Sermon: Lamentations 3:22-24

It is such a pleasure to be together with you on this final Lord’s day of 2018. Today is December 30th and as such, tomorrow night we will celebrate and usher in what we call the ‘New Year’. 

I say “what we call” because tomorrow is only New Years Eve if you are using our Gregorian calendar. If you were using the Chinese calendar for example, then the new year wouldn’t start for another month. If you used the calendar that the ancient Israelites used, your new year would have started 3 months ago! 

So there is a sense in which our new years celebration is artificial and that the morning of January 1st will be just like the morning of December 31st other than an adjustment in the last digit of the year. We tend to hope that isn’t the case though. We tend to hope that January 1st will carry with it some sort of mystical power to help us turn over a new leaf, and so we make new years resolutions. 

We look forward with anticipation as we plan to lose a few pounds, save more money, deepen our faithfulness in prayer and study of the scriptures, share the gospel more, mend broken relationships and improve any other area of our lives that are ripe for change. Once our checklist is complete we have only to wait until the clock strikes 12 and the power to change is unlocked. 

Though this separation between December 31st and January 1st is somewhat artificial, it is however good that we set aside time to reflect on the past and make resolves for the future. It is good that we look at our past year and with optimism seek to change those things. I don’t want to focus on the bright side of new years this morning, though. I want to focus on the dark underbelly; the often unmentioned side of things. 

I want to talk about the sense of hopelessness that New Years Eve can often bring with it. 92% of people fail at their new years resolutions. This means that by next December they will be rehearsing those areas that need fixing in their lives once again, and trying to convince ourselves that THIS will be the time we make the change. 

If you live enough years, and have this experience enough times then what can eventually set in is a sense of hopelessness. As you near the end of another year, you see how many of your hopes have been deferred, how many of the things you’ve been praying for have not yet come to pass, how many of the sins in your life you have yet to conquer. As you go to put up a new calendar on the wall, you may be asking yourself:

“will I ever change?”

“will I ever overcome that besetting sin?”

“will this trial ever end?”

“will I ever be the faithful Christian I aspire to be?”

“will that painful relationship ever be mended?”

If you’ve ever gotten to the end of the year and instead of feeling hope and anticipation for the things that are ahead, you feel loss and hopeless because of the things that have taken place in the past, or even feel that the Lord has abandoned you altogether, then I want to call your attention to the book of Lamentations. 

Here we enter into Israels history at the close of one chapter and the beginning of another. Instead of this transition being from slavery to the promised land like in the book of Exodus, this transition is from the promised land into slavery. 

Many years prior, these Israelites had made certain resolutions to live as God’s people, reflecting his character. In Exodus 19 after God had miraculously delivered his people from under Pharaoh’s slavery in Egypt, He calls them to Himself at Mount Sinai to communicate their identity as His people and give them His code to live by. The people make what we might call a New Years Resolution- they say to Moses “All that the LORD has spoken we will do”. With confidence they resolved to obey the whole law of God. 

God promises them a special land as his special people who will know His peculiar blessing as they walk with him in covenant obedience. 

What we find in the book in the book of Lamentations should shock us then. We find the prophet Jeremiah in dismay, struggling to grapple with the reality that he just saw play out before his eyes. The people had failed in their resolutions- not just once but over and over again for generations- and are now reaping the results of their failures and sin. In this case it was the total destruction of the city and the captivity in the people by the Babylonians.

Jeremiah, as one who was left behind in the desolate city, pens this book to explain what happened. Throughout it, he speaks from the vantage point of many different people: the innocent women and children, the rebellious, the regretful (1:7), the ashamed (1:8), the discouraged (2:1), the weak (2:3) the ungodly leaders (2:14) and the faithful remnant.  

As it was with them, so it is with us. We who belong to the LORD all have different reasons for the discouragement and even hopelessness that we may at times feel. Sometimes it’s owing to the sins of those with whom we are connected, sometimes it’s due to our own sin. Sometimes it can be traced to our frailty and sometimes to our rebellion. 

Everything that was once promised to them seems to have slipped out of their grasp overnight, and they are powerless to regain it. Jeremiah sums up his own anguish with these words: 

my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say “my endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD” (3:17-18).

The destruction of Israel was so utterly devastating that Jeremiah lost all happiness and hope. Because of this, he felt incapable of going on- his endurance had run out. 

He had laboured for the glory of God, and sought to bring change in the nation of Israel as he called the people to repentance and return to God, but now as he sit mourning the city which one was filled with laughter and worship he can’t muster up any strength to press on. 

We see here the connection between hope and endurance. If there is no bright future to look forward to, there can be no endurance through the dark valleys. 

It is into this hopeless heart that the light of God’s truth enters the scene. Just 2 verses later, Jeremiah will say “I have hope”, so what is it that can change a persons complete outlook from hopeless to hope-filled in just a couple verses? Let’s consider together the 3 hope giving truths that turned Jeremiah’s complete perspective around:

1- God’s love is inexhaustible, “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases”

In the midst of great despair, Jeremiah was tempted to call into question whether or not God still loved Him. He was tempted to interpret God based on the circumstances. “Surely if God still loved us He wouldn’t let this happen to us” might be the thought. 

It is at this intersection where we need the objective truth of God to interpret our circumstances and not the other way around. 

God has a certain love for the world as a whole which causes Him to send sunshine and rain and many other common graces for the sustenance of the whole world- even those who don’t call upon His name. 

But Jeremiah here reminds himself that God has a special, loyal love for His people. The original word ‘hesed’ communicates that.This ‘hesed’, here translated “steadfast love” is an enduring love; a love that lays hold of a person and refuses to let them go. A love that is willing to do whatever is necessary to bring about ultimate and lasting joy. Sometimes that means joyful experiences and sometimes that means painful discipline. 

In this case, Jeremiah was experiencing the painful discipline of the LORD but here reminds himself that this is the pain of a spanking and not that of a guillotine . God is here discipling his people in order to prune them. He is allowing them to feel something of the fruit of their rebellion so that they might cherish His love, leadership and provision, and return and cling to him more tightly. 

Far from being the end of God’s love toward His people, this discipline is one of the most pronounced demonstrations of it. What kind of father would allow his children to rebel without discipline? Not a good one! In order to show His commitment to their good and to produce holiness in His people, God disciplines them. Listen to the writer of Hebrews on this matter (Hebrews 12:5-6):

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, 

nor be weary when reproved by him. 

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, 

and chastises every son whom he receives.”

He then goes on to say (v. 11):

^“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. “

As Jeremiah interprets his situation through the lens of God’s covenant keeping love, He finds assurance that He has not reached the end of God’s love, but is in the painful middle of it.

God’s love is inexhaustible.

The second hope giving truth that Jeremiah feeds his soul with is this…

2- God’s mercy can be experienced today…and every day “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning”

This word here translated as “mercies” seeks to communicate the tender care that God has for His people. He treats them generously. He gives graciously. He withholds much of the bad that is due them. 

In the midst of the most colossal destruction that Israel had ever seen, Jeremiah reminds himself that things ought to be so much worse; that given the holiness of God, the covenant they made with him, and their departure from that covenant, the fact that any are left alive is astonishing. 

When you are a child of God, there is a tight line that we are called to walk- embracing and living in the fulness of all that God has kindly stored up for us in Jesus while not becoming entitled and forgetting that even the least of these blessings are indeed gracious gifts and not obligations from God. 

Jeremiah has breath in His lungs and therefore can say that God’s mercies never come to an end. All around us are nestled into our day countless reminders of God’s great mercy to us. He has set up, as it were, a treasure hunt throughout each day. His handiwork and providence are all around us, telling us about how merciful he is. Do you hear it? Do you see it?

The sound of your heart beat can be interpreted as saying “mercy…mercy…”. The warm shower can be felt as the mercy of God washing over you. That phone call from a brother or sister in the Lord is God’s mercy. The meal you will eat later today can be seen as a platter of mercy laid before you if seen through the eyes of faith. The sun rising tomorrow morning is a steady and sure reminder that God is still merciful.

All around us are reminders of God’s mercy, ready to be experience afresh each day. More clearly than anywhere, the mercy of God is seen in the gospel of His beloved Son Jesus. God’s tender care and compassion for us is seen in sending His only son on a rescue mission that would cost Him His life. 

We rebelled against God such that our just penalty was eternal judgment from Him in hell. For God to carry out that penalty would be 100% just and good, however because of His great mercy and compassion He has rescued a people for Himself upon which He lavishes His kindness so that it can be said of us (1 Thes. 5:9-10) “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”. 

Everything that we experience that is short of God’s full wrath is sheer mercy which was purchased for us when Christ bore God’s full wrath on our behalf on the cross. 

So today remember God’s mercy; look for evidences of it throughout your day and throughout your Bible; remind yourself of what you are deserving and glory in the tender compassion of God which keeps that dreadful reality at bay. This will be a solid cure for hopeless.

God’s love is inexhaustible and his mercies can be experienced afresh each day.

Jeremiah then looks to his third reason for hope:

3- God is faithful “great is your faithfulness”

Even in the midst of this tragedy that Jeremiah finds himself in, he has no ground to question the faithfulness of God.

Even though God’s faithfulness to His word is at this time manifesting in the destruction of Israel and the slavery of many, Jeremiah still sees nestled in that a cause for hope- namely that God always does what he says he will do. 

God said back in Deuteronomy 28 and other places what curses would come upon Israel if they turned away in disobedience, and here we see God doing exactly what He said He would even though it brings Him no joy to afflict His people in this way. 

There has never been a word uttered by God which He has not carried out. If God has promised something regarding our future then we can look to the long history recorded in the Bible of the perfect record of God keeping His word and find hope that though He might delay (according to our timing) He will always fulfill His promises. 

Since that be the case, let us be like that persistent widow of Luke 18 and not lose hope, but continually come before God in prayer with faith in His word. Let us push forward putting yet another foot in front of the other since God is faithful and can be trusted at all times. 

Jeremiah has considered the inexhaustible covenantal love of God, the evidences of His mercy that are ready to be experienced daily, and his perfect track record of faithfulness. But all of this would be powerless to produce hope in Jeremiah himself if this final consideration were not true…

4- God is yours “the LORD is my portion says my soul”

Jeremiah’s initial hopelessness just a few verses back are as a result of his current anguish and painful circumstances. The sorrow of the moment has sucked all peace from him and caused him to forget what happiness is. 

He then turns his attention to what he knows to be true about God in order that He might rightly interpret his situation. As he recounts these truths, evidently His soul begins to rejoice and confidently asserts that “The LORD is my portion!”. 

Though all else seems lost, Jeremiah has just turned his gaze to the unchanging God of love and is blown away that He gets to have a personal relationship with this great being. 

The one thing that is most needful for Jeremiah could never be taken- namely a living communion with the living God. In the end we see that true and lasting hope doesn’t come with the changing of a calendar, a behaviour or a relationship but true hope is found in an unchanging God. “When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay”.

Our great and only hope in life and death is that we belong to God and God belongs to us.

We see this glorious truth displayed in the pages of the New Testament also. In Ephesians 1 Paul seeks to fan the hope of the Christians in Ephesus and he does so by praying that they would come to intimately know the attributes of God and then know that this awesome God gave his son “as head over all things to the church”. 

This is glorious reality! The king over all the universe and beyond has been given as the head of the Church that we Christians are members of. Not only is God great, but this great God acts for our good in everything He does. 

As we pull this all together we see that Jeremiah withdrew his hope from his circumstances and placed it in His God. He looked to the character and actions of God as a sure indicator that he could continue to look to God rely on Him, and know the hope that He alone gives.

That will be the path of hopeful obedience and transformation in your life also. 2 Corinthians puts it this way:

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

As we look ahead to the coming year let us remind ourselves that our hope is not to be found in any thing or event. We ought not to stake our happiness on achievements. Rather we ought to resolve to look to God who’s love is inexhaustible, who’s mercies can be experienced daily, whose record of faithfulness is without blemish and who has graciously given himself to us. Let us hope in that God; let us look to that God; and as we do, we will find ourselves more and more resembling that God as we look forward with great anticipation for the day when we meet Him face to face.

Let’s pray.