20240317 Lamentations 3 Hope Springs from Truth Rehearsed…

Horatio Spafford was a successful lawyer in Chicago In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed properties he had invested in, which left him ruined Two years later his business interests were hit again an economic downturn It was at this time that he planned to travel to England to help the evangelist D. L. Moody for an evangelistic campaign  In a late change of plans, he sent his family ahead while he had to deal with some business While crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship sank His wife survived but his four daughters died. As Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife When his ship passed near where his daughters had died, he was inspired to write the words of the Hymn “It is well with my Soul.” These are some of the lyrics: “Whatever my lot, You have taught me to know, it is well, it is well, with my soul.” “Though Satan should strike, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and has shed his own blood for my soul.”

To summarize Lamentations 3, Mark Vroegop uses the phrase, “Hope Springs from Truth Rehearsed” Horatio Spafford was able to praise the Lord in this midst of tragedy His daughters had died tragically, AND he believed in a gracious God who forgave his sins so that he would enjoy bliss at the father’s side forever! With the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, the three markers of Israel’s identity, Jerusalem, the Temple, and the King were all taken away In Lamentations 3, despite the horror, the author rehearses truths about God, and teaches us how we can find hope in our suffering The words of Lam 3 are so memorable they inspired the Hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3 has three movements (1) There is deep suffering (Lam 3:1-18), there is a declaration of faith (Lam 3:19-33), but the chapter ends on the note of struggle (Lam 3:34-66), because this is how life is

First, we look at the deep, complete suffering in Lam 3:1-18

Lam 3:1-18 is a complaint to God about the pain that he afflicted In Lam 3:1-3 is a great sample of the lament or complaint, “I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.” The author voices physical pain in Lam 3:4, “my flesh and my skin waste away, he has broken my bones.” Then, he expresses emotional and spiritual turmoil in Lam 3:5-8 He speaks of “bitterness,” “being in the dark” “feeling trapped” and sensing his prayers are not reaching God In Lam 3:17-18, the author voices utter despair, “My soul is bereft of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is, my endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord.”

This is the first point. The misery is comprehensive.

In application, want to invite you to lament, and also to reconsider the role of suffering for a Christian

First, I want to invite you to Lament

We can Lament like Lam 3:1-18 because we suffer in similar ways We have, are, and will know physical, emotional, social, professional, and spiritual pain Some of us have experienced deep depression Lamentations is for those who feel lost in the world We can lament because Lamentations is in the Bible it gives a voice to those who suffer This text is more than a historical account of one who laments about the destruction of Jerusalem many years ago It is part of our scriptures, so we can use it to lament to God

We can lament because lament is a gift from God to us. Lament is what those who believe and trust in God do in the darkest places. We invite God in our pain This is hard to do if the homes we grew up in lacked the emotional maturity to handle hard emotions. Now, we need to start practicing Lament is not grumbling.

Lament is honesty with our heavenly father about suffering Lament includes God in suffering rather than figuring it out alone, and then praising him for his kindness once we took care of our situation Lament is the voice of our dependance on God in suffering

Second, I want us to consider the role of suffering for Christians.

First, suffering allows us to announce Christian hope Lament is not a practice for the sake of a practice Lament proclaims a particular theology or view of God Lament includes complaint but it ends in greater trust in God’s promises This Christian hope is Rom 8:18 Our present suffering is nothing compared to the glory that awaits us Because of this hope we suffer differently In suffering differently, the watching world witnesses Christian Hope.

The second role of suffering is that it makes us more like Jesus. Because Jesus suffered, when we suffer, we can identify with Christ We can know that God uses suffering to make us more like Christ. The promise of becoming more like Jesus makes suffering more bearable If we value comfort over Christian maturity, the gospel will not satisfy us In turn, if we never feel satisfied perhaps the gospel is not yet the foundation upon which we have built our lives The gospel offers hope for all

A third role of suffering is that it offers us the privilege of ministering to fellow sufferers.  Dan Allender specializes in counseling adult survivors of child-sexual abuse I assume that if those who have endured such a betrayal can know the hope of the gospel, there is hope for the rest of us Allender helps his clients to face the evil in their lives head-on with lament Allender writes that one of the goals of the Christian life is not comfort or a pain-free life, rather it is a full-heart He goes on to describe what a full heart is He says, “The singular quality of a full heart is the capacity to take in both grief and joy and to offer to others tears and laughter.”

If we accept God’s will for us to be mature rather than comfortable, then we can see every hardship as an opportunity for a fuller heart When we experience suffering, our capacity to empathize with others’ suffering increases We become quicker to weep with those who weep If we have learned to lament and turn to God with our own pain, we will be able to guide fellow sufferers to meet God in their suffering

Our joyful experiences increase our capacity to rejoice with those who rejoice even when we ourselves are experiencing suffering This is a full-heart, or Christian maturity Even in the midst of our suffering we do not grumble, we do not curse, we are a hopeful people who turn to our heavenly father We do it with the great confidence that he is forming us into full-hearted people that bless those around us.

Second, we look at faith through suffering in Lam 3:19-33

In the text, there is a shift in Lam 3:19-21 Particularly in Lam 3:21 there is a shift from complaint to faith The author writes, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.” Now he rehearses God’s promises “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

The first lesson from this section is that lament is a prayer of faith despite your fear Christian hope does not come from certainty that God will change our circumstances Rather Christian hope comes from what we know is true about God These truths give us hope no matter what our circumstances Our circumstances change, but these truths do not. (DCDM)

This is what is look like to rehearse truth in Lamentations 3:19-33 Lam 3:22, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.” Lam 3:23 “[the mercies of the LORD] are new every morning.” V.25 “the LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” The author waits expectantly for “the salvation of the LORD” in v.26 because v.31 “the Lord will not cast off forever.” V.32 “He will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;” v.33 He does not afflict from his heart.” Lam 3:33 suggests that God is not at the core of his being equally justice and compassion He judges because it is necessary Compassion and mercy are what he enjoys!

A second lesson from this section is that the author’s hope is not based on wishful thinking, rather on God’s promises The promise of restoration was quite a package Before the destruction of Jerusalem and exile in Babylon, God had already promised Israel return In the restoration package, God promised a New Covenant (which is a new kind of relationship), the coming of the Messiah to offer the forgiveness of sins Even in the OT, people could place their trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins

A third lesson from this section is that good theology leads to suffering differently In Lam 3:27, he writes, “It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth.” Then in Lam 3:30, “Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes and let him be filled with insults….” We can understand these statements this way. If hardship leads to Christian maturity, let it come early in life! If suffering leads to a full heart that is quicker to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice, let suffering strike me once more!

Application: To go from complaint to trust, we Need to Hope in the Right Thing, and believe the right things

First, we need to hope in the right thing If we strive to have more of God during a hardship, we will always be satisfied This is the good news about Lament God gives us a tool to stir up our faith No matter what comes our way, we need to continue to pursue God through Lament Now, for those who are feeling hopeless and have not thought much about God in their suffering, Lament is the journey to God Lament can show us that we were hopeless because our hope was in the wrong thing. When we become accustomed to Lament, we learn to rest in the abundance of his providence Our hearts will treasure his promises more than what he does not promise, and we will become hopeful, like we see in Lamentations 3

Second, Lamentations 3 teaches that theology matters In the midst of heartache, having a robust theology of God, his justice and love anchors us We should not think that logic and facts will necessarily change our feelings The practice of meditation on the scriptures renews our minds and trains us for hardship When hardship comes, it will be less likely to destabilize us One definition of maturity is that you remain yourself when things get hard The author of Lamentations like Horatio Spafford holds this tension An all powerful and loving God allows horrible things to happen, and he is still all powerful and loving The author of Lamentations in the middle of a crisis says, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” This can be our cry of faith in the midst of hardship

Now, very concretely One of the hardest aspects of being a Christian is having adult relatives, or children who have turned their back on God It is a matter of great heartache, and an area where we can encourage each other God does not promise us that all our children will be born-again but with the LORD is our Hope If anyone will save them it is him and not us Faith is accepting that God is God and accepting our limits Faith includes rejoicing in God’s amazing grace of salvation while also longing to see God perform a miracle on our relative’s hearts! If we do not ignore this hardship, and turn to God, his grace and judgment allow our hearts grow in joy and sorrow We become quicker to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn Our spiritual growth is made possible because of our hardship It does not make our hardship go away This is the Christian life, and God uses this painful and joyful process to work through us to bring about a blessing around us

Lam 3:34-66 Not Happy ever after

The text does not end with a happily ever after Life is messy and the Bible is honest Lam 3:34-36 includes a combination of wrestling with God’s justice, suffering, enjoying some intimacy with God and an imprecatory prayer It is not about mastering the skill of Lament to master all the suffering in your life Life remains messy Sin is ongoing (Lam 3:42) We have to deal with the ongoing consequences of our sin (Lam 3:43, 47) The ending of Lamentations 3 following a confession of great hope highlights the messiness of the Christian life While we keep turning to God, we continue to sin, enjoy his presence, and suffer at the hands of others

In 2015, a young church planter in the US returned home from the gym and found that his pregnant wife had been shot dead in a home burglary gone wrong This is an obvious story of a man who loves Jesus who is going to live with this horrific trauma for the rest of his life Jesus is the cure to brokenness but in this life, we will know persecution

The third section of Lamentations 3 is messy, and this is life On this side of glory there are no guarantees But just because things don’t go according to our plan, does not mean that the suffering is not part of God’s plan God’s plan is that we would know him more No amount of suffering changes God’s plan In many ways, suffering can be the perfect environment for God to fulfill his purposes in us Sin is never God’s will, but if because of a sin, we turn to God and rely more heavily on him, in a twisted kind of way, God though not glorified by our sinning, can be glorified through our sin

Conclusion

Lamentations 3 is amazing and messy! In life we can look around and feel hopeless and still hope springs from truth rehearsed God remains true to his promises and true to his character His mercies are new every morning!

Lament is the song we sing between pain and trust Lament is not the opposite of praise it is the journey from suffering to trusting Already in the times of Lamentations, God had promised Israel’s restoration and a Messiah who would come and reign Now for us applying Lamentations 3 in our lives means clinging to Jesus Rejoicing about the forgiveness of sins that he provides for us even when life is complicated even if the rest of our days on earth will likely include pain.