"How to Help a Friend in Deep Pain" with Pastor Rick Warren

hello everybody and welcome to saddleback this weekend we're glad you're here you know i want to first say thank you for your prayers uh for my health as i've been struggling as you know uh going to some doctors they try to figure out what's causing all the pain in my body thank you for your prayers i also want to say hi to all of our campuses all 20 of you we love you guys thank god for you and if you'll take out your message notes today i have a special message that i'd like to share with all of you you know in the past 14 days our nation has been reeling with shock and anger and grief first in buffalo new york in a supermarket 10 black people died in a racist shooting then right down the street from us the next day at this lake forest saddleback campus a sister church on the same el toro road from us six elderly asian people were shot to death in a church service just right down the street from this campus where i'm teaching you right now and then this week in uvalde texas elementary school 19 children and two adults so far have died from a senseless shooting there this week i posted these words to millions of social media followers as a parent who's lost one of my own children to gun violence i beg you to pray for the grieving parents of yvaldi you will quickly forget this horror that's going on right now and you're going to move on with your life but they're going to have to carry this grief the rest of their lives so please don't forget them now besides these shootings we've had 6.3 million people have died from covid and that's leaving millions and millions of relatives and friends grieving their losses what are you supposed to do about all this grief in the world as i was driving to this campus to deliver this message today i happened to call one of the guys on my team and found out that his family just had a death in their family today if you're a christian god expects you to help others in their pain and in their grief the bible says this in second corinthians chapter one verses three and four god comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others in their troubles with the same comfort that we ourselves have received from god so god helps us in our problems and our grief so we can help other people in their problems and their grief with the comfort we've received now in light of all of the things that we have to grieve about in the world today question i want to look at this weekend is this how do we do that how can you help those in your life help a friend who who's in deep need who's in deep pain who's in deep grief do you know what to do are you prepared to help your friends when they go through the inevitable grief of life you know i'm not a prophet and i can't predict the future but there's one thing i can guarantee about your future and i'm sure of this you and everybody else around you are going to experience loss and sadness and grief because we live on a planet broken by sin death is inevitable in this world and i don't like saying this to you but you're going to lose loved ones and everyone else you know is also going to lose loved ones too so to deny that fact or ignore that fact is to lose touch with reality personally i've done a lot of grieving lately and i've shed a lot of tears in this last year having lost six of my best friends they all died in the last year glenn crewin rick machow john baker steve ruttenbar were all elders who served with me as pastors of this church combined for over a hundred years of service to saddleback they were lifelong friends and i miss them and i've grieved their death then this past week i spoke at the funerals of two more of my best friends joe richie and pep jackson one funeral was in chicago and the other was in colorado springs these were great brothers in christ who served saddleback church for many years now you remember may remember that a year ago i predicted that the world's going to experience a tsunami of grief this year i said as the fear of covid declines the grief over what people lost during covet is going to increase because a lot of life experiences were missed during covet people missed weddings so they had to pair them back they missed graduations they didn't get to attend they missed being there when the babies or the grandbabies were born and many many other happiest experiences you may not have lost a friend during covet but you lost a lot of experiences in life kids missed going to school so many things so today i want to talk to you about dealing with the losses of life and i want you to take out your message notes the outline and i want to teach you a very important skill you're going to use this the rest of your life so i hope you'll take notes today i want to talk to you about how to help a friend in deep pain when you don't know what to say you know people tell me something i i don't know what to say okay we're going to talk about that this is a skill you're going to need the rest of your life so i highly recommend you take notes because you're going to need this many many times in life now notice there on your outline the first verse proverbs 17 17 amplified translation says this a friend loves you all the time a friend loves you at all times and is born as a brother for adversity circle that born for adversity true friendship shows up best during troubled times a friend is born for those times that you're in crisis when you're in the pits when you're in grief when you've hit a major loss a friend walks into your life when everybody else walks out a friend sees you through when other people see that you are through so let me ask you a pointed question who can count on you as a friend right now they they know for certain you're going to walk into their life when everybody else walks out you see if you only show up in happy times you're not a real friend you're just an acquaintance real friends help you carry your grief when you're overwhelmed real friends show up in bad times not just the good times romans chapter 15 excuse me romans 12 verse 15 says this laugh with your happy friends when they're happy and share tears when they're down circle that share tears god says that one proof that you're a true friend is that you share tears when your friend is in pain or you're grieving tears are a mark of friendship now let's just be honest this may be easier for those of you who are women but let me ask the men when was the last time you shared tears with a male buddy have you ever been the kind of friend like that who would shed a tear with a friend have you ever done that with anybody if not god says you're not really a very good friend so today i want to teach you a skill that you didn't learn in school you probably didn't learn it from your parents they probably told you to stuff your tears to don't cry but if you'll learn this skill you will help so many people around you and you will be loved by many because you know how to empathize with them i want to teach you four simple steps you can always use when you see anybody a friend a stranger or anybody else in pain now before i give you those four steps to helping somebody in grief or pain i need to first explain to you what god says about the priceless value of tears because we don't value tears the way god does you need to understand why god gave you the ability to cry you need to understand why you need to learn to cry with people more often i'm going to tell you this weekend you need to learn how to cry more often for a whole lot of different reasons now what i'm going to teach you is totally counter cultural it's the opposite of everything you're taught in the world and it takes enormous strength to do it tears are not for weak people they're for strong people so first i want us to look at the priceless value of tears and then we'll look at how to help a friend through pain first the bible explains why tears should always be a part of your life write these down let's look at these together number one tears are god's gift for expressing emotion write that down tears are god's gift for expressing emotion the only reason you're able to shed tears in expressing emotion is because you're made in god's image god is an emotional god did you know that the only reason you have any emotions at all is because god has emotions god has feelings and god made you in his image unlike the other creatures that he created unlike animals the bible tells us that god grieves the trinity father son and holy spirit they all grieve they all feel sadness the bible says that the father the son and the holy spirit also weep maybe you've never realized that god cries sometimes so i've just listed there on your outline a couple examples of this fact there notice these verses genesis 6 6 tells us that god weeps the heavenly father weeps says the lord saw how great man's wickedness on earth had become and that every inclination of man's thoughts and heart was to do evil all the time so the lord was grieved god was sad did you know that god often looks at the things that are going on in the earth that we get sad about he's sad too he was sad that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain god can experience pain so heavenly father grieves jesus grieves john 11 35 just one example of jesus crying it's all through scripture did you know the shortest verse in the bible is also one of profound truth it's just two words look at this verse jesus wept jesus wept we're going to come back this passage a little bit later where he wept where his friend lazarus died and back over in isaiah the bible tells us look at this verse on the screen jesus was a man of sorrow the messiah was a man of sorrows acquainted with bitterest grief so the father grieves the son grieves and the bible tells us then in romans chapter 8 verse 26 that the holy spirit weeps with us when we cry out to god in prayer look at this verse the holy spirit helps us in our distress you know when you're praying so hard and you're just weeping you're crying you're sad you don't even know what to say the holy spirit helps us in our distress for we often we don't even know what we should pray for and we don't even know how we should pray but the holy spirit scripture says prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in word god groans god grieves the holy spirit actually weeps for you now tears of course can be an expression of almost any emotion you can you can have tears of laughter and you can have tears of grief you can have tears of sadness and you're gonna have tears of joy uh you're gonna have tears of frustration you have tears of disappointment you could have tears of pride or tears of concern you can have tears because you're angry and you can have tears because you love so i want you to write this down write it on your notes tears are liquid emotions tears are liquid emotions tears can express almost any emotion known to mankind their gift from god god made us to have tears number two tears are what makes us human tears are what make us human now i did a lot of study on this and i discovered that there are three kinds of tears that we have there are basal tears which just coat your eyes and keep the junk and dust out of your eyes there are reactive tears which if your eye gets poked you're going to tear up or or if you smell an onion that's a reactive tear and then there are emotional tears now it's totally human only a very few animals actually have tear ducts did you know that only a very few animals have tear ducts and those tears are only for basal tears the kind that wash your eye clean animals don't cry for emotional reasons no animal cries for emotional reasons and in contrast as a human being you came into this world crying crying was your first public act as a human being animals don't cry at birth they don't cry at birth only humans cry at birth but it was the first sign of the world that you were alive you cried and you know what when you die other people are going to cry have you ever thought about why human babies cry so much why do they cry so much compared to other animals newborn animals human babies are unusually needy human babies don't start walking on their own till about a year old that's unheard of with animals human babies can't cling to their parents with their own strength human babies can't be carried around in a mouth or a pouch so a crying baby is a baby's way of saying hey mom i'm here i need something and just in case you need help finding me mom i'm gonna cry so tears and crying are really the most basic method of communication before you learn to talk you knew how to cry you were born knowing how to cry now the bible this book is a tear-saturated book from genesis revelation tears are mentioned in almost every book of the bible why because the bible tells the truth about human experience and life is filled with tears tears are mentioned in just the first book genesis they're mentioned in almost every story of genesis noah has tears the story of abraham has tears the story of hagar has tears the story of esau has tears the story of jacob has tears the story of joseph had tears so all through scripture we find this is a book about tears and at the very end of the bible the last mention of tears is in the last book of the bible revelation chapter 21. so tears are part of being human number three write this down tears are a normal and healthy circle healthy normal and healthy part of life ecclesiastes 3 4 says this there's a time for tears and there's a time for laughter there's a time for mourning that's grief and there's a time for dancing life is composed of opposites there's a time for laughter and there's a time for tears now because of our culture men particularly have been taught to suppress their tears let me just give you two words for that one it's dumb that's dumb so let me talk to the guys for just a minute guys are you ever embarrassed to laugh no are you ever embarrassed to smile no so why are you embarrassed to express sadness when life is sad that's a stunted emotion is life only fun no is life always happy no what i'm saying is this tears you're not only normal they're healthy what's unhealthy is stuffing your emotions out of fear that's unhealthy when you suppress and you repress your emotions your body keeps score you swallow your emotions your stomach keeps score and if you never cry i'll be blunt with you you're emotionally stunted that's what god says you're you're not using the gift that god gave you and if you're afraid of tears you're coward and if you can't even cry you're unhealthy culture is wrong the whole idea of the silent stoic man is just dumb god gave you tears for a reason so let me correct something really out of whack in our culture throughout your life when you've been hurt one of the very first things people started saying to you and they started saying it to you when you were a little kid now don't cry don't cry why is it people want to shut up you're crying so quickly because they're uncomfortable with it they'll tell you big boys don't cry big girls don't cry that's the dumbest advice you can give to a person please don't ever the rest of your life tell somebody to stop crying telling someone to stuff their emotions is very unhealthy i want you to write this down god says feelings are meant to be felt if god hadn't wanted you to feel sadness he wouldn't have given you the ability to feel sadness he wants you to grieve grief is the way we get through life it's a gift of life why do we tell people now don't cry well as i said the truth is a lot of times tears make us uncomfortable and so we're in a hurry to suffocate the tears of a little child or somebody else who's going through grieving they just lost a husband they just lost a friend they just lost a job they just lost something and then the first thing people say to now don't cry no cry with them when you are afraid of tears you urge other people to stuff their emotions if god had not intended for you to cry he wouldn't have given you the ability tears are a normal part of life there's no reason to be ashamed of them anymore any reason to laugh or smile or giggle strong people are not afraid to express strong emotions but weak people are afraid of their emotions as i've already mentioned god gave you the ability to cry when he made you in his image because god weeps now why would god want you to stuff that ability if he hadn't wanted you to have it he wouldn't have given you the ability it's what makes you different from animals tears are healthy for you in four different ways physically emotionally relationally and spiritually first physically physically they're healthy stress tears actually remove harmful chemicals from your body did you know that tears from stress when you cry under stress or grief they they contain those tears contain acth that's the stuff that triggers cortisol which is the stress hormone in your life it's good physically to cry second it's psychologically healthy it's emotionally healthy crying is cathartic it doesn't solve the problem but it relieves attention and tears are relief from grief and many other negative feelings too and people say well i feel good after a cry i feel better after of course you do tears your safety valve it is a relief to weep god gave you that gift and if you don't know how to weep or grieve or cry you're stuffing all that inside of you that's unhealthy it's relationally healthy tears connect you with other people tears draw you closer to people everybody needs a shoulder to cry on and when when you weep or other people eat it it starts the the uh neurons in your body that are called mirror neurons so the it's crying is contagious weeping is contagious it's spiritually healthy tears can express our dependence upon god the bible calls it crying out to god tears are priceless in their value number four tears are a universal language tears are a universal language they're far more powerful than words by far that's why you learn to cry before you learn to talk because every single culture understands them it's a universal language they may not understand your words but if you cry they're going to understand your tears romans 12 15 says this rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep now many of you are pretty good at doing the first part you know how to rejoice with those who rejoice you know i have a party with people who are happy you know how to cheer up when your friends cheered up do you know how to do the second part of that verse do you know how to weep with your friends when they need to weep now the ability to weep with other people is actually called empathy empathy is the ability to share the feelings of others empathy is different than sympathy so i put it there on your outline sympathy says i'm sorry you hurt but empathy shows i'm hurting with you sympathy says empathy shows sympathy says i'm sorry you hurt empathy shows i'm hurting with you write this down on your outline would you tears are a sign of love not weakness they're a sign of love not weakness tears show you care good example that is in john chapter 11 where lazarus had died and mary and martha who were sisters had called for their friend jesus to come and heal him and jesus didn't get there in time and jesus lazarus dies and when mary greets jesus as he finally arrives mary said john 11 mary said lord if you'd been here my brother wouldn't have died okay she's sad if you'd been here my brother wouldn't have died jesus look at this saw her weeping he's he's visibly watching her grief he saw her weeping and he saw how other people were weeping too and his heart was touched and he was deeply moved okay this is the mirror neurons in our brain where have you buried lazarus jesus asked come and see they said lord okay come lord and we'll show you where and and then it says the shortest verse in the bible john 11 35 jesus wept jesus wept profound power in that if you're ever going to be like jesus you're going to have to learn how to weep and the people said see how much he loved him you show your love with tears see how much you love sweeping crying sorrow is not a sign of weakness it's a sign of love if you don't love anybody you're never going to be sad but the more you love the more sadness you're going to have because you're not going to have everybody all your life now clearly notice from that passage jesus wasn't ashamed to cry publicly are you are you ashamed to cry publicly if you want to minister to christ excuse me if you want to minister like christ you've got to be willing to weep publicly we must let the tears of others move us to tears strong men and strong women are not afraid of expressing strong emotions and the things that happened in the last two weeks are reason for strong emotions you know in the bible there's a guy called jeremiah he's a prophet he wasn't a bullfrog he was prophet and he was called the weeping prophet because he wept so much for other people the guy said he cries all the time we they call them the weeping prophet in fact one of the two books that jeremiah wrote is called lamentations you know what lamentations mean passionate crying tears show you care tears say i'm hurting with you tears are empathy you know a lot of times people think i need to be strong for that person who's grieving so i'm not going to show how sad i am too friends that's a mistake that's a big mistake i need to be strong because they're crying no that's a big mistake they need to feel your sadness too they need you to show it to they need you to show that you're as sad as they are they don't need you to be stoic that doesn't help them that doesn't create closeness it doesn't create community doesn't create camaraderie or koinonia they need you to show it tears build community not being stoic tears bring us closer together not being stoic tears bond people in friendship so don't ever say again well i need to be strong for them no you need to cry with them and it'll help them more why well as i said in your mind there are things called mirror neurons in your brain and tears are contagious now there's one other thing i need to mention that shows the priceless value of your tears i said they're god's gift for expressing emotion tears are what make us human tears are normal and healthy part of life and tears are universal language they show we love they show that we care they're not a sign of weakness they're a sign of strength here's the fifth thing god wants you to know about tears this is going to blow your mind god saves every tear that falls god saves every tear that falls from your eyes he not only sees every tear you cry he saves every tear you cry did you know that you probably didn't know that let me show you some verses that show that god sees your tears and then god saves your tears lamentations chapter three written by that prophet the weeping prophet jeremiah lamentation 3 49-50 says this tears stream from my eyes a well of tears okay they're just it's just coming out and you god looked down from high and you see my tears you see my tears now listen closely every single tear you've cried in your lifetime god noticed in all those times when you felt broken-hearted or depressed or lonely or fearful or sad and you were weeping by yourself alone your loving heavenly father was paying attention the bible says he took note of every single tear that fell from your eyes and he was grieving with you god grieves he says that over and over in scripture god weeps we serve a weeping god and when his children hurt like a good father he hurts with you so let's get real practical you know the things that are causing you pain right now in your life god sees everything that's going on in your life right now he's aware and he cares and your tears matter to god in fact god is more than sympathetic he's empathetic he weeps with you scripture says he hurts with you god suffers with us now that is a mind-blowing experience that our god weeps with us when we weep but here's the next verse and it's even more astounding psalm 56 verse 8 you lord keep track of all my sorrows you have collected all my tears in your bottle you have recorded each one in your book now look at that again it says there that god not just sees your tears he keeps track of them he collects them and he records each one your tears matter so much to god he actually collects and saves them now why does god save your tears think about that why does god collect your tears why does he bottle them up you know what i believe i believe in heaven god is going to compensate you for all your losses and all your pains in this life that's why he's collecting your tears all those things you gave up all those sacrifices you made to serve him all the losses you had in life all of the hurts and all the pains there will be a compensation a repayment for all your tears in heaven that's an amazing thought think about that there will be a repayment in heaven but there's also corollary and it's this if you don't express those tears they can't be collected think about that unexpressed tears if you never express your sadness or your sorrow unexpressed tears aren't collected by god so how do you get recompensed for them if you never shed them you're holding them all inside you're hurting yourself not just here on earth it's unhealthy but for eternity and follow this logic if god as scripture says is bottling up all your tears in heaven then you should not bottle them up inside you now let jesus be the bottling company for your tears not you now now that you understand the priceless value of your tears these five things we just looked at let me quickly share with you how to use those tears in comforting other comforting other people in their pain here's how to help anybody who's in deep pain or grief and we learn the steps to take by looking at the example of job's friends in scripture you know the book of job and you know the story of job how he lost literally everything overnight he lost his health he lost all of his kids he lost his family terrorists killed his family he lost his crops he lost his wealth his health everything and he got a terrible uh chronic disease that was painful everything just happened wrong uh in in just a matter of uh hours in job's life you also probably know that job's friends if you've ever heard anybody preach on this have made a bunch of mistakes in handling job's suffering but you know what you don't hear about is the stuff they did right not everything job's friends did was wrong in fact the first three things they did were the exact three right things to do when you have a friend who's in pain suffering grief or anything else it was only after they started speaking their opinions that job's friends got into trouble but at first job's friends did three things exactly right and these are the three first three steps that you should take when you see somebody grieving in the world with deep pain whether they're friend or they're a stranger okay write these down number one when you see somebody in pain like we've seen this last week number one don't wait take the initiative to connect don't wait take the initiative to connect a common mistake that people make is this they don't feel comfortable around people who are in pain they don't feel comfortable around people who've had a loss or grieving and they say i don't know what to say so they do nothing they wait for the other person to contact them that's not going to happen you have to take the initiative don't wait take the initiative this is the first thing that job's three friends did correctly job chapter 2 verse 11 says this when job's friends heard about all the troubles that had come upon job they left their home okay and they agreed to go together and sympathize with job and comfort him they're going to his house they're taking the initiative they're not waiting for him to call they're going to go see him and they go together to comfort their friend don't wait take the initiative to contact somebody probably needs your help this week you might want to sit down and write a name next to that point number one i need to make contact with that person i know they're in pain and they're having a hard time write their name down next to point one i'm going to take the initiative to contact them this week all right here's the second thing you do based on all we just talked about the the importance of tears two don't hold back let them see your tears don't hold back let them see your tears this is the second thing that job's friends did right and it's what you need to do when you see somebody in pain yourself they didn't just sympathize i'm sorry you hurt job they empathized we hurt with you they hurt with job they entered into his pain they cried with him they didn't they weren't ashamed to shed tears that's verse 12 job two verse 12. when job's friends saw him from a distance remember they're going to visit their friend who's lost everything when job's friend saw him from a distance they hardly recognized him he was in so much pain and grief and he had this terrible disease they they barely recognized him and it says this they began to weep aloud this is in public okay they're weeping aloud and it says then they tore their clothes in grief and they threw dust in the air over their heads as a sign of sadness now if you've ever been to the middle east you know that these last two actions uh are two ancient ways to express grief ripping your clothes as a sign of grief and throwing dust in the air over your head is a sign of grief uh everybody in that day and in that tradition understood what they were doing three ways they're grieving weeping and and the tearing of their clothes and throwing dust in the air okay now the the you may not have to do those other two things uh but weeping and crying is still universally understood all around the world everybody's gonna understand when you cry what that means so take the initiative don't wait take the initiative to connect number two don't hold back let them see your tears here's number three don't speak just show up and shut up he said i don't know what to say say nothing that's the best thing you do let them see it through your tears tears will speak volumes show up and shut up there's nothing you can say when somebody is in pain that's going to cheer them up in fact they don't want to be cheered up they don't want to be cheered up well you know when kaye and i lost our son matthew to mental illness and he died by suicide um we knew that we were going to go through grief and grief is like waves one minute you can handle the next minute you can't one minute you can handle next minute you can't and your wave will never match the wave of your spouse or anybody else we all grieve at different times and so that often can create conflict in a family because everybody grieves differently in different ways in different times but what we decided is that we would uh we we would notice that if one of us was triggered by sound by a sight by a song by music by by a taste and we saw the other person was going through one of those waves of grief one minute i can handle it the next minute i can't that we would simply walk over put our arm around them and stand with them and say nothing show up and shut up kay and i will never forget how much comfort we received from our own small group when our youngest son who had struggled his entire life with mental illness took his life matthew had been at our home uh the night before the day before and we played games together watched some tv we had no trouble in our relationship at that moment and and uh as he left matthew said to me dad i'm just so tired i'm i'm so tired and then we didn't hear from him for 24 hours and that's very unusual because we kept a close relationship with our son he lived by himself in a home and finally we decided we'd drive over and see how he's doing his car was in his driveway and the door was locked and he wouldn't answer the door and we feared that what we had prayed would never happen but feared might happen someday had happened so we called the police and asked them to come and break the door down and as we were waiting for the police to come kay and i were standing there in that driveway holding each other sobbing just sobbing kay was wearing a necklace that had two words on it that were the title of a book she had just written and she held it up to me as i was standing so close to her and it said choose joy and i said how do you choose joy when your heart is breaking in a million pieces the police came broke the door down and discovered that our son had taken his life it was the worst day of my life one of the things that helped us get through that was within minutes our small group a saddleback small group they showed up on the driveway and the guys got around to me and they just hugged me and the women got around k and just hugged her they didn't say anything show up and shut up there was nothing they could say that would make us feel any better there was no words that you could say when people are going through that kind of grief it's just touch show up and shut up it's the ministry of presence and that small group said to us we're not leaving you alone tonight we don't have anything to say that's important we can't there's nothing we can do to take away the pain of this horror in your life but we don't want to leave you alone we're going to we're going to be with you tonight so they came to our house and they stayed with us and they slept in the kitchen and in the living room and on the couch and on the floor it was just being with us show up and shut up the third thing it says of job's friends is this job 2 13. then job's friends sat on the ground with him circle this in silence for seven days and nights that's friendship they sat on the ground with a guy who'd lost everything in silence for seven days and nights no one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was so when you have a friend in pain don't wait take the initiative to connect don't hold back let them see your tears don't speak it's not there's nothing you can say that's going to make you feel any better show up and shut up and here's the fourth thing there's one final thing you need to do and it's this don't forget remember all tears are temporary don't forget remember all tears are temporary no matter how bad the pain or grief is in that moment it will not and it cannot last forever because one day god's gonna settle the score god's gonna right the wrongs god's gonna soothe all of our hurts three times in the bible god promises that one day tears will no longer be needed three times so i want to close this message with those three verses these three great promises the first is isaiah 25 verse 8. it says this notice on your outline the sovereign lord will destroy death forever so there'll be no more death after this he will wipe away the tears from everyone's eyes that's a promise he will wipe away the tears from everyone's eyes and take away the disgraces people have suffered throughout the world you may have suffered abuse you may have suffered the great disgrace you may have suffered rejection you may have suffered betrayal he will take away all of that the disgrace that people have suffered throughout the world the second promise is revelation 7 17. this is a scene in heaven one day then the lamb on the throne that's jesus then the lamb on the throne will shepherd them and lead them that's us to the springs to the spring waters of life and here's the second time he says it in scripture god will wipe every last tear from their eyes every tear is temporary they're not going to last there will be a time there will be no tears anymore the last verse says this revelation 21 this is the end of the bible in revelation 21 at the very end of the bible verses 4 to 7 it says this then god will wipe away every tear from their eyes that's the third time he says it in scripture there will be no more death and no more mourning and no more cry and no more pain for the old order of things has passed away then he who was seated on the throne said i am making everything new write this down for these words are trustworthy and true and he said to me it is done this is god talking jesus i am the alpha and the omega i am the beginning in the end to him who is thirsty i will give drink without cost from the spring of the water of life and he who overcomes will inherit all of this and i will be his god and he will be my child no more tears that friends is a scene worth shedding some tears over right now tears of joy tears of hope tears of expectation because no matter what you're going through it will not last and one day that's going to happen those three verses are going to happen and there will be no more death no more sorrow and no more pain and no more grief and no more problems and no more criticism no more rejection and no more betrayal no more illness and no more cancer no more death he will wipe away every tear from everyone's eyes and there will be no need for the priceless value of tears anymore now i don't know how you need this message it may be to help you in some current grief that may be a secret you're hiding it or it may be god wanted you to have this message to help a friend who is in grief the world is full of people who are grieving right now they're all around you and if you care you'll be aware now either way whether you have grief in your life right now or you know somebody who has grief in their life right now you're going to need these principles someday and you're going to need them for the rest of your life some of you particularly men you need to learn how to cry it's not a sign of weakness it's a sign of love you've held it in all your life and people told you to don't cry that's dumb it's not only unhealthy it's unhelpful remember god promises to reward the tears you shed for the benefit of serving others let's bow our heads would you bow your head with your heads bowed i want to just review what i've shared with you tears are god's gift for expressing emotion god weeps jesus weeps the spirit weeps would you thank god that he is a god who grieves and weeps and empathizes and when you're in pain he's in pain thank god for that tears are what make us human they're normal and a healthy part of life there's a time for tears and the bible says weep with those who weep god says your feelings are meant to be felt have you been holding them in don't repress them don't suppress them express them to god confess them to him tears are a universal language they're far more important than words people won't always understand your words they'll often misunderstand them but they can't misunderstand your tears would you say lord i want to be a person who empathizes not just sympathizes with people remember sympathy says i'm sorry you heard empathy says i'm hurting with you would you realize that tears in your life are a sign of love not weakness would you right now with your head bowed thank god that every tear you have ever shed he saw and he's saved say god thank you that you have seen all my tears and you've saved all my tears you collected them in a bottle you've recorded them in your book you've kept track of all my sorrows and then would you ask god to help you be a blessing to other people in a world that's full of pain if you call yourself a christian you're called to help others in pain so pray this lord help me to not wait when i see someone in pain they'll not say i don't know what to say but you just take the initiative to connect and then say lord give me the courage to not hold back but to let them see my tears to grieve with them to weep with those who weep as you've commanded and then lord when i'm tempted to say something and give advice help me to show up and shut up help me to be like job's friend who sat on the ground in silence and didn't say a word but just was there with the ministry of presence when someone is grieving lord help me to realize that the greater the pain the fewer words i should use help me to remember the greater the pain the fewer words i should use and then lord when i start to get discouraged and when i'm grieving and when i'm sad and when i feel lonely or empty help me to remember that all tears are temporary the three times in your word you said i will wipe away all the tears thank you jesus for being a god who loves us like that if you've never opened your life to jesus christ say jesus christ come into my life right now and fill me with your love fill my emptiness with your peace just say that fill my emptiness with your peace fill my grief with your love fill my life with your life i want to learn to love you and know you i want you to be the manager of my life and i ask you to accept me into your heaven one day be my savior i humbly ask this in your name amen

Channel: Pastor Rick

Views: 45,357

Keywords: Pastor Rick Warren, Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, Pastor Rick, Rick Warren sermon, Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Saddleback, christianity, church, church sermon

Id: 16OoBNknTYM

Length: 53min 10sec (3190 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022