. Here's one. And when you see it, you'll probably go, yeah, I've seen this all over the Bible. I know what you mean. Here, God is calling his people back to himself. And look what he says in chapter 2, verse 12. He says, yet even now. Are you with me, Joel 2.12? You all there? He says, yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting with weeping and with mourning, and rend your hearts, not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster." So you see, as God calls his people to return, he wants them to come to him with a sort of heart attitude, a posture of grief before him. Please notice, he does not tell them to come with sacrifices. No. He does not call upon them to tear their garments in some big show. No, that's not the important thing. It's their hearts that must be torn. Do you hear? It's our hearts that must be torn. It's our hearts that must be torn, brothers and sisters. You might remember David in Psalm 51. After his conviction over sin, when he sees what he's done as he committed murder and adultery, you might remember him approaching God in sorrow and saying a very similar thing in Psalm 51. He says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, a broken heart, a rent heart. Oh God, you will not despise. Same thing. This is the proper sacrifice to bring to God as we approach God to draw near to him. This is the proper sacrifice. This is why God tells the people in Joel to rend their hearts. That's the proper sacrifice. You bring a rent broken heart. But what does it mean to have a rent or broken heart? What kind of broken heart are we to have? A broken heart about what? Many of you might sit here and go, I qualify. My heart's broken all the time about lots of things. But do you have the right kind of broken heart? Many of you might go, I weep all the time. I got plenty of weeping. Do you have the proper kind of weeping? You must come with a broken heart to God, but broken about what? We know this, at least, not broken just to see Christ suffer. Not broken because someone innocent died so terribly. There must be a brokenheartedness about something else first. Church, are you listening? Are you listening? Are you listening? Do you hear what's being said to you? There must be an approach to God with a broken heart. Must be. That's the sacrifice he accepts. A broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. That's the sacrifice. There's nothing more important than to get this this morning, guys. Please, I beg you right now, for your justification and for your sanctification, open your ears, think about this. You must come with a broken heart. Now, if you hear that and you wonder, what does that mean exactly? What exactly does it mean to grieve in a way that I approach God with this proper broken heart? I have good news for you. Luke has already given us a great example of this being lived out in his book. Go back to Luke and go to chapter 18. He's already shown us a picture of this. Let's see if this picture helps us. Because what we want to understand, I apologize as usual for my writing and spelling, we want to understand Proper, did I spell proper right? Proper sorrow. We wanna understand proper sorrow. What kind of sorrow do we have to bring? What's it look like? Have you brought it? Are you still bringing it? Luke 18, we have an example. In verse nine, here's what we read. Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Here's the parable, verse 10. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven. But what did he do? Beat his breast. That's lament. Lament. saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Do you see what the text collector is doing, this lamenting, friends, this sorrow? That's the kind of mourning we must have. Remember, this man, the text says this man goes home justified. Because I'm justified. This is what we need. This is the sorrow that must be born in us that precedes this justification, or it happens about at the same time, technically. Again and again, we must see this sorrow in us, not just once at conversion, but repeatedly throughout our lives. And what exactly now is this sorrow? If we take this story of what this man is experiencing, we look at what God was asking all through the Old Testament, we think about our text today, what is it that God is asking us to bring? What kind of sorrow? Let me help define it for you, okay? There are, I think, three components to this sorrow that we have to have. Three components. Now, before I go any further, let me make sure I explain something. When I outline now 1, 2, 3, this proper kind of sorrow that we should have, I'm not talking simply about an emotion. In other words, I'm not saying that we all got to kind of try and conjure up some tears and I did it. I shed one. I'm good. It's not what I'm saying. This is not primarily emotion. I hope it results in emotion. It's primarily belief. Belief. Please understand that. I'm not calling you to make sure you display some kind of emotion before you can be sure you're a Christian. I'm saying there must be some kind of conclusion about what is true. What is the tax collector here in Luke 18 concluding is true? And what did God want Israel over and over again to conclude is true when he called them to this kind of lamenting? What does the tax collector have in his lamenting that results in him being justified? So this proper lament, it's made up of three parts, okay? So first, I confess I'm guilty. I deserve punishment. This is the start. When we hear God's law, we hear God command us to do something we know is right, and we look at our life and we go, I've not done it. I've not done it. We come face to the face through the law with our guilt. And this is why it's so important, brothers and sisters, that we hear the law preached to us, the law, the full law fall upon us. Without hearing God's law, we never come to the realization of what we deserve. So I ask you, church, have you had a realization of what you deserve? You're guilty and you know what you deserve. Have you, I ask you, have you had that realization? And did you have it just once many years ago, or do you still have it? Not that you must be constantly seeking guilt and getting resaved, that's not what we're saying, but are you often reminded of what your guilt would be presently apart from Christ? Have you had that realization at conversion and since? Brothers and sisters, do you ever hear the law and look at yourself and think, what have I done? Do you ever hear the law and feel like I'm so broken? Do you ever hear the law and think, I've not kept this command. And so if justice were the only voice that were to speak in the universe, hell, for me, If justice were the, if justice, the just thing, the just and right thing would be me in hell. Have you ever heard the law and seen, as you looked into the mirror of the law, a picture of yourself that made you say, there can't be anybody worse than me. Nobody's worse than me. Have you ever seen yourself in the law such, you don't look out into the world anymore, go look at those sinners. You go, oh, I wish that was all I was. Has fear ever gripped your soul, brothers and sisters? Fear of judgment, fear of being seen by God's holy eyes for what you would be apart from God's grace, a doer of vile and wicked works. Do you see what I'm saying? I'm asking you, brothers and sisters, do you realize that you are guilty and deserve hell? Do you know it? Do you know it? Not just, it's a theory somewhere out there. Oh, I know, sinners deserve hell. Yeah, when I was baptized, they made, yeah, I know, I'm a sinner. Have you been before a holy God in such a way that you knew that in and of yourself you should be crushed to nothing? I wonder how many of you in this room have had a time that you've ever looked at yourself and said, dear God, is this really what I am? I wonder. I wonder if any of you have ever looked at yourself and thought, God should be furious. Oh, he should be furious. I wonder. Again, I'm not asking you how many tears have you shed, though I pray it's many. And I'm not asking you how great an emotion you felt, though I pray you feel a great emotion. I'm asking this. Look, look, please listen. Do you agree with God about this? You agree. God's right. I'm guilty. God's right. I deserve to be cast away from Him forever. He's right. I agree. Or are you more like the Pharisee in Luke 18? You admit you aren't perfect. Sure, I'm not perfect. But hey, at least I'm not that. I pray that you have seen your guilt such that you don't look at any other person and go, oh, those sinners. I pray that you see you also are no better in that you also do not meet God's standard, which is Sisters, brothers, please, I'm asking you, do you know your guilt before God, and do you know what punishment should come, and do you agree? It should. Justice would say it should. Could it be that you are one this morning who, while you've sung hymns and wept over what you see of the sufferings of Christ, could it be in heaven Christ was looking down and whispering, you should weep for yourself? You have no idea what's coming. I remind you all this morning, you all have broken God's good law and done it every hour of every day, every minute of every hour of every day that you've been alive in ways you don't even understand and in ways you don't measure correctly. Have you seen that? Have you seen that you're guilty? Have you understood that you are deserving of hell? So here's what I'm saying. First, if we are to have proper sorrow, if we are to mourn rightly, we are to see we are guilty and that we deserve hell. This is what this tax collector is seeing. This is what God in the Old Testament called the people to see again and again. Come confess your guilt. Come agree your guilt. They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. Come confess your guilt. But that's not it. Something else must happen. Secondly, and perhaps this is the biggest part of the missing grief in the church today, either this or the third one, but this one certainly is up there. The second thing you have to do in this sorrow, second component of this sorrow, hopeless. You must come to realize you can do nothing about this, hopeless. Sisters and brothers, listen. We must stand next to the tax collector. Listen, listen. And we must confess we are lawbreakers with him. But we must see what he saw. We must come to understand that as we stand there, we can't fix this. There's no excuse. The tax collector doesn't stand there and go, Lord, I'm a sinner, but let me explain why. Here's my excuses. No excuse. And the tax collector doesn't stand there and go, Lord, I'm a sinner. But look what I brought. See? No sacrifices. There's no sacrifice I can bring, no excuse I can make, nothing I can do to fix this. We do not see our law breaking. Number one, and then respond by saying, and this is where the church gets it wrong, we don't respond by saying, Lord, now I'm gonna do better. Lord, now I'm gonna earn your love. Lord, I'm gonna bring the proper sacrifice. I'm gonna shed enough tears over my sin. I'm gonna lament and I'm gonna mourn. I'm gonna earn your favor. I'm gonna show I'm a Christian. No. We recognize that in our sin we have come to There's nowhere to go. We're powerless. We recognize we can't even grieve our sin right. What we are to see, brothers and sisters, is our total depravity, our hopelessness. We must come to the point where we give up on self, where we give up on the idea that any escape to the punishment that should come upon us is going to be found in something we do or present. Now, again, I ask you, have you been there? Have you seen your sin, realized your guilt and what you deserve, and then said, I can't change this. I can't fix this. Because like I said, there are many who at this point get things wrong. They hear that they're sinners, and they think that with a combination, they don't throw Jesus out, they think that with a combination of trusting Jesus and putting together a life of good works, they're gonna fix things. They see Christianity, listen, please listen to this sentence. They see Christianity not as a life of fighting and mourning sin, but instead they see Christianity as a life celebrating how great they're becoming. They think that the Christian life is going to be less and less mourning of sin and more and more taking the stage and showing the good that they're doing. It's a lie. It's a lie. Blessed are those who mourn, brothers and sisters. Listen, not that the Christian life is joyless. It's not what I'm saying this morning. We are people who have a great hope and a great joy, but we are a people who have a great joy in the midst of our lamenting. We are a people who will, throughout this life, cry out repeatedly, wretched man that I am. Have you been there? Have you realized you can't fix this? Have you realized that you by yourself can't right what you wronged? Have you seen your sin and tried and tried to change and found yourself saying, I'm getting nowhere? Have you ended up on the floor before God, broken, shocked at how powerless you are, horrified to see that you can't make this right and thought, there's no hope for me. Have you tried to be good, tried to be loving, and tried to be godly, tried to keep the commands, and found yourself back in the same place again? Maybe you've had some victory in some areas of sin. and others show themselves, or maybe you struggle in that one area again and again and again, and you don't meet God's standard, you know it. Sisters, brothers, tell me, have you come here to this church at times and heard the law and felt moved and at times saw you were a sinner, but other times you came into this place and the law was given to you and you felt nothing? You realized, I can't even grieve my sin as I should. I can't even see how guilty I am. Have you given up on you? Really what I'm asking. I wonder if some of us in here haven't, some of us in here still think there's some kernel of good in there. Some little kernel of good that makes us stand out. Last week I said to you, I don't know if you remember this, last week I said to you, if God were to take his hand of restraint off you, and allow you to be what's in your flesh, and we left you alone in this room, by the time you left this room, everybody in this room would either be murdered, enslaved, or idolized. And I wonder if some of you heard that and went, well, not me. I care for other people. I do some good. We think there's this little kernel of this little thing inside we're going to show God. God sees it. That's why he likes us. Have you given up on that? Have you come to the point where you realize, apart from God's grace, nothing good exists here? And have you seen it not just once, but have you seen this again and again and again? So what are we saying so far? Proper sorrow that we're to have. First, it is to see I am guilty and I deserve hell. I agree with God about it, I agree. And then second, do you see that you're hopeless? You agree with God, there's nothing you can do to fix this. Now, that brings us to the third part of this proper sorrow, this proper lamenting. And this is really the part I wanna talk to you about most of all. You have to have the first two parts, no question about that. But after we see our guilt, after we see what we deserve, and after we see that we are hopeless, Christian life is not just then, well, from this point forward, I'm going to sit here and cry. We don't just mourn. That's not the Christian life. Do you know what we do? We do what the tax collector did. Cry for mercy in our sorrow. Cry for mercy in our sorrow. Beseech God to give us mercy. He cried out, have mercy on me, a sinner. In other words, we turn to God for help. We cry out for him to see the condition that we're in and rescue us. We mourn, but we mourn to God as a cry for deliverance. Perhaps now you might realize that all I've been describing to you in this is something that has a biblical word attached to it very often. It's the word repentance. It's all I'm describing. This is repentance. I'm turning, I see my guilt, my hopelessness, I turn from my sin, I turn to God for mercy. This is what repentance looks like. And repentance is not something that happens once when I'm converted. Repentance is something that happens repeatedly. The call all through the Old Testament to the Jews to come in repentance was a call to come with fasting and lamenting and mourning. Broken. This is what we're speaking of, this mourning, this repentance that's a turning back to God. So I pray that you've had this first realization in your life that you're guilty and you deserve hell. And I pray that you've seen things are hopeless on your own. I pray you have not become one of those Christians that thinks I'm gonna go work and earn and prove. And then lastly, oh, how I pray that your life is full of joy as you cry for mercy to a good savior. But now, here's the thing. I lay all this out. You hear it, you look at it, and you go, have I? I wonder, what do we do with the person this morning who's here and hears all this and thinks, I don't know if I've mourned in the proper way. No. Have I? What do we tell the person this morning who comes here and hears all this, and they look at their life and they go. I don't know if I've produced the proper sorrow. I don't know if I've seen my hopelessness rightly. And they sit here, and they look at all this, and they start to grow a little afraid. And they start to think, oh no, maybe I don't have the right sorrow. And fear rises up in them, and they start to panic a little bit, and they start to just feel so broken hearted. Maybe this morning, if you're here, and you're hearing this, and you go, woe is me. I don't know if I've done that rightly. I don't think I can. I'm guilty. I've not done it. I can't make myself do it. Praise God, you've been granted proper repentance and sorrow. Now please do number three. Please come and cry out for mercy. Because what you need to know about your Savior is that he's not the enemy of those who come to him broken like this. That if you come to your Savior today saying, I can't even grieve my sin right, He won't look at you and go, well, maybe I'll give you a break and show you a little more patience and see if you can pull things together. That's not his response. And if you come to the Savior today and say, I can't even understand my sin right and grieve right, I'm hopeless. He's not gonna say, well, I'm gonna give you a little more time to do some works that might show you're serious. It's not what he's gonna do. If you come to him like this today, And if you come to him like this an hour from now again, and if you come to him like this tomorrow morning again, and if you come again and again and again and say, Lord, I can't do it, he's going to say to you, my love, I know. My child, rest. Watch what I do for you. And He will put your eyes upon the cross, and He will show you that He is saying to you, I know you could not meet the standards of the law. You could not grieve right. You could not obey right. I've done it for you. And I know what you deserve for what you've done. I bore it away. When you hear that, you will mourn and lament with joy at the cross as you see Christ head to suffer in your place. You will marvel that there is a Savior who is so patient with you and so good to you. You see, salvation is not dependent on what you produce, church. Salvation is not God looking at you and saying, oh, they've been so faithful. It's you looking at God and saying, oh, he's been so faithful. He's been so patient. He's been so good. Every time I drag myself back to him and lay at the cross, he doesn't cast me away. He embraces me. He says, why did you leave? I was never angry. My wrath has been spent. It's gone. No more to be upon you. You no longer exist under the law as a way to approach me. You are under grace. So you see, this is what Christianity is about. This is what Christ wants you to see. He wants you to see that in light of what you deserve, in light of your guilt, in light of your continual lack of faithfulness to him, that he will continue his faithfulness to you and minister to you and preserve you and bring you home to himself. It's so sad that the church runs from this proper lamenting. We run from it because, first, we don't want others to see this in ourselves. Because if we let others see this, they're going to reject us. We're going to look like bad people. It's so sad that it's ever the culture in the church that we think we have to hide proper sorrow because of how people are going to respond. But then we also hide it because we're afraid that God's going to see it and God's going to reject us. I'm here to tell you today, God doesn't reject you if you come with this sorrow. He requires it. Come broken with nothing else. Father, I pray that as we consider what it is that you've done for us and how you call us to come, that this morning you would grant it that we would see who we really are and who you really are. that we would see this morning that it's okay to confess our brokenness. We're not celebrating it, we're lamenting it, but then celebrating all that you've done for us in the face of what we are. Lord, I pray that if there are any in this room who are not yours, that you would convict them this morning and open their eyes to how good a salvation you offer, and that they would just trust you. And I also pray, Father, that if there are those here who are yours but have departed from this way of repentance and have tried to live a life in which it's just works and doing good and never really trusting themselves to you and clinging to the Savior they have, that you would help them see their continual need, that they would continually rest in you. Grant us that, Father. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now before we come to the sacraments, is there any questions? Does this make sense to you all what I'm trying to drive you toward? Anthony, I do want to say something. In this, the way you laid it out, there are times where, and I'm not saying I do this or whatever, it scares me to know that I haven't really done this the way that When you say this, you mean mourned your sin, seen your hopelessness, cried out for mercy, right? None of us have done that right, exactly. and ask God for a cause. I know I'm going to go to a place where I'm not going to be able to function. And I don't want to experience that. Don't listen to your flesh. Because if you see your hopelessness, it's not going to bring you to a place where you can't function, as long as you're going here. If you go back towards yourself, that's deadly. But if you go from there to the cross, cry out for mercy, and know he's going to give it to you, and then rest in it. Look, here's the thing, Chuck. No matter what you cry out, God sees you for what you are. Whether you admit it or not. Whether you're seeing it or not. For your joy, confess it and then rest in what you get. For your joy, do it. Anyone else? I want to make sure this is making sense to you and we're not getting anything wrong here. So we can mess this up bad. What Chuck said, that word is probably, confessing that we are hopeless. Yeah, it's scary. Is actually terrifying. It is. We sing it in songs. We do. But I don't think we actually, when we really think about it, it's a terrifying thing to embrace. It is. Because it means nothing. I have nothing. I bring nothing. And that terrifies us before others. So we're not in control. Exactly. Yeah. is and what he's done, you go, well, I can't do any of that. I don't have what God requires, and he has all of it. And so hopelessness drives us to him. So we can't fear this. It's the only thing that actually brings us to him. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was just thinking about how there's definitely a connection to Catechism on this one. That's right. What are the means of grace, John? Yeah. And the sacraments? Yeah. Yeah. It's God's work in us. We don't take credit. We don't end up going to God and saying, look how well I mourned. Look how well I saw my hopelessness. He does it. He shows it to us. Absolutely. So could we say, Chris, really what you're saying is what we do is we try to kind of not be here, right? We don't want to say we're hopeless. We see guilt. We get pushed in this direction, and we resist. We try to push back and away. I'm not going to say I'm hopeless. Because if I'm hopeless, Like I said, it's scary because I can't manipulate God with my good works anymore. I'm at the mercy of another. Exactly. You got it. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of fear. Can I give you another word to put with it, though? Not only is there a lot of fear, there's a lot of freedom. It's a lot of freedom. I can't do this. I've driven my whole life to try to do this, Lord, and get your approval. I'm free of that. I'm free. But yeah, there is a lot of fear. You're right. Yeah, good point. Yeah. That's a very good point, Stephen. If you didn't hear what Stephen said, he's saying a lot of times we look at this and we go, oh, well, the people who are here a lot, they're terrible Christians, right? The strong Christians, the one don't do this anymore. It's a lie. This is what it looks like. This is death of self. This is the path of the cross. No more conviction. No, we need it because we still see our sin, right? When we hear the law, we see our sin. We need to be reminded there's mercy for us presently. You don't, the goal in Christianity, we've said this before, the goal in Christianity is not to become more and more independent. That God goes, man, I barely, by the time you die, He's like, I barely had to show you any grace. That's not the goal. The goal is to more and more realize the grace you're receiving. But we get that change around in our head. We do. I mean, we wouldn't say it that way, but practically speaking, just observe what's out there. We think it's moving more and more away from grace. That's success. And it's backwards, because success is becoming better and better receivers of grace and marveling at the great Savior we have. How do you marvel at the great Savior if you don't need him anymore? Does it make any sense? We marvel at the great Savior we have by seeing our need and how he meets it. And so with that in mind, let's come to the supper and be reminded of how he meets our need. Because listen, you come to this supper. These men are going to come around and pass these plates. And they don't pass an empty plate first. And you put a piece of paper with all your good works written in it. And here's what I did. And then, oh, OK. And then you come with nothing. And this is God's intended means to remind you it's all his love for you. It's his love for you. He loves you. Have joy and rest in that today, church, as you come to the supper. Realize, yes, I'm guilty. I deserve hell. I'm absolutely hopeless. But as the elements come, cry for mercy. And see, this is God meeting that cry. Yes, I've met that cry. I've pardoned you. Rest. So let's come to the supper. I just remind you, though, before the elements come, that this table is open for every one of you in here who has turned from your sin. As imperfect as that turning is, you've turned from it. And you're trusting what Christ has done for you to make you right with God. If that's not who you are, we do ask you, let the elements pass. But brothers and sisters, as we say every week, there's no reason why this could not be the first week for someone in here to go, I'm hopeless. I'm guilty. I need mercy. And if you're trusting in Christ for that mercy, partake of the elements and then come talk to someone. But brothers and sisters, those of you who are in Christ, let us marvel at the mercy that's found us.