Responding to God When Life Stinks

Introduction

I am sure most of us here tonight have watched or at least heard of the show Funniest Home Videos. I have seen them and often i see more pain than true humor and you wonder what kind of consequences they had to endure after. With the invention of YouTube and now social media at large a plethora of “home videos” can be seen that have specific consequences with some of those being severe.

When I was 16 if a video had been in the gym with me and someone recording they would have witnessed me doing something that resulted in painful consequences that went beyond the pain in my wrist which I broke falling from trying to dunk by jumping off a bench. We had vacation just a couple weeks later and I could not do certain things like I wanted to do. Life was in my mind a little more at times miserable.

Here in our text tonight we are looking at the last chapter of Lamentations. Each chapter is a lament and acrostic other than the chapter we are looking at this evening. Lamentations 5 is a lament that does not use an acrostic. It is consistent with the number of verses and matching the Hebrew alphabet.

Lamentations was written by Jeremiah in lamenting over the suffering and circumstance of Israel. You can pick up a few themes from Lamentations. We see God is a faithful God who keeps his promises. We see that the only lasting way to deal with suffering is through deep and living faith regardless of what is going on around us.

Tonight we are going to look at a couple related ideas that should drive us to a proper response to God when life stinks.

These themes are that sinners sin, sin destroys society, God’s blessings do not come when sin is present and we are subject to discipline from God. Specifically our text tonight hones in on the idea that suffering comes from rebelling against God and only God can do the work of restoration.

Our main truth tonight focuses on this and connects it to God’s character of faithfulness seen in Lamentations 3:22 (“22 The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.”).

The main truth is:

Evaluate your life and repent knowing God is the faithful restorer.

I. The consequences of sin stink due to suffering.

Jeremiah begins this final lament with calling out to God to remember them. Have you ever felt forgotten by someone? We all at some point in our lives have probably had a feeling of someone completely not caring about us because they have not talked to us in a long time.

Jeremiah felt this way about God. The sin in Israel had been so ongoing and unconfessed that it seemed in spite of God’s promises that God no longer was with Judah. He felt as though God had abandoned them. So I will rephrase my earlier question, have you ever felt as though God was not present? This feeling comes from a life that is living with unconfessed sin. See, when we are living righteously we are confident God is with us. Sin creeps into our minds and distorts our thinking to mentally conclude God does not care and is no longer present in our lives. Jeremiah is clear that the sin is because of sin. Sin brings consequences and they are never good! The writer of Hebrews tells us that we receive discipline from the Lord when we sin. How we respond to life amid our sin matters to our relationship with God. The suffering that comes from sin hurts differently than the suffering we receive because of righteous living. When because of our sin it hurts because it is self-inflicted and we are at odds with our heavenly father. When difficult times are present due to God ordained trials then we know God is seeking to mature us and it is God working in us and guilt does not come along with the trial. Can we sin and fail spiritually in the trial and the trial becomes messy due to our sinful response to the trial—yes, definitely. However the same truth holds. Much of the difficulty now in the trial is not the trial but a result of the sin you committed in the trial.

Jeremiah describes physical fatigue and exhaustion. He describes hunger, thirst, crime, lack of food, slavery, and family erosion. All of this he admits is the bearing of their fathers sin.

Jeremiah is simply appealing and lamenting wanting God to take notice of their situation.

Do you want God to give you the attention or are you looking for another way out?

Have you become content in your sin?

Israel had been conquered by the enemy and life was hard. We as God’s church face an enemy of a different look. Ultimately we face the same foe but by different operation. We do not have physical wicked nations coming after us and taking us into captivity here in the USA. We face some physical opposition but not like Judah did. Our opposition is spiritual as Paul discusses in Ephesians 6.

Are you aware enough or do you even desire to be aware of where you are being attacked spiritually and how you possibly have given in?

No one like to live in a stinky home. No one likes to be around stinky people. Is the suffering in your life today due to unconfessed sin? Does God feel distant this evening?

This description paints a life that stinks. No one here this evening would desire this to be the kind of life they choose to have. No one enjoys living in loneliness and despair. No one like to be forgotten or trodden over and treated poorly. No one likes to be without the comforts of life. No Christian enjoys the feeling of being forgotten by God. Judah had been deserted and betrayed by those they thought were friends. They had made alliances with heathen nations and thought they had friends that were not truly their friends. They had misplaced their trust and inter-married with nations that God had told them not to marry.

Because of sin Judah’s reputation had been dirtied. They had flaunted their sin in God’s face and had not repented. They had become apathetic to the covenant relationship they had with God. Because of this they had lost their hope and joy.

II. The consequences of sin stink due to the loss of joy and hope.

In this next section, Lamentations 5:12-17

Lamentations 5:12–17 (NASB95)

12 Princes were hung by their hands; Elders were not respected. 13 Young men worked at the grinding mill, And youths stumbled under loads of wood. 14 Elders are gone from the gate, Young men from their music. 15 The joy of our hearts has ceased; Our dancing has been turned into mourning. 16 The crown has fallen from our head; Woe to us, for we have sinned! 17 Because of this our heart is faint, Because of these things our eyes are dim;

the voice of Jerusalem is crying out with a tone of no hope, no joy. Jerusalem admits that the circumstances they find themselves in is because of God’s wrath. God hates sin and promises throughout scripture to judge and punish sin.

Apart from God, living in sin is lonely whether you are a Christian or not. For the believer it is lonely because your fellowship has been broken with God. Judah, a part of Israel, was God’s chosen and they are here stating how alone they truly believed they were because of God’s wrath on their sin. Israel and the church are not the same entity but we are both in separate times chosen by God to accomplish his purposes.

Sin will steal your joy. Sin will steal your hope. In the previous ministry God had me serving him in, I attended a funeral of a family member connected to the church and during the funeral a man was in the front row wailing without hope. He was a man lost in his sin never having placed his faith in Christ. He had no hope and no joy. True hope and true joy only come from God.

Yesterday I shared a story of an event that happened in my life in high school where I was on a mission trip with my family and we were in the jungle of South America. The mission station had a gutter system that ran around the station and connected to the river. We were playing soccer with the native kids and the ball was moving quickly to the gutter so I sprinted to kick it and keep it from going in. I succeeded in keeping the ball out but I failed in keeping myself out. I sat in this filthy, may I say, brownish water and I was so dirty no one wanted to come near me and I had to rinse off in the river with a bar of soap before I could enter the house to shower.

Sin is the same way. It will isolate and bring loneliness. It causes one to lose joy and hope. When continued unchecked it will become a heavy burden and begin to crush you (5:15). Sin causes unfathomable consequences. Sin brings stinky consequences.

Not all stinky consequences are a result of sin but all sin brings stinky consequences. God told Israel when they entered the promised land that disobedience and rebellion would bring judgment and punishment. This moment in their history was not the first where they found themselves in uncomfortable circumstances. Because of their complaining after leaving Egypt, God made them to have to wander in the wilderness. Moses did not get to enter the promised land because of sin in his life.

What about you? What circumstances or situations do you find in your life today due to unconfessed sin? James 1:14–15 (“14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”) teaches us that sin brings death.

What relationship has been damaged due to sin? What sin is in your life that has hindered your witness for Christ or even your overall countenance? We need to be daily evaluating our lives and asking God to forgive us for sin. Don’t be like Judah who let sin go unchecked for so long the situation they found themselves in became extreme.

All this may sound discouraging. This passage is not an overall encouraging passage. It is Jeremiah lamenting over the sin of Judah. However, Jeremiah petitions God to renew them.

III. The consequences of sin no longer have to stink due to God’s faithful restoration.

Jeremiah begins this final section appealing to God for restored grace and the showing of mercy in his and Judah’s lives.

He begins by acknowledging God’s supremacy and eternality. God is the eternal King and he is the supreme ruler from the beginning of time to the end of time. He begins by praising God for God is.

Based on this acknowledgement of who God is, Jeremiah requests from God as to why he has forgotten them and forsaken them. He asks that God not forsake them but to work in them and restore them to covenant relationship they had with God. He was asking for God to show grace and mercy to Judah.

As Jeremiah finishes here it is interesting that in Lamentations 3 he professes his belief in the loving, merciful faithfulness of God. However, he finishes this lament with a statement of doubt almost. He asks for restoration unless it was too late and that God had completely rejected and forsaken them.

The sin in Israel had gotten so bad that even in the midst of knowing that God is faithful, knowing that God is supreme and sovereign, they struggled with believing that God had forgotten and rejected them.

It is in these final verses we see God’s mercy and compassion. We see the way out of our oppressive sin that so easily besets us. See when we sin our enemy and God’s enemy rejoices.

Jeremiah petitions and appeals to God to make his enemies feel the horrible weight and pressure of the terrible circumstance he and Judah were in.

Jeremiah, Lamentations (3. An Appeal for the Lord’s Restored Favor (5:19–22))

Consequently, Judah suffered because it refused to return to God (Jer 2–6). The response of faith in Lamentations 3:22–24 (“22 The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.”) is one deep in suffering and pain, oppression and social chaos. For the poet serious questions arose, but the answer was that it was not God’s fault but rather was that of the people. Hope is present, but only when it is realized that hope rests in knowing who God is: God is love (3:22; 1 John 4:16). His compassions are new every day, and they reveal his faithfulness (3:23). While many may remain in a state of utter despair, hope is in acknowledging, in that despair, that God is “good to those whose hope is in him” and wait for the “salvation of the LORD” (3:25–26). The prayer of anyone suffering in any capacity should be that of 3:21: “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old” (5:21).

Our way out of the sinful circumstances we often find ourselves in is God! It is acknowledging who he is and living according to His Word. It is going to God and confessing and repenting. It is asking God for his grace in your life in order that we may grow in Christlikeness.

Our main idea this evening is that we need to be evaluating our lives daily and repenting of our sin knowing and believing that God is the eternal and all-powerful restorer.

Like a painting that has been marred and distorted over the years, God comes along as curator and properly cleans the painting and restores it to being like new.

So what about you? How are the circumstances and situations you find yourself in? Are they from concessions you made spiritually?

When life stinks we need to evaluate and repent of sin knowing that God is our restorer.