PM 04-12 When Tears Teach
Full Sermon Rewritten in Exact Slide Order
[Slide 1 — Title]
When Tears Teach
04-12-2026 PM
Jerusalem is not merely troubled in Lamentations. Jerusalem is shattered. The city is broken, the people are disgraced, the temple is ruined, and the covenant nation sits in the ashes of divine judgment. This is not inconvenience. This is collapse. And from that wreckage rises one of the most honest cries in all of Scripture: “For these things I weep” (Lam. 1:16). That line is not sentimental weakness. It is the sound of a wounded people standing in the ruins and learning what can only be learned when God strips away false comfort. Many people like sermons about faith. Fewer are ready for the school where faith is taught through tears.
[Slide 2 — Main Text]
Text
Lamentations 1:16; James 1:12
Lamentations 1:16 gives us the cry of sorrow: “For these things I weep; my eyes run down with water; because far from me is a comforter, who should restore my soul.” James 1:12 gives us the promise to the steadfast saint: “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial.” Put those texts together and the lesson is plain: sorrow, when submitted to God, becomes one of His hardest teachers.
Grief is not itself sin. Tears are not automatically unbelief. But sorrow reveals the heart. It exposes whether a man will submit to God or resist Him, whether suffering will bow him lower in trust or drive him inward in bitterness. The issue is not whether pain is real. The issue is what pain does to the soul when it comes.
[Slide 3 — Sermon Burden]
Learning Objectives
- To see that grief is not itself sin, but that grief reveals whether the heart will submit to God or resist Him.
- To understand that sorrow can become either a doorway to self-pity or a severe schoolhouse of endurance.
- To learn that God uses submitted sorrow to strip away false comforts and teach deeper trust.
- To press saints not to waste their tears, but to let suffering produce steadfastness under the hand of God.
- To call grieving sinners and grieving Christians alike to turn fully to Christ, the only true Comforter of the soul.
There is a kind of religion that sounds strong until suffering tests it. It speaks fluently about hope, trust, endurance, and the goodness of God, but only while life is orderly. But that is not where many of God’s people actually live. They live in hospital rooms, gravesides, broken homes, guilty memories, prodigal children, lonely nights, and unanswered prayers. They live where tears fall.
And when tears fall, the great question is not whether sorrow is real. The question is whether sorrow will drive us toward God or away from Him. Will grief humble us, or harden us? Will it strip us of self-reliance, or sink us into self-pity? Will it teach us endurance, or expose that our faith had no roots at all?
God does not waste the tears of His people. Suffering is painful, but it is not pointless. Grief can become a schoolmaster when the Lord rules the lesson.
[Slide 4 — Roadmap / Thesis]
Thesis
Sorrow, when submitted to God, becomes a severe but faithful teacher that exposes false comforts, produces endurance, and drives the soul to trust the Lord more deeply.
That is where this sermon is headed. We will see first that sorrow must be submitted to God, not merely felt. Second, sorrow teaches endurance by stripping away false control. Third, tears expose the failure of earthly comforts and drive us to the true Comforter. The burden is simple and direct: do not waste your tears. Bring them under God, and let Him teach you through them.
[Slide 5 — Supporting Texts I]
Supporting Texts I
Psalm 42 is one of the clearest witnesses to this truth. The psalmist says, “My tears have been my food day and night,” but he does not stop there. He speaks back to his own soul: “Hope in God.” That is not denial. That is discipline. That is a man refusing to let pain become his master.
James 1:2–4, 12 also matters here. James teaches that the testing of faith produces endurance, and blessedness belongs not to the one who escapes all trial, but to the one who remains faithful under it. That means sorrow is not only something to survive; it can become something God uses to sanctify.
So already the Bible is correcting shallow thinking. Tears do not prove God has abandoned you. Trials do not prove your life is pointless. Suffering does not always mean divine absence. Very often it means God is doing deeper work than your comfort-loving heart would ever choose for itself.
[Slide 6 — Supporting Texts II]
Supporting Texts II
Second Corinthians 1:3–4 identifies God as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” That means comfort is not merely a feeling, and it is not ultimately found in circumstances. Real comfort comes from God Himself. And the comfort He gives is so substantial that it equips suffering saints to comfort others.
Lamentations 3:22–23 gives the other great anchor: “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” The same book that gives us the cry of desolation in chapter 1 also gives us the testimony of remembered mercy in chapter 3. That is crucial. The sorrow is real, but sorrow does not get the last word.
So before we even step further into the sermon, Scripture has already marked out the path. Tears are real. Trials are sanctifying. God is the source of comfort. His mercy is not exhausted by human grief.
[Slide 7 — Opening Frame]
Opening Frame
Some lessons are learned only in the language of tears.
There are truths we confess in easy days but only understand in deeper ways when God allows grief, silence, delay, and pain. Prosperity can hide the heart from itself. Ease can conceal idols. Success can keep a man from discovering how thin his spiritual roots really are. But tears have a way of revealing what prosperity hides.
That is part of why Lamentations is so necessary. It does not let us pretend that covenant people are untouched by grief. It does not let us imagine that faithful speech always sounds polished and emotionally tidy. It shows us a people in public collapse and teaches us that even there, tears can become instructors.
Many Christians want truth without affliction, maturity without testing, endurance without pain, and comfort without brokenness. But that is not usually how God trains souls. He often teaches most deeply when earthly props are kicked away and a man is forced to discover what he truly trusts.
[Slide 8 — Context]
Context
Lamentations is not polished detachment. It is covenant grief spoken from the ashes of judgment. Jerusalem is devastated. The city that once carried the visible marks of covenant privilege now lies humiliated and ruined. The pain is spiritual, national, personal, and public all at once.
This matters because lament is not random sadness floating in the air. It is sorrow spoken in relation to God. That is the difference between biblical lament and mere despair. Despair collapses inward and treats pain as ultimate. Lament still speaks, still cries, still turns its face toward God even when the soul feels dark.
There is a kind of religion that sounds strong until suffering tests it. It can speak clearly in days of peace, but it becomes confused when the house shakes. Yet that is not where many of God’s people live. They live where tears fall. They live where relief is delayed. They live where grief lingers longer than they wanted. The Bible does not shame them for that reality. It instructs them in it.
Lamentations teaches that grief itself is not foreign to faith. The issue is whether grief remains under God or becomes rebellion against Him.
[Slide 9 — What Tears Expose]
What Tears Expose
When tears come, they expose things.
They expose spiritual fatigue. A man discovers how exhausted his soul really is when he no longer has the strength to perform for others. Tears expose disappointed expectations. They reveal how much of our peace was tied to outcomes we quietly assumed God owed us. Tears expose misplaced confidence. They show whether we were resting in God or in smooth circumstances, human support, health, routine, or control.
They also expose the hunger of the soul for real consolation. Affliction often reveals the inner architecture of the heart more clearly than comfort ever can. Comfort can hide weakness because it lets a man live without testing what he truly depends on. Sorrow does not permit that illusion. It reveals where the soul runs when the props are gone.
And that is why the question is not merely, “Am I hurting?” The question is, “What is my hurt revealing?” Is it exposing submission or resentment? Trust or accusation? Humility or self-pity? If you do not ask that question, you may suffer deeply and still learn nothing.
[Slide 10 — No Comforter]
No Comforter
Lamentations 1:16 says, “For these things I weep; my eyes run down with water; because far from me is a comforter, who should restore my soul.” There is agony in that line. The soul feels unrestored. Comfort feels absent. Human support seems thin. Relief is not near.
But notice what is happening. This grief is not hidden. It is not denied. Jeremiah does not posture. He does not pretend strength. He does not call numbness maturity. He simply says, “For these things I weep.” That is not spiritual weakness. That is honest sorrow under a real burden.
Tears are not proof that faith has failed. Sometimes they are proof that the heart is still alive. Scripture nowhere commands us to deny grief. It commands us to bring grief under the rule of God. A man may cry and still trust. Another man may remain dry-eyed and still inwardly accuse God. The real issue is not the tear itself. The real issue is whether the sorrowing soul stays bowed before God.
This is where the first major lesson emerges: sorrow must be submitted to God, not merely felt.
[Slide 11 — Psalm 42]
Psalm 42
Psalm 42 helps us here. “My tears have been my food day and night.” That is not the language of minor discomfort. That is deep sorrow. But the psalmist does not stop with the tear. He asks, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” and then commands, “Hope in God.”
That is one of the holiest disciplines in seasons of grief: speaking truth back to your own soul. Godly sorrow does not deny pain, but neither does it enthrone pain. It does not let grief become king. It does not let suffering rewrite theology. It does not let feelings become the final interpreter of reality.
Pain narrows vision. It magnifies absence, delay, and pressure. But revelation must still interpret experience. The believer must learn to let God’s truth explain his pain rather than letting pain edit God’s truth. The psalmist cries honestly, but he also preaches honestly to himself.
That is what many people refuse to do. They want to feel without submitting. They want tears without truth. They want relief without spiritual correction. But biblical lament will not allow that. It lets the soul speak honestly to God and then calls the soul back under God.
[Slide 12 — Lament Is Prayer]
I. Sorrow Must Be Submitted to God, Not Merely Felt
Lamentations is full of grief, but it is not grief floating in midair. It is grief spoken in the presence of God. That matters. There is a difference between sorrow and rebellion. There is a difference between tears and unbelief. A man may cry and still trust God. Another man may hold himself together outwardly and still be inwardly accusing God.
This is where many people fail. They do not merely hurt; they resist what God is exposing through the hurt. They want the pain numbed, removed, distracted, medicated, or drowned before the lesson is learned. But some things are only exposed in sorrow. Some idols do not show themselves in comfort. Some prayers are not prayed honestly until the soul is stripped.
Grief is not sin. But grief becomes sinful when it turns into accusation, self-pity, bitterness, envy, or unbelief. A grieving saint may weep before God. A rebellious saint uses grief against God. One bows. The other resents.
So do not ask only, “How do I get out of this?” Ask, “How do I suffer this before God without sinning against Him?” That is a better question. That is a Christian question.
Personal Application: Stop running to distraction every time sorrow enters the room. Stop treating escape as healing. Bring the burden to God and ask what He is exposing in you.
[Slide 13 — Lament Is Prayer Continued]
Point I Applications
The church must not shame people for grieving. The body of Christ is not called to produce plastic smiles and staged strength. We are called to help saints suffer faithfully and truthfully before God. A healthy congregation does not demand emotional performance from bleeding people. It helps them speak honestly and submit humbly.
If your children only see you worship when life is easy, they will inherit a faith too thin for the real world. They need to see tears, but they also need to see those tears bowed before God. They need to know that sorrow does not cancel worship, and grief does not excuse rebellion.
Gem: God does not ask you to deny your grief. He commands you to bow your grief before Him.
That is the first lesson. Not all sorrow is sanctified automatically. But sorrow brought under God becomes prayer instead of poison.
[Slide 14 — James 1]
II. Sorrow Teaches Endurance by Stripping Away False Control
James 1:12 says, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial.” The word translated perseveres is hypomenō—to remain under, to stay in place, to bear up without abandoning faith. It is not soft. It is not passive. It is not spiritual daydreaming. It is stubborn faithfulness under pressure.
Already that corrects much shallow thinking. The blessed man is not the man who avoids all trial. He is the man who remains under it faithfully. That means the presence of a burden is not itself proof of divine rejection. Sometimes the burden is the very place where God is training endurance.
Many people want an easy faith because they want controllable spirituality. They want a religion that works quickly, relieves immediately, resolves neatly, and never asks them to remain under weight. But James says blessedness belongs to the man who endures, not merely to the man who escapes.
So now sorrow becomes more than a painful event. It becomes a proving ground. It is where faith is tested, exposed, refined, and strengthened.
[Slide 15 — Sorrow as Teacher]
Sorrow as Teacher
Endurance is not learned by talking about suffering from a distance. It is learned by remaining faithful when suffering refuses to leave.
Sorrow teaches dependence because it drives us away from self-sufficiency and toward the sustaining strength of God. Sorrow teaches patience because it slows our demanding hearts and forces us to wait beneath the timing of God. Sorrow teaches honesty because it strips away religious performance and exposes the true condition of the soul. Sorrow teaches hope because it reveals the poverty of earthly refuge and the necessity of divine consolation.
That is why sorrow is such a severe schoolhouse. It teaches lessons the flesh does not want. It trains muscles the heart would rather leave weak. It exposes how much of our peace was based on control rather than trust.
A man can speak boldly about faith while life cooperates. It is another thing to speak faithfully when life collapses. Endurance is forged there.
[Slide 16 — Endurance]
Endurance Defined
Why does sorrow teach endurance? Because sorrow often takes us where control dies.
We do not mind small troubles we can manage. We prefer trials we can fix, reschedule, negotiate, or outwork. But grief often comes where human control stops. Death will not bargain with you. Betrayal cannot be undone by determination. Consequences cannot always be reversed. Deep loss does not obey your timetable.
That is why sorrow is such a hard teacher. It forces a man to face what he cannot command. And in that place he learns whether his faith was real or decorative.
Personal Application: Some of you are exhausted because you keep trying to rule outcomes God never placed in your hands. Repent of that pride. Your assignment is not to control everything. Your assignment is to remain faithful under trial.
Biblical endurance is not numbness. It is not emotional shutdown. It is grace-enabled continuance through strain, pressure, delay, and pain. The tested believer may tremble, but he continues. He may weep, but he does not quit God.
[Slide 17 — Blessed Under Trial]
Blessed Under Trial
James does not say blessed is the man who avoids every trial. He says blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. That means the test is not whether pain disappears quickly. The test is whether faith remains when pain does not.
Modern religion often measures God’s favor by how fast relief comes. Scripture measures blessedness by whether a man remains faithful while the burden is still on his shoulders.
That is where self-pity must be confronted. Self-pity centers the self and crowns the wound. It says, “Look at what has happened to me.” Godly sorrow says, “How do I honor God here?” Self-pity turns inward and rots. Godly grief bows lower and grows cleaner. Self-pity makes pain an excuse. Godly grief makes pain a place of submission.
Congregational Application: A shallow church only knows how to celebrate visible victories. A strong church also knows how to honor quiet endurance, hidden tears, long obedience, and saints who keep walking with God through prolonged sorrow.
[Slide 18 — What Trial Produces]
What Trial Produces
And here is the promise: “for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life.” Sorrow is not sovereign. Trial is not ultimate. The tear is not eternal. Endurance proves faith genuine. God is taking His people somewhere, and perseverance is one of the tools by which He gets them there.
If received under the hand of God, affliction can produce greater sobriety about the world, greater hunger for Scripture and prayer, greater tenderness toward other sufferers, and greater clarity about what truly comforts.
Generational Application: The next generation must learn that faith is not emotional excitement, public energy, or conference language. Faith is staying with God when prayers are slow, tears are many, and relief is delayed.
So sorrow, rightly received, does not merely hurt. It strengthens. It purifies. It settles. It trains the saint to keep walking with God when everything in the flesh wants to sit down in despair.
[Slide 19 — 2 Corinthians 1 / No Comforter Revisited]
III. Tears Expose the Failure of Earthly Comforts and Drive Us to the True Comforter
Lamentations 1:16 says, “Far from me is a comforter, who should restore my soul.” There is agony in that line. Human support is thin. Earthly comfort is absent. The soul feels unrestored. That is brutal. But it is also revealing.
One of the hardest truths sorrow teaches is this: created comforts make poor saviors.
Family is precious, but family cannot redeem the soul. Friends are valuable, but friends cannot carry divine sovereignty on their shoulders. Brethren can encourage, but brethren cannot become God to you. Even the best human comfort reaches a limit.
That does not make earthly comfort worthless. It makes it insufficient as an ultimate refuge. God sometimes lets secondary comforts thin out so the heart will stop treating them as primary salvation.
[Slide 20 — Comfort Defined]
Comfort Defined
We must define comfort correctly.
Relief removes pressure. Comfort strengthens the soul under pressure. God does not always remove the burden immediately, but He sustains the believer within it. That is why divine comfort is stronger than mere relief. Relief may change circumstances. Comfort steadies the heart.
Many people think comfort means the rapid disappearance of pain. But often, in Scripture, comfort means strength to continue, grace to endure, clarity to trust, and divine nearness in the midst of the burden.
That matters because if you define comfort only as instant easing, you will accuse God of absence whenever pain lingers. But if you understand comfort biblically, you will begin to see that God may be comforting you deeply while not yet removing the affliction you wanted gone yesterday.
So the sorrowing heart must stop demanding that comfort always look like escape.
[Slide 21 — Counterfeit Comforts]
Counterfeit Comforts
This is where self-pity, distraction, and other counterfeit comforts must be exposed.
Some people run to distraction. They try to out-noise grief instead of bringing it under the voice of God. Some run to control. They manage details obsessively because surrender feels too vulnerable. Some run to bitterness. Pain seeks an outlet, and pride resists repentance. Some run to withdrawal. They isolate the soul from the means of grace and call that self-protection.
But counterfeit comfort never heals. It soothes the flesh while starving the soul. It promises immediate easing, avoids repentance, silences reflection, and leaves the heart unchanged.
The question is not merely, “What makes me feel better?” The real question is, “What brings me nearer to the God of all comfort?” Anything that shields you from submission is not true comfort. It is a decoy.
[Slide 22 — False vs True Comfort]
False vs True Comfort
One of the hardest truths sorrow teaches is this: created comforts make poor saviors. That is worth repeating because the heart forgets it quickly.
False comfort promises immediate easing, avoids repentance, silences reflection, and leaves the soul unchanged. True comfort draws the soul nearer to Christ, steadies faith, deepens holiness, and prepares us to help others.
Personal Application: Have you been demanding from people what only God can provide? Then you are placing too much weight on them and too little trust in Him.
Family is precious. Friends are gifts. Brethren matter. But if you demand from them what only God can provide, you will crush them, disappoint yourself, and remain spiritually restless. Sorrow exposes that mistake mercilessly. It reveals how often we leaned on creatures as though they were enough to restore the soul.
They are not. Only God can do that.
[Slide 23 — Failure of Created Supports]
Earthly Supports Reach Their Limit
Even the best human comfort reaches a boundary. Human hands cannot carry divine weight. Human words cannot substitute for the presence of God. Human sympathy can sit beside you in sorrow, but it cannot regenerate hope, wash guilt, or anchor the soul in eternity.
This is painful to learn, but it is necessary. God sometimes lets secondary comforts thin out so the soul stops treating them as primary salvation. He is not cruel in that. He is merciful. He is tearing away false refuge so the heart will finally come to rest where it should have rested all along.
That is why sorrow can feel so exposing. It reveals not only what hurts, but where we have been leaning. When the props fall, the heart discovers whether it truly rests in God or merely in God plus everything else going well.
[Slide 24 — Lamentations 3]
Lamentations 3
That is why Lamentations 1 must be read with Lamentations 3. The same book that says, “far from me is a comforter,” also says, “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.”
That is one of the most important turns in the whole sermon. The sorrow is real, but it is not the final word. Human comfort may fail. Felt comfort may withdraw. But the Lord is not exhausted. His mercies do not dry up because your tears are many. His faithfulness is not diminished because your circumstances are dark.
This is what grieving saints must remember: felt absence is not actual abandonment. The soul may ache. The heart may feel unrestored. But God’s covenant mercy remains intact even when His people are too weary to feel its sweetness in the moment.
So the lesson must go further. Tears are not only exposing what fails. They are driving the heart toward what remains.
[Slide 25 — Remembering Mercy]
Remembering Mercy
Faith remembers what pain tries to erase.
Pain narrows the mind. It pushes the soul toward the immediate wound. It tempts the heart to speak as though the present darkness is the whole truth. But a grieving saint must rehearse what is true until the soul begins to stand under it again.
Mercy is not measured by present mood. Compassion is not cancelled by hard providence. Hope rises when truth is actively recalled.
That is why remembrance is a discipline. The saint in sorrow must not wait passively for feelings to improve. He must call truth back into active use. He must remember what God has said, what God has done, what God has proven Himself to be. He must preach covenant reality to a heart that feels spiritually disoriented.
And that is not hypocrisy. That is faith in action.
[Slide 26 — New Every Morning]
New Every Morning
“Their compassions never fail. They are new every morning.”
Morning may not erase grief, but it brings fresh evidence that the Lord has not forsaken His own. Mercy is not exhausted by yesterday’s tears. The compassions of God are not a fading reserve. They are renewed expressions of His covenant faithfulness toward His people.
Generational Application: Teach your children where comfort really comes from. If they grow up believing peace comes from ease, money, romance, health, or approval, sorrow will expose those comforts as paper walls.
They need to see that mercy is not defined by painless living. They need to learn that God can be faithful in the middle of unanswered questions, delayed relief, and tears that last longer than anyone wanted. That is how durable faith is formed.
[Slide 27 — Mercies]
Mercies
“When human comfort thins out, divine compassion is not reduced.”
That is one of the most stabilizing truths a grieving saint can learn. Men may fail. Resources may dry up. Human hands may not know how to restore the soul. But the Lord remains full in mercy even when the soul feels emptied by grief.
Some here are tired because they have been measuring God by the darkness of the hour. That is backwards. Do not measure God by the hour. Measure the hour by the faithfulness of God.
If you do not, you will interpret a hard providence as proof that mercy is gone. But mercy is not gone. It may be hidden behind tears for the moment, but it remains what it has always been: covenant compassion from a faithful God.
[Slide 28 — Christ the True Comfort]
Christ the True Comfort
And here the sermon must come to Christ.
Jesus is not a distant lecturer to suffering people. He is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). He wept at Lazarus’s tomb. He wept over Jerusalem. He entered suffering fully. He obeyed fully. He endured fully. He knows how to meet mourners with both truth and mercy.
The comfort longed for in Lamentations finds its fullness in Christ. The gospel does not merely explain pain. It brings the sufferer to a living Savior. He does not stand far off from grief. He comes into the world of tears, bears sorrow, carries obedience all the way to the cross, and rises victorious.
Gem: God will sometimes let lesser comforts fail so the soul will finally rest in the Comforter that does not fail.
That is not cruel providence. That is rescuing providence.
[Slide 29 — Ministry from Suffering / Congregational Application]
Ministry from Suffering
Second Corinthians 1 teaches that the comfort received from God is not terminal. It becomes ministry toward others.
Comfort received becomes comfort remembered. Comfort remembered becomes comfort extended. The wounded saint becomes a vessel of mercy to others in grief. Gentleness, patience, and compassion grow where suffering has been sanctified.
Congregational Application: The church must stop offering cheap religious phrases to bleeding saints. We do not heal souls with clichés. We must sit in the ashes, open the Word, and point mourners to the God whose mercies are new every morning.
A shallow church only knows how to talk loudly when people are winning. A strong church knows how to sit faithfully beside those who are weeping and help them interpret grief under God.
[Slide 30 — Pastoral Counsel]
Pastoral Counsel
Do not despise tears that drive you to prayer.
Do not mistake delayed comfort for divine neglect.
Do not build refuge from things that cannot restore the soul.
Do not stop recalling what the Lord has already proven Himself to be.
The church must not shame grieving saints. Families must not train children to think worship only fits easy days. The next generation must see that faith is not emotional excitement, public energy, or polished religious language. Faith is staying with God when prayers are slow, tears are many, and relief is delayed.
That is the counsel. Grieve honestly. Submit humbly. Remember truth. Stay under God.
[Slide 31 — For the Weary Saint]
For the Weary Saint
If your tears have taught you that people fail, that your own strength is thin, that earthly stability is fragile, then your tears have taught you something true. But do not stop halfway through the lesson. Let the lesson finish.
Lesser comforts fail. The Lord remains.
Human hands cannot restore the soul. God can.
If you are tired, the Lord has not ceased to be faithful. If you are grieving, the Lord has not forbidden you to speak honestly before Him. If you feel far from comfort, the Lord is still able to restore your soul.
That is where grief must finally land—not in denial, not in bitterness, not in numbness, but in renewed dependence on the God who has never stopped being merciful.
[Slide 32 — Call to Faith / Conclusion]
Conclusion
That is where faith in action becomes real. Faith in action is not saying God is good only when life is smooth. Faith in action is clinging to His faithfulness when your circumstances argue against it, when your feelings give you no comfort, and when all you seem to hold is a wet handkerchief and a breaking heart.
Do not waste your tears.
Tears can become teachers, but only if they are brought under God. Sorrow can refine faith, but only if it is submitted instead of weaponized in bitterness. Trials can produce endurance, but only if we stop trying to escape every hard providence long enough to hear what God is saying through it. Earthly comforts can help, but they cannot restore the soul. Only the Lord can do that.
So what are your tears teaching you right now? Are they teaching you patience? Are they teaching you that you are not in control? Are they teaching you how quickly earthly supports fail? Are they teaching you to trust God when nothing else holds? Or have you spent your sorrow resisting the lesson?
Some here are grieving loss. Some are grieving guilt. Some are grieving disappointment. Some are carrying private despair. But the answer is the same: do not rot inward. Turn upward. Bring the sorrow to God. Bow before Him in it. Let Him teach you. Let Him expose what is false. Let Him refine what is real.
[Slide 33 — Invitation]
Invitation
If your sorrow has driven you away from God, come back now.
If your grief has become bitterness, repent now.
If your pain has exposed that your faith has been resting in people, comfort, routine, or earthly stability, then stop leaning on broken reeds and turn to the Lord.
And if you are outside of Christ, then understand this plainly: sorrow is already teaching you that this world cannot save you. Hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Believe in Him. Repent of your sins. Confess His name. Be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. Then walk faithfully with the One whose mercy does not fail.
Christ wept. Christ suffered. Christ endured. Christ reigns.
[Slide 34 — Closing Exhortation]
Closing Exhortation
And in Him there is comfort stronger than despair, mercy deeper than your wounds, and hope that will outlive every tear.
Tears are not the end of the story when mercy still speaks.
Do not measure God by the darkness of the hour. Measure the hour by the faithfulness of God.
[Slide 35 — Prayer]
Prayer
Lord, teach us to grieve with faith and to wait with hope.
Strengthen the weary, steady the sorrowing, and glorify Christ in every trial.
Teach us not to waste our tears. Teach us not to run from Your lessons. Strip away false comforts. Produce endurance under Your hand. Turn our eyes from broken reeds to the God of all comfort. And where sorrow has become bitterness, grant repentance. Where grief has become confusion, grant clarity. Where pain has become despair, grant hope. And where hearts are outside of Christ, use even sorrow to bring sinners to the Savior whose mercy does not fail.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
[Slide 36 — End]
When Tears Teach
Lamentations • 04-12-2026 PM
The Lord’s mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.
