Light of God's Faithfulness
Light in the Lament • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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ME (A hook):
ME (A hook):
Deb just read the central part of our passage this morning.
You may even be familiar with vs. 22-23,
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness.”
I remember this passage being a verse of the day once on the Bible app.
And the background was this picturesque sunrise.
Slide
So, I decided to Google the passage and this was the top result.
I don’t believe it is the exact same one I saw on my Bible app.
But it is essentially the same idea.
So, take a look,
What do you think?
This is a pretty soothing image, right?
It feels like a place I would love to be.
It fosters this sense of peace and tranquility.
It makes sense to connect this image with this passage,
Because it talks about God’s mercies being new each morning.
So, most, if not all, of us would connect this passage to a scene like this.
But this does not accurately represent the scene of this passage.
In fact, it is quite the opposite.
Jeremiah writes, “His mercies are new every morning,”
Over a dark and tragic landscape.
Instead of this beautiful, picturesque scene,
The city of Jerusalem is left in rubble.
It is more like a scene after a natural disaster than this refreshing sunrise.
Blue skies are replaced with aggressive, dark clouds.
A plush green field is exchanged for streets littered with suffering people.
Instead of peace,
It is like a battlefield.
Slide
Even so,
Against the backdrop of destruction,
Jeremiah says “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”
Yes, this darkened backdrop changes how we see this well-known passage.
But perhaps,
It is for the better.
Because it is against this darkness,
Where the Light of God’s Faithfulness shines brightest in Lamentations 3.
WE (Why does this matter to us?):
WE (Why does this matter to us?):
Throughout Lamentations,
We have seen,
Jeremiah does not just merely lament about his pain and disappointment.
He uses this song of sorrow to bring what he believes to be true in his mind,
Through the emotional resistance he is experiencing,
To take hold as an anchor in his heart.
So that,
He is able to say,
“Yes, Jerusalem is decimated, but God is in control.”
“Though the city is in rubble, God’s mercies never end,
Great is His faithfulness!”
So, this morning we get to really see how genuine biblical lament becomes transformative.
Not only because it gives voice to the pain you feel,
Like we observed last week.
But because it anchors your heart to what you know to be true in your mind.
I am pretty confident,
Bad things have happened in your life.
Whatever it is,
Loss, grief, suffering, sadness,
It feels devastating.
So, in the wasteland,
Allow biblical lament to rehearse biblical truth,
Breathing the hope of light and life into your heart.
Despite what you see or feel,
You can trust in the light of God’s faithfulness.
Slide
All of Lamentations has been building to this chapter.
This is the central chapter of the entire book.
One commentator calls it the summit and the crescendo of Lamentations.
Like the previous two chapters,
This chapter is also an acrostic.
But it repeats each letter three times.
It is distinct from all other chapters.
In it,
Jeremiah expresses his own suffering,
And the grief of the entire community of God’s people.
But perhaps most importantly,
He also expresses the hope and comfort that is sustained by the knowledge of God’s compassionate love.
The chapter really bounces back and forth between these two contrasting tones.
Let me just give two verses that demonstrate this.
Lamentations 3:18 (ESV)
“My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”
“You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
Do you see the clear contrast here?
Slide
This contrast defines our outline:
Confessing Our Hopelessness (Lamentations 3:1-18, 34-54)
Trusting God’s Faithfulness (Lamentations 3:19-33, 55-66)
GOD (Teach the text):
GOD (Teach the text):
Slide
By the time Jeremiah gets to vs. 18,
He sounds like he has given up.
Perhaps you can relate to that feeling?
I know I can.
But Jeremiah didn’t just jump to this place of despair,
In the verses leading up,
We get this sense of the pain he feels,
As he describes his struggles.
Bible (1-3)
Jeremiah begins once again acknowledging how God is the One who has afflicted him and the people.
Back in Exodus,
God would drive His people to good places,
Like a shepherd guiding His sheep.
But here,
It is just the opposite.
He is driving His people into darkness.
Once again,
This is so fitting for Advent.
Because one of the Advent prophecies,
Bible
Is Isaiah 9
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
Slide
Skipping down to vs. 6.
Isaiah 9:6(ESV)
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Now contrast this prophecy,
Slide
Against the darkness of Lam. 3:2.
Jeremiah says, God forced him to walk in darkness instead of light.
In the Bible,
Darkness is used to illustrate the distress experienced at the absence of God.
Light, however, stands for just the opposite,
Salvation and blessing.
So, the people are in darkness.
Because God is repeatedly turning His hand against them all day long.
He is frustrating their every plan and desire.
Bible (4-5)
This is a picture the physical distress Jeremiah experienced.
He feels like a dead man,
Who is sensing his life just ebb away.
But God also encircles him with bitterness and hardship,
Expressing the emotional distress that goes hand in hand with the physical distress.
Jeremiah’s suffering has become personal and overwhelming.
There is no peace and no happiness.
He has no endurance and no reason to hope.
The grief of the moment for Jeremiah is relentless.
He has hit rock bottom.
This is one reason why Lamentations is so life-giving!
Because this gut-level honesty and emotional rawness is just so refreshing, right?
I mean,
At least to some degree,
We have lived what Jeremiah is feeling, right?
We have all felt the hopelessness of grief,
The weariness,
And the uncertainty around what God is doing.
We all have wrestled with God’s will for our lives.
And when we read Jeremiah’s words,
Jeremiah’s questions,
Jeremiah’s pain,
It helps to know we’re not alone in our struggles.
I hope you see this in Lamentations.
Slide
But this is just the start of Jeremiah’s honest lament in this chapter.
He continues in vs. 6,
Expressing how suffering diminishes life’s fullness,
Culminating in death itself.
It is in this weakened condition,
Where Jeremiah considers himself to have little more participation in life than if he were dead.
But consider this from a wisdom perspective.
Wisdom literature teaches,
Life is about more than existing.
Rather, life is a path that is characterized by true relationships that conform to God’s design.
Likewise, from a wisdom perspective,
Death is not only about the end of physical life,
It is about an irreversible descent into disorder and moral perversion.
This is the picture of death Jeremiah has in mind in vs. 6.
Continuing in vs. 7,
Saying God walled him in and weighed him down,
So, he cannot get out.
The picture is that Jeremiah is on a path,
When he gets lost in a maze,
With paths that lead to nowhere.
Every turn he takes is another dead end,
Feeling like another step descending into deeper darkness.
Slide
Then, in subtly one of the most terrifying verses,
Jeremiah cries out from the maze,
Pleads for help,
But God shuts out his prayers.
This is such a despairing experience,
Which the psalms are able to express wonderfully.
Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
And Psalm 22:1-2,
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.
Slide
So, this is what it feels like for Jeremiah.
Every step feels like greater danger is lurking.
Vs. 10-12 illustrates this,
Jeremiah says God is like a bear waiting in ambush,
Or a lion in hiding,
Waiting to pounce.
And these dangers force Jeremiah off his path,
Leaving him feeling desolate.
Slide
The pain Jeremiah feels from God is so strong and intense,
He says it is like God pierced his kidneys with arrows.
But the pain he feels from God’s people is also intense.
He has become a laughingstock to his own people,
He is mocked by them all day long.
Slide
Their mocking laughter was so cruel,
It was like getting an entire meal full of bitter poison and gravel.
Slide
And all of this is what leads to Jeremiah hitting rock bottom in vs. 17-18.
In the Bible,
Peace and happiness are common experiences for someone who is blessed.
This is not Jeremiah’s experience.
He has been deprived of peace.
He has forgotten what happiness is.
He feels hopeless,
And he wonders out loud if his future and his hope in God is lost.
Again, can you relate?
Have you ever thought,
I’ve got no faith,
I am on empty,
I am not sure if I really trust God.
Slide
You may in your head still be able to declare that God is just.
Jeremiah declared this too.
Because God is just,
Vs. 34-36 implies how there are certain things God cannot approve.
Similarly amid his suffering, Job asked,
Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right?
The Bible says that God does not look favorably on humanity’s cruelty and injustice toward one another.
Yet at the same time,
The Bible also says,
Nothing falls outside of God’s control or oversight.
So, He approved the cruelty that happened to Jerusalem.
In fact, He brought it to pass.
This is the crisis of faith Jeremiah is facing.
What he believes to be true and what he is experiencing seem to be at odds.
God does not approve injustice,
Yet He brought this seemingly unjust cruelty upon Jerusalem.
So, how is Jeremiah to resolve this crisis?
Slide
Even in his hopelessness,
We start to see Jeremiah putting the pieces together.
Starting with the truth that God is omniscient,
He is all-knowing.
The Bible says God sees and keeps record of everything!
Including every injustice!
And He is perfect in His judgment!
Vs. 37 explains,
How everything that happens,
Happens according to God’s Word.
Going back to the very beginning of Creation,
Genesis 1:3 (ESV)
God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
So, this is true of light and life and creation and all good things.
But it is also true of calamity and judgment and adversity as well.
Amos 3:6 rhetorically asks,
Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?
Since God is all knowing,
Perfectly just,
And all things take place according to His Word,
The conclusion Jeremiah reaches in vs. 39,
Is that no living person can complain about God punishing them for their sin.
How did Jeremiah get there?
Because the fact we are living is evidence of God’s gracious love and mercy.
This is key regarding Jeremiah’s answer to his crisis of faith.
As dreadful as the experience of God’s judgment is,
The cruelty the people experienced is inextricably linked to their sin.
Slide
So, after Jeremiah discovers this answer to his crisis of faith,
Beginning in vs. 40,
Jeremiah starts speaking on behalf of the people.
Notice how he uses plural words in these verses.
Let us test and examine our ways.
We as an entire people have sinned, transgressed, and rebelled.
Jeremiah is leading his people in confession of their sins,
And advising them to return to the Lord.
This is not just for Jerusalem.
This is also for us.
We must assess our ways.
We must repent,
Acknowledging we have sinned and rebelled,
And dedicate ourselves to God,
Lifting up our hearts to Him.
Our sin is initially hidden from our eyes and hearts because we are deceived.
It takes the Spirit working with the truth of God’s Word to illuminate our eyes and hearts,
Correcting what we feel,
So, that our experience aligns with what we know to be true according to God’s Word.
This is why after Jeremiah confesses his own hopelessness,
He calls us to confess our own hopelessness and repent.
Slide
But this didn’t make the suffering he was experiencing just go away,
He goes on to express his weeping over the people’s grief and his own grief.
Much of which was because he was flung into a pit by his enemies.
Slide
This event is recorded back in Jer. 38:6,
So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.
YOU (Response):
YOU (Response):
In Lamentations,
Jeremiah is at the bottom emotionally, spiritually, and literally at the bottom of a pit.
He is experiencing hopelessness.
Likewise, when you find yourself at the bottom emotionally, spiritually, and perhaps even literally in some way,
Like we saw from Jeremiah,
Confess your hopelessness.
Because the good news is that if you’re at rock bottom,
God can meet you there.
Lament is the language used by those who are stumbling around,
Trying to find mercy in the darkness of the pit.
From the pit,
Jeremiah’s perspective completely changes.
As honest as he is with his pain,
He does not remain there.
He moves from complaint to trust.
Yes, the city is still destroyed.
Yes, the people are still suffering.
Yes, he is still in the pit.
But something changes with Jeremiah.
Bible (55-58)
Do you hear the difference?
There is still suffering, yes.
There is still a struggle, absolutely.
His experience remains the same.
But the tone,
The tone is…different.
This leads us to a critical question.
A simple question that is central to the spiritual necessity of lament:
What changed?
What changed for Jeremiah?
Perhaps it may be better to frame this question for you:
How can my perspective change?
We see Jeremiah offer to God a prayer for deliverance from the pit.
It is much like Jonah’s prayer when he was in the belly of a great fish in Jonah 2.
This recurring theme of suffering prophets getting rescued by the Lord,
Comes to its highest fulfillment by the Suffering Servant,
Jesus Christ,
Who after being born as a baby in a manger,
Suffered and died on a cross and was buried in a tomb,
A pit,
Sealed with a rock,
And left for dead.
Only to be raised from the grave three days later!
Therefore, you have assurance from your pit that God hears your prayer.
But hundreds of years before Christ came,
Jeremiah was certain that God heard his prayer from the pit.
Why?
Because God repeatedly exhorted His people to not fear.
Is 41:10 says,
fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
So, Jeremiah remembers this promise from God,
And finds assurance in the pit.
Slide
Back in vs. 19,
Jeremiah uses four terms to show the depth of his sorrow in the pit:
Affliction, homelessness, bitterness, and wormwood.
So, the key as to what changed comes in vs. 21.
This is the pivot point of the entire book.
Jeremiah has been in distress for two and half chapters,
Tempted by endless bitter thoughts,
And painful memories,
Then, at the start of vs. 21,
He says, “but,”
This I call to mind.
He adopts a better line of thought,
Instead of smoldering over his anguish and sorrow,
And this thought gives him hope.
This helps us get to the heart of a valuable lesson of biblical lament.
The destruction of Jerusalem was a clear message,
But it also wasn’t the entire story.
When Jeremiah says “this I call the mind,”
He is getting at the heart or essence of his being,
He is drawing from the deepest core of what he believes.
He uses what he believes about God as the basis for his hope.
The NLT says it this way,
Jeremiah dared to hope.
This is the bridge that takes you from confessing your hopelessness to trusting God’s faithfulness.
My hope is that you would embrace the value of lament,
Not only as an expression of your heart,
But as something to help you think differently.
Because true biblical lament dares to hope even when you are in the pit.
As you put lament into practice,
And you choose to rehearse what you believe,
You learn to walk by faith.
Slide
In his book Lament for a Son,
Nicholas Wolterstorff writes,
“Faith is a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm until you’re forced to walk out onto it.”
So, biblical lament is a prayer of faith despite your fear.
It has to be an intentional shift in your mind-set.
Because Lamentations shows us that true hope does not come from a change of circumstances.
It comes from what you know to be true despite what you are experiencing.
So, you will only live through suffering not by what you see,
Or even what you feel,
But by what you trust.
Slide
In his book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering,
Tim Keller comments on Psalm 42,
"We may hear our hearts say, 'It's hopeless!' but we should argue back. We should say, 'well, that depends what you were hoping in. Was that the right thing to put so much hope in?' Notice how the psalmist analyzes his own hopes--'Why are you so cast down, O my soul?' Notice that he admonishes himself. 'Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.' The psalmist is talking to his heart telling it to go to God, looking to God."
In the midst of the darkest pits of your life,
I hope you are able to have the courage and conviction to say like Jeremiah,
“But this I call to mind...”
It is not an easy fight.
The discouragement of the pit can take over,
And you have to fight to reorient your heart.
You have to battle against internal assaults that say,
God doesn’t love me.
He won’t take care of me.
He abandoned me.
I am alone.
You may be in that place.
You may be thinking you don’t know if you can do this anymore.
Yet, you are here.
You came,
You showed up,
Looking for hope!
And let me tell you,
God’s Word says you can fight!
Because it is filled with His promised that you can call to mind,
And therefore, have hope!
Lament!
Rehearse the truths of this Book!
Preach to your own heart!
Understand your pain through the lens of God’s character.
Like we discussed last week,
Express the sorrow you feel,
Yes,
But also,
Rehearse the truths,
Call the important promises of God’s Word to mind,
And you can stop listening to your experience,
And the assaults in your own mind.
For Jeremiah,
The memory of God’s devotion to His people brings hope out of his hopelessness.
Slide
WE (Paint a picture of the future):
WE (Paint a picture of the future):
So, after reaching this turning point is his soul,
Jeremiah’s experience of God’s rejection unexpectedly turns to confidence,
Based on his knowledge of God’s character.
So, he expresses four truths as a confession of trust and hope upon which he anchors his heart.
The first of which is that God’s mercy never ends.
Naturally, suffering causes us to doubt God’s mercy.
But vs. 22-23 promises us that is never ever the case,
This passage is so rich and deeply comforting.
Slide
The first word used here,
Is an extremely important Hebrew word, hesed.
It is a beautiful, special word that we don’t have an exact translation for in English.
It is only used to describe the type of love God has for His people.
But it expresses more than mere love.
It expresses a faithfully loving devotion that God binds Himself to His people.
It not only indicates love but kindness.
In fact, it is often translated as the word, lovingkindness.
But it is a directed lovingkindness.
Directed toward those He is in a covenant relationship with,
Rooted in His character.
It is the essence of who God is and how He relates to us.
So, Jeremiah uses it here,
To recall the many acts and riches of this steadfast, faithful, devoted, lovingkindness God has and shows toward His covenantal people.
His hesed never ceases.
Likewise, His mercies never come to an end.
God’s covenantal devotion is always connected to His compassion.
He is a God of profound and perfect emotion.
And He is compassionate about us.
Better yet,
He is compassionate toward us,
Compassionate for us.
Therefore, we cannot be consumed,
Because His compassion cannot be consumed.
God expresses this in Hosea 11:8, asking His people,
How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
Therefore, vs. 23 says,
God’s mercies are new every morning.
His love brings a new dawn of salvation.
Again, we see this all throughout the Bible.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
And Mary,
After learning she is going to give birth to the Messiah,
She writes in Luke 1:78, that it is...
because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
Every day we wake up,
We see the evidence of God’s grace,
And have the possibility of repentance.
Because God supplies the mercy we need for this each and every day.
We must trust in this promise.
This leads us to the heart of Lamentations,
Where Jeremiah declares that God’s faithfulness is great!
God’s reliability cannot be fully understood.
Therefore, we trust His faithfulness.
His mercy leads us to Him,
He is, as vs. 24 says, our portion.
This goes back to when the Promised Land was being allocated to the different tribes of Israel.
In Num. 18:20,
And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.
So, Jeremiah’s confession here is one of praise.
He is thanking God that he gets God as his portion instead of land.
God has stripped Jeremiah of everything,
So, all Jeremiah has is God,
And Jeremiah thanks God because he has enough.
His lament has awakened him to God’s hesed.
This reminds us,
That God is everything we need.
And Advent reminds us that we can be hopeful because the Lord has come.
True biblical lament is honest with our struggles in life,
While also remembering that God's steadfast love never ends.
He is sufficient.
Our experiences are not our hope,
God is.
And He never stops being merciful,
Even when we are in the darkest of pits.
Slide
The second truth is especially important for us in our context.
Because waiting rarely feels good.
And we are not good at it.
But vs. 25-27 show us that it is good to wait.
Bible
There is value of living in this space in between suffering and restoration.
The dominant thought here is that God is good!
Remember this is an acrostic,
So, in Hebrew it sounds more like,
Good is God to those who wait for Him,
Good it is to wait silently for salvation,
Good it is for the young to endure suffering.
So, in simpler terms,
God is always good to those who seek, hope, and wait for Him.
Waiting on God means hoping in Him,
Trusting that He can deliver us.
It means having our entire confidence rest on Him.
And we do so,
Because He is God and we are not.
So, a good question to ask is,
Why is waiting so difficult for us?
If I had to guess,
It is because it feels like we aren’t contributing.
But ironically,
That’s the point!
We can’t contribute anything!
God does the saving.
So, waiting is perhaps one of the greatest disciplines of our faith.
Because it means putting our trust in God,
Placing our hope in Him,
And expressing confidence in His control.
Which is particularly uncomfortable for us,
Because we want to feel like we are in control of our lives.
For many of us,
God uses seasons of waiting to shape and define us the most.
The uncertainty of what could happen feels daunting.
It can occupy our minds,
It can affect our ability to sleep,
It can overshadow our entire day.
Waiting is frightening,
It is a powerless feeling.
We want to know the answer,
We want to know what’s going on,
What want to know what’s the point,
Why is this happening,
And all of this builds up resistance toward waiting.
But rather than resisting,
When we embrace waiting as an opportunity to learn life-changing lessons,
Then it becomes a beautiful gift.
Let me just briefly address anyone who may be in a season of waiting.
Lamentations is telling you that it is good to wait.
So, pray a prayer of lament,
That releases control of your life,
And says,
“God, I don’t know what you’re doing,
I don’t know why you are doing it,
But I am going to trust,
That you are God,
And I am not.”
Remind your heart that it is good to wait.
God wants to teach us many lessons.
Most of these lessons come slowly,
Oftentimes,
Not until we stop trying on our own,
And instead, we confess our hopelessness,
And are ready for Him to lead us.
Slide
Vs. 28-30 teaches us how it is good to wait even through suffering.
Jeremiah’s advice is to first,
Sit alone in silence,
Assuming this posture of contrition,
Allowing you to reflect with God.
Second, He says to accept without protest your mouth being put in the dust.
This keeps you from speaking in anger.
And third,
He says to give your cheek to the one who strikes you,
Accepting all their insults.
This can only be done with an attitude of humility that reflects the humility of Christ.
Each of these pieces of advice are increasingly more difficult,
But each also raises the hope that God will deliver you from trouble.
And bring good from your waiting.
Slide
The third truth,
That this is not over,
Comes in vs. 31-32,
And it is related to what we believe about the future.
Suffering often causes two pervasive feelings:
This will never end,
And what’s the point?
That is why the Bible clearly and repeatedly teaches that suffering is not forever.
The Bible is littered with promises about God’s purposes, His character, and the future,
All designed to remind us that suffering and pain will come to a permanent end!
So, true biblical lament does not only mourn over the brokenness of suffering,
It looks expectantly toward what is yet to come.
These verses are rich with hope and encouragement.
Bible
This assures us that all suffering has limits and a purpose.
God says the present experience of His wrath is temporary.
Other examples include,
For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
And Hos. 6:1,
“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
Why?
Because God is compassionate.
His compassion is rooted in His unfailing love,
His hesed.
This is the reason He will not reject us forever,
Even if He causes suffering,
He still has compassion.
He is working everything out according to His loving plan for our lives.
There will come a time,
When His final Word will be spoken.
Until that day,
Biblical lament is one of the ways we say to suffering,
“This is not over!”
In fact, our pain can often stir a greater desire for the future more than a blissful life in this world can.
So, we thank God this is not over.
Because we long for when our faith shall be made sight.
Even when we face death,
We can bless the Lord.
This truth empowers us to look at the grave or urn of a loved one,
And with tears in our eyes declare,
This is not over!
There is a day coming where Jesus will return and make everything right!
And when we do,
We no longer want to avoid that grave or urn,
Instead, we want to look again and again,
And be reminded how God has shown His compassion to us through the sorrow and the pain,
And that there is a day coming where that grave or urn will be emptied,
And death will be defeated!
True biblical lament,
Points our hearts toward that future victory!
Through our tears,
We can believe that this is not over!
Slide
Because the fourth and final truth is in vs. 33,
Is that God is good all the time.
Bible
God does not enjoy bringing affliction or suffering on us.
It is not something He does from His compassionate heart.
Rather, it comes from His just nature.
All the destruction in Jerusalem,
Does not come from a heart that enjoys these hardships.
God does not delight in our pain.
But there are loving purposes behind every tear.
We just can’t see what they are yet.
We don’t know the whole story.
We don’t know all that God is doing.
Sometimes, we get glimpses of the puzzle,
And start to put pieces together.
But that is rare.
Instead, we have to simply trust that God is good all the time.
We have to believe His intentions are kind,
That our pain,
Our hardships are for our good.
And that He is not enjoying watching us struggle,
But He is producing something in us that fits His good heart toward us.
So, biblical lament reminds us how pain has a purpose,
Because God is good all the time.
Slide
As we close,
I would like to invite the music team up.
When we lament,
We reaffirm what we believe.
We tell ourselves truths like:
God’s mercy never ends,
It is good to wait,
This is not over,
And God is good all the time.
In our fear and confusion,
In the darkness of the pit,
Lament leads us back to what we know to be true,
That despite what I see,
And despite what I feel,
I trust in the light of God’s faithfulness.
Pray.