"Hope" (Lamentations 3)

09/06/26

Not Church As Usual - Love, Acceptance, Truth - JoshuasCrossing.org

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Well, we are in between series right now. Finished out our series on pride. We'll start another series next week or the week after. But it gives us an opportunity to do a couple of standalone messages. And last couple weeks, I feel the Lord has led us to this subject of hope. Having hope. And the thing is, the very idea of hope is that we need it because there's a time of darkness, right? It means there's a time of need. It means that there's just some tough moments that we're going through. So we need to be provided hope. So we're going to take some time this morning and talk about that. We are going to be in an Old Testament passage. So take your Bibles and turn to the book of Lamentations. Lamentations. I know most of you probably read Lamentations this week. If you read your Bible through every year or whatever, you'll run across Lamentations. So because when I said the book Lamentations, you all went, huh? Let's give a little context. It's right in the middle of your Bible, probably about two-thirds of the way through your Bible. But Lamentations is lament, it's grieving. The one who wrote this is God's man, the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah wrote the previous book, of course, the book of Jeremiah, and then he wrote Lamentations right after it. The immediate context of the book is that Jeremiah is writing and grieving, lamenting over the destruction of Jerusalem. This happened in the 6th century B.C. You remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon. They came in and destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple, burned all the important housing there in Jerusalem. This was God's judgment on the people for their sin for those many hundreds of years. And so when we get to this point, the immediate context is the Israelites, their home, Jerusalem, being burned, destroyed, and then almost all of them were taken away into captivity, hundreds of hundreds of miles away into Babylon. Several were left, but almost everybody went away into captivity. So the immediate context is that there is hurt, obviously, for Israel. The extended context is that it applies the things in the lamentations, the grievances, all of that. It applies to God's people who lived after this time and even up now, 25, 2600 years later, to us, God's people, and what we can learn from it. So that's the extended context. If you can imagine, and we can't, if somebody came in and destroyed Texoma and took us all away to go live in a different country, we can't even begin to imagine the devastation. That's what was going on here. So we get to these five chapters in Lamentations, we get to the middle one, the third chapter, and Jeremiah is specifically writing about himself, his suffering. Even though he was God's man and telling the people of Israel at the time that judgment was coming, they didn't listen to him. Not only did they listen to him, the rulers got him, imprisoned him, beat him. It was not a fun time to be God's man during this time. And so this is Jeremiah's chapter in chapter 3. But when we get to the middle of the chapter, the context very specifically for us today is that Jeremiah throws in this thought that there's hope. And I can't imagine how hopeless the Israelites and Jeremiah must have felt. I mean, does it really get much worse than this? Probably not. And so there was a lot of helplessness, a lot of suffering, um, Jeremiah is going to talk about hope, though. And he's going to tell us that there's hope in the middle of suffering, and there's hope in the middle of tragedy. And for many of us, maybe we're not going through something specifically tragic or specifically hopeless, but also there's hope in the middle of, now listen, there's hope in the middle of just the relentlessness of our lives. And sometimes it can just be ongoing, can't it? It just can't catch a break. A little bit like our like our hot weather, you know, it just kind of can't catch a break. Sometimes life can be like that. And Jeremiah's just here this morning just to remind us that there is hope. Sometimes we need to be reminded not to not to give up. Um it's not over. There's hope for us. When um one of my kids was in elementary school, I'm gonna pick on Michael today. Michael was in elementary school, and um we were down in Fort Worth, and we had uh a big school at our church, and we had uh y'all remember the uh you ever go to Iwana? You remember I wana? Okay. We had a competition the end of the year, and I think if I'm it's I wana Olympics, right? That was it. Okay. So I see some of you are just singing the songs already. You're like, I wana, I don't remember them, but that's what it was. Um so we had that that thing where all a bunch of churches and schools came together and had these Iwana Olympics. And um there was a a thing that Michael was in that he was running, it was in this gym, and he ran laps around a bunch of cones, a field of cones, and uh just competition there, and they either started this, Michael will correct me later, I know, because he remembers, I think, but they started a race and had to stop it, or or they ran a race and then somebody who was supposed to be in it wasn't, but they had to start it all over again. And uh me being the dad, I went up to the judges and said, that's not fair. No, I didn't, I'm just kidding. I was the pastor, I couldn't do that. But uh in my heart I was. Um so we start over, and I could tell Michael was tired and all of that. So we started, he started running his laps. He got to the end of the race, and it was that last bell. They didn't have a bell, but it was the last bell, one more lap to go. And I could tell Michael was putting his head down and just he was struggling a little bit, and he was not in first place and all of that. So I yelled out, one more lap, Michael, one more lap. And I can remember it to this day. I can remember seeing his face, and he just got his face was steeled, and he put his head down, and he started running, and it was a really cool moment, and he got first place and all of that. So why did I yell at him? One more lap, Michael, why? Well, let's put it this way. What if I'd have yelled at him as he started to get tired? Michael! 142 laps to go, man! He'd have looked at me and just stopped, right? I'm out. There's not a lot of hope in 142 laps to go, is there? We need hope. We need a lifeline, we need light in the darkness. We need sometimes somebody just to say it's gonna be okay. There's darkness in Israel, there's darkness in Jeremiah's life. It doesn't get much worse than this, but in the middle of this hurt and tragedy, he's gonna provide for us some hope and some principles that I hope is helpful to you. So here we go. Point number one, thought number one. There is hope in simply remembering God. There's hope for us in simply remembering God. And what I mean by that is that there is a God, and he's our God, and there's one God, and everything that is about God. There's hope in just knowing that. So let's read a little bit. Chapter 3, Lamentations, verse number 19 through 21. Of course, Jeremiah writes, Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. So, verse 19 and 20, maybe that's how you feel right now. I just, man, it's just heavy on me. So in verse 21, he says, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. And what he's going to do is he's going to describe God and the things of God, and he's saying, I'm going to call these things to mind, and because of it I have hope. And there is hope if you're struggling this morning. There's hope in just knowing that there is a God and he loves you and all the things about God. Just knowing who God is and that he's your God and loves you. A lot of hope in that. The psalmist wrote about it. I want to read you from Psalm 77. It's not a psalm of David, um it's a psalm of Asaph. Asaph is going to write, has written this psalm, Psalm 77. And I want to read about half of the psalm to you. Um I want you just to sit back and look at the screen, watch your Bible, whatever, however you want to do it, but just let the words of the psalmist Asaph just sink in a little bit. He's going to be reminded, he's going to remind us of who God is. Verse 1. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying, my soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah. Now this is a psalm, a song, and so this is probably a note for the singers and instrumentalists, Sila, pause. We would say in our music today, a rest. And for the reader, a stop and pause. You hold my eyelids opened. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. Been there? I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, Let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart. Then my spirit made a diligent search. Will the Lord spurn forever? You ever feel like the Lord's so far away? You don't want to really want to say it out loud, but where are you, Lord? Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? And then Selah. Then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God? Hope and just remembering who he is. Verse number two, in the day of my trouble I seek the Lord. Verse number three, when I remember God. Verse number thirteen, what God is great like our God? We do get wrapped up in us, in our feelings. It's not fair what I'm going through. We compare ourselves to other people. I'm having financial struggle. They've got it easy. Why am I going through this health stuff? It's not fair, other people don't, and it's just on and on and on. And Jeremiah is saying, just remember God. Just remember God. We used to live in Florida. I used to say a few years ago, but now it's been a lot of years ago. And um Colleen's grandmother lived in North Carolina. Anybody from North Carolina? It's beautiful in North Carolina. Anybody? Nobody, Texas baby. Okay. Okay. One, one, okay. Little town in North Carolina called Franklin. And we used to drive up there to grandmother's house. She lived up in the mountains of North Carolina, and it would take us about eight or nine or ten hours to drive up there. And it was a long drive because the kids were little. So we would drive up there and usually leave first thing in the morning. How many dads like to leave on trips first thing in the morning? I mean, we're getting up early. We're three or four in the morning. We're getting there. We're getting there, all right? Nothing like driving and your whole family sleeping, right? Sometimes good, sometimes you're like, okay, they don't appreciate me at all. But anyway, we usually left first thing in the morning. But one year we, for whatever reason I don't remember, we left around lunch, and uh we didn't get up there till after dark. And I thought of this during the first service, so I've got three kids, I think, in the room right now. Um do you guys remember? This is just for us, so excuse our family for just a minute. About five or ten minutes before we got to grandmother's house. The rock. The rock. Okay. Well, I'll be back with you in a moment. Okay, and there it is. Um I know guests are like, we're never coming back here again. Um well, we got there in the dark that year, and uh when we got there, of course it's up in the mountains. Now it's not up high in the mountains, but the roads are all dark as we go up in the woods, and um it's it's really foggy, it's misty, and uh I can't see much driving along. So to get to grandmother's house, you go through the woods, and the and the the roads are two or three wide, and then they're one wide, and then it narrows down until we get to her cabin. And uh when I was on the streets, when I was on the road driving, uh I got a little scared. I'm a man, I'm gonna say a little nervous, okay? We don't get scared, no. Um and I I couldn't didn't I couldn't see anything. And so what did I do? I kept on the left side I looked at that line, and on the right side I looked at the other line, and I thought, if I just stay in between that and go slow, because there's no other dummies out on this kind of night, just me, stay there and we'll make it. And you know, I think sometimes we get in a place in our Christian life that we just have God to look to. And that's all I have to look to. It's all stormy around me, it's misty and foggy and all that, and sometimes we just get down to it, and God, I'm I'm looking at you. And by the way, we also probably need to slow down a little too. We're speeding up, we're trying to do it. Sometimes God's going, hold on just a minute. I need you just to and I need you to look at me. There's hope in knowing that God is out there, God is with us, and he is our God. That's what Jeremiah said. Now let's go look at our next thought. Jeremiah says, point number two, there is hope for us in the middle of storms. There is hope in God's love and mercies. To remember that God loves us and to remember that he has mercy is great hope. Lamentations chapter 3 is our text. Look at verse 22. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. You know he loves us a lot, right? And you know he never stops loving us. I talk to a lot of parents who are struggling with their kids, maybe with something that's going on with their health, or a real struggle with adult kids. And one of the things I always tell them is, I know you love your kid, but you know what else? God loves him or her even more than you do. It's a great comfort. Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies. His mercies never come to an end. And you know this verse they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. I'll hope in him, he's my because he's my God, but also his steadfast love never ends, and his mercies are always there, and every morning new. So love and mercy. Love and mercy. I want to tell you a quick story about a man that you probably have never heard of, but it's a good reminder. This man's name was Robbie Risner. Robbie Risner was actually Brigadier General Robbie Risner, and he was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. Grew up um north of us here in Tulsa. During the Vietnam War, he was shot down and he was captured in September of 1965, so a long time ago now. And he was kept for the next seven years, four months, and twenty-seven days as a POW, a prisoner of war. Four of those years approximately, he was kept in solitary confinement. Many, many times when he came back from that, he was rescued and came out of that. Many, many times he told us, the American people, that he was tortured over and over again. I gotta tell you, just in this part of the story, I just can't imagine. I think of those who were tortured prisoners of war, I think those who were martyrs for Christ that were burned at the stake. It's gotta be just God's grace for the moment, I assume, because I can't imagine. So he suffered. He came home and he was interviewed. He was on the show, you remember Larry King Live? Um, he was being interviewed by Larry King, and he was asked about those hours and hours of torture that he suffered and how he made it through. And he said he simply prayed this prayer over and over again, Lord Jesus, give me strength to endure this moment. Later he met with President Nixon, uh, obviously when he got home, and President Nixon was listening to him, his story, and he was asking him how he made it through the four years of solitary confinement. His response was faith in God. Faith that God loves me. Through the middle of his hurt and torture and confinement, his big rescue in his mind was, you know, God loves me. Sometimes that's all we have to hang on to is I know God loves me. It doesn't feel like it, it doesn't look like it in the moment, but I know God loves me. So we have hope because of that, his love, but also because of his mercy. God's mercy toward us. You know, mercy, God's mercy toward us started a long time ago. If you're a follower of Christ and you've trusted him as your Savior, you know, mercy started way back at the beginning. Way back before you knew God. You might have walked into a church, a religious setting, you might have you might have had a friend or co-worker that was a Christian that began to share Christ with you, but you knew something was missing just in your life. And you knew that whatever you experienced in life was not it. That didn't fulfill you, and just there was something missing. Maybe you tried religion or loving people or doing good things, good works. You just didn't know. And then you heard about Jesus and what he did for you. And when you heard about him, you knew that he died for you on the cross, took your place on the cross, paid the penalty for your sin, and that he wrapped that all up and said, I'm going to give you salvation and deliverance, not only from your sin, but to me forever. And all you need to do is trust in me. You heard that? And then you trusted in Jesus? Wow, that's mercy. It all started, our relationship started with mercy with Jesus. But now that we're a follower of Christ and living our life now, we still need mercy. Sometimes we need mercy for for dumb things we do. Does anybody understand that? You ever do a dumb thing? And you're like, God, I need mercy right now? Nobody? Just three of us? I saw three people shaking their heads. Okay. We do dumb things. So let me tell you a story. Colleen and I. Colleen and I. When the kids were little, we were in a parking lot at a store. We'd just come out and uh they were little. We had two or three kids at the time. Uh I don't remember we had four, so once we got past two, whatever. Um, and um we were putting all the kids into the van. You remember the years of the minivan? Um soon as those years were up, she's never had a minivan since. I'm not doing the minivan again, but we were putting the um I get three amens on that. That was kind of funny. Um we're putting the kids in the in the van, and somehow we lost track of one of them. Have you ever been there as a parent? Uh yes, you have. You especially. Um you remember the remember those moments of panic? Just that moment? And I don't remember which kid it was, but as I was thinking about it more, um, poor Mikey, I think it was him. I think it was him. So, and uh but you have that moment of panic, and then we we desperately looked around, and he was just behind the van, hanging out. And you know that thank you, Lord. And then years later I can tell a story about it, but what if it had gone different, right? We're in a busy parking lot. And I imagine that scenario has played out many, many times in our life when we'd done things that weren't so smart. We lost control of something, and God said, I got you, I'm looking out for you. God's mercy. But you know, sometimes we need God's mercy, not just because we did dumb things, but because we did sinful things. And we could all raise our hand about sinful things we've done. Just think about all, don't think too much, it'll discourage you, but think of the icky things, the sinful things we've done that nobody knows about, or some people maybe do know about. And I look back on that, and I'm glad God didn't give me justice, what I deserved. But in the moment over and over again, it's mercy and mercy and mercy, and I'm so thankful for that. We should be full of hope because of the mercy of God's character. So if you're discouraged this morning because of the sin in your life, just know you can run to him this morning. There's mercy with him. I'm gonna give you one more. This is for probably many of you this morning. Point number three: there is hope in the waiting. While we're waiting, I don't like waiting. I dare not ask God for patience. You know that old joke. He'll make you go through it. But I don't like waiting. I I want to pray, and God goes, This afternoon, you got it. We'll answer it. That's how I'd like it to work. But in the waiting, there's there's got to be hope. Look how Jeremiah said it in verse number 25. The Lord is good. Lamentations three. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Wait, verse 26, check it out. It is good that one should wait. Not my favorite verse, right? It is good that one should wait quietly for God to deliver for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him, let him put his mouth in the dust. There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes. Let him be filled with insults. Those of you who are waiting, look at verse 31 and 32. For those of you who have been praying for things for months and years, the Lord will not cast off forever. It feels like it. My God, can you please answer this? I can't get through another week. The Lord will not cast off forever, even though it feels like it. But though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. Even in your waiting, there can be hope. Eric, if you'd come, we're gonna have our praise and worship as we leave this morning. I want to talk about that for just a minute and then we'll get into that. By the way, can I remind you again? Our last two minutes when we sing together is very, very important. People are praising the Lord and all those things and having a moment and spending some time with the Lord. Very distracting if you step out and leave. We'll be done in two minutes after that, but just if you'd wait on that. Thank you. So, this waiting thing. I want to share a quick story with you from the book of Genesis. Turn to Genesis 25, or it'll be on the screen behind me. You know the name Abraham, you know the name Isaac, Jacob, Jacob and Esau, the twins Jacob and Esau. Quick story from their life is found in Genesis 25. Genesis 25, verse number 19. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Esau. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah. So they got married, Isaac and Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Padnarum, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. But there was a problem in verse 21, at least from Isaac's point of view, Isaac and Rebekah. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren. That was tough. So he prayed. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. So in answer to prayer, God, she's not able, my wife Rebecca, to have any children. I'm asking you, please give us a child. God ended up, Jacob and Esau. But the part of the story that I want us to see is found at the end of verse number 26. An interesting footnote that said, Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. Well, wait a minute. Verse number 20 says Isaac was 40 years old when they got married. And it just says that he prayed and she conceived and they had children. But verse 26 says they had to wait 20 years. Do you think he was impatient? Do you think they were impatient? There's hope even in the waiting. How many of you, how many of you love Christmas? Love, love Christmas. Me too. I love it. Just to really bother you, Christmas is 15 weeks from Friday. Just to bother you, just to bother you, you're welcome. So we wrap the presents and we put them under the tree, right? Sometimes days before Christmas, sometimes those of you who are mean and cruel weeks before Christmas, and we stare at the presents. And it's so difficult, especially as kids, to wait. Even as adults, we want to see what's in there. But you know it's okay. It's okay to wait. Why? Because we know that Christmas morning's coming. We know Christmas morning's coming, and we get to open that present and we get to find out what's in there. In other words, there's hope. If you never got to look inside, no hope, but you know that day's coming. As a follower of Jesus, you have hope. I'm sorry for what you're going through right now. I'm sorry your heart hurts. I'm sorry that person hurt you. I'm sorry that the timing looks just so strange and God, where are you? I'm sorry you're in that job situation that you prayed so much for, and your adult child and your spouse, and whatever it is that you're praying for, that you're still in the waiting. If nothing else today, just walk out of here. Chin lifted a little bit up, more than when you walked in. Know that God's got you and there's hope. I don't know how it's gonna end, but he's got you, everybody. He's got you. So we're gonna sing in just a moment. Before we do, of course, let's talk to God. Could you bow your heads and close your eyes and just we'll be out of here in a minute. But just respond to him. Surely he's faithful to bring things to mind and remind us of things. Holy Spirit, thank you for that. Just talk to him right now.