Lament, You Who Regret

ME (A hook):

When I was in seminary,

I got connected with this prison program designed to help people re-enter society.

It is called Jail to Jobs.

It is a really helpful program,

Yet the statistics show how the number of repeat offenders still remains high.

Because this program taps into the regrets of prisoners.

They wish they would not have done what they did,

Wish they were born into different circumstances,

Wish they could get out of prison,

Have better friends,

More opportunities,

Specifically, the opportunity to get a job.

They are filled with all this regret.

And programs like this have proven to be marginally helpful.

However, the frequency of people who return to prison shows us,

How being sorry for something,

Is not always proof of a changed life.

Since then,

I have found another program called Pathway to Freedom.

The foundation of this program teaches prisoners how to find release from spiritual imprisonment.

Guilty, tried, convicted prisoners,

From the solitude of loneliness,

Are granted the gift of reflection.

They are asked questions about where they are going,

And what is next,

Not just in a temporary sense,

But in an eternal sense.

So, from the darkness of prison,

Their laments leads them to the hope of Christ.

And although they are locked up,

They find true freedom.

Now, the statistics of this program still aren’t perfect,

But comparatively,

The number of repeat offenders is much lower than programs that neglect the reality of spiritual imprisonment.

So, this demonstrates how lament is greater than regret.

This morning,

We come to the final chapter of Lamentations,

Which is a call to Lament, You Who Regret.

Jeremiah ends the book,

Rehearsing the continued effects of Jerusalem’s humiliation,

Before making a final plea for restoration.

Jeremiah’s prays three prayers in this final lament,

Expressing regret for all that has taken place in this rebellious nation,

For how bad things were because the people were seeking to do things their way.

Jeremiah’s lament leads him to the hope of God’s grace.

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His three prayers are...

Remember our disgrace (vs. 1-18)

Reign forever, our Lord (vs. 19-20)

Restore us to You, Lord (vs. 21-22)

Lament leads to the hope of God’s grace,

Lament leads to Christ.

The majority of Jeremiah’s final song is retelling this series of complaints,

There does not seem to be a formal or intentional structure,

Rather, this series of regrets seems to just flow out of Jeremiah as he writes.

Almost like he is giving this rapid-fire list summarizing all the grief in Jerusalem.

WE Remember Our Disgrace (Why does this matter to us?):

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It is not necessarily a “happily ever after” conclusion to Lamentations.

It leaves us with lingering questions.

It does not give us this sense of closure,

Or a satisfying ending.

But it gives us something better.

It leads us to where we must put our hope when we are in pain.

Lamentations has taught us about the reality of our broken world,

And a holy God.

It has taught us that hope comes from rehearsing truth,

And idols are revealed through hardship.

Now, as we come to the final chapter,

We see how lament reorients us spiritually,

Showing us the way to this holy God,

Through His gospel of grace.

One commentator calls lament the road map to God’s grace.

Lamentations does not end with the destruction of Jerusalem being resolved.

But when suffering seems to linger,

Lamentations helps to point us in the right direction.

Really, in this final chapter,

More questions keep coming,

And no answer is given by the time the book ends.

Yet, Jeremiah’s last words are this hopeful prayer amid this uncertainty.

He is looking to God for hope.

So, Lamentations helps us to deal with the knots of pain in our lives.

What we find, however,

Is the answers to our prayers and painful questions are slower than we hope.

So, lament is the language we use to bridge the gap.

Because lament tells us where to look,

And whom to trust,

When life is filled with pain and uncertainty.

When brokenness intrudes,

Lament lifts your head,

Takes your tear-filled eyes,

And points them toward the only hope we have:

God, and His grace.

The darkness of suffering tempts us toward prayerlessness.

But lament resists this temptation,

Empowering us to keep praying,

To keep crying out to God.

This is what Jeremiah’s example invites us to do.

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His first prayer,

Remember our disgrace,

Begins the chapter.

This is a communal lament.

Jeremiah is asking God to remember what happened to the people.

But when He prays this,

He is not just asking God to bring something to mind,

Or to not forget.

He is asking God to see,

And understand what has happened to the people.

For God to remember encapsulates the essence of His grace to His people as the Keeper of the covenant.

So, Jeremiah’s prayer is a request for action!

For God to intervene on the basis of His love and promises.

The Bible frequently connects God’s redemptive work to His remembering.

For example,

After the flood in Genesis,

Chapter 8 begins by saying “God remembered Noah.”

And when God speaks to Noah in ch. 9 about never destroying humankind in a flood again,

He says,

“I will remember My covenant that is between Me and you.”

Another example,

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When David cried out to God for mercy,

He says in Psalm 25:6-7,

Psalm 25:6–7 ESV

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

So, Jeremiah is asking God for grace on the basis of God’s character.

He is seeking assurance from God that this destruction is not pointless.

He is acknowledging that the people are needy,

And he is simply asking God for help!

He has been humbled by his disgrace.

You ever notice that when we cry,

We tend to try and hide our tears?

Why?

Because we tend to feel embarrassed about crying.

Crying is a humbling thing.

And oftentimes,

It is a byproduct of how humbling hardship is.

For Jeremiah here,

Jerusalem is no longer in the immediate agony of Babylon’s siege.

But they are still in a state of affliction.

The suddenness of the attack on their land,

Has given way to an extended harsh and humiliating oppression.

The temple is still devastated,

The leaders are still humiliated,

The city is still destroyed,

The nation is still in ruins.

And Jeremiah does not run from the shame of sorrow.

Rather, he shows how lament is greater than regret,

By accepting it.

Lament pierces through the darkness to see the grace of God’s remembrance.

But seeing God’s grace,

Requires us to accept our own disgrace.

And that is what Jeremiah does for the majority of this song.

It is a pretty dismal picture.

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In vs. 2

Jeremiah says foreigners have invaded and destroyed the city.

The inheritance, mentioned here, is the land itself.

And it was not just any inheritance,

It was their inheritance from God.

God was the owner of the land,

And He had given it to them,

To occupy according to His law,

And for His purposes.

He had led them to drive out foreigners from the land originally.

Then,

Throughout their time in the land,

God required them to maintain obedience,

And to hold fast to Him,

In order to remain in possession of the land.

But to their disgrace,

They didn’t,

And now,

This has all been turned upside down.

God has given the land,

Their inheritance,

To strangers and foreigners.

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As a result,

The people are now in a precarious position,

They feel abandoned.

They are desolate, dependent,

And without protectors,

Like orphans and widows, vs. 3 says.

Back in Deut. 14, God commanded the people to care for orphans and widows.

Because their status essentially denied them access to the land’s produce.

So, Jeremiah is saying,

That this is what the status of the people in Jerusalem is like now.

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Because survival in the land is very hard now.

They once owned everything.

But as an ironic reversal of what God had done for them,

How He had given them cisterns that they did not dig,

They now have to pay the foreigners for water and wood.

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Jeremiah continues in vs. 5,

Saying the people are closely pursued,

Leaving them exhausted.

This lack of rest is once again a reversal of blessing God promised them,

But now they have both physical and spiritual unrest.

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The people lost their inheritance,

And were suffering from unrest,

Leaving them appealing to Egypt and Assyria to get enough food.

Not only was this humiliating,

But it was dangerous to depend on these nations.

Not to mention,

It shows that they were still placing their trust in people and nations rather than God.

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Then, vs. 7 expresses this connection between generations.

The same connection summarized in the Ten Commandments,

Where God said,

Exodus 20:5 (ESV)

You shall not bow down to [idols] or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

Then, 1 and 2 Kings goes on to detail the history of guilt that accumulated across these generations.

Until the prophet, Ezekiel, warned in Ezekiel 18,

How those who share in their ancestors judgment,

Do so,

Because they have shared in their ancestor’s sins.

So, the point is that each generation is bearing the consequences of its own sin,

Not only the consequences of the previous generations sins.

Therefore, it is no use blaming the previous generations,

The people must admit their own disgrace,

They must admit that they have sinned.

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But before Jeremiah gets there,

He continues to rehearse the people’s disgrace.

When Babylon invaded,

They already had servants.

These servants ended up ruling over the Israelites.

And there was no one to rescue them from these servants.

So, again,

This was an ironic distortion of the relationship between God,

His people,

And the nations.

Israel is a people set free from slavery.

But because they were not serving the true God,

They voluntarily put themselves in bondage.

This is how Lamentations started.

“She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.”

This slavery is contrary to God’s ultimate design for His people.

They became a nation when God delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

But now,

The blessing of living in the Promised Land,

And serving God,

Has been replaced with the punishment of exile,

Forcibly serving the Babylonians and their servants.

All because they broke their covenant with God,

Leaving them in disgrace.

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Now, desperation and hunger are everywhere,

Even in the wilderness.

The sword in vs. 9 could be referring to robbers who lived in the wilderness,

Taking advantage of the people in their weakened state.

So, even if there was a harvest in Jerusalem,

These predators were still a threat to raid the people.

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People, whose skin is as hot as an oven,

Because they are suffering from fevers,

Caused by extreme hunger.

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Then, beginning in vs. 11,

Jeremiah gives a series of pictures of shame,

To show how no one in Jerusalem was left unscathed.

First, vs. 11 talks about how women were violated.

It says specifically young women were raped.

Young women refers to virgins.

For them to get raped means their virginity is being forcibly taken from them.

This tragic offense leaves them carrying immense amounts of shame.

But it is amplified even more in this culture,

Because despite having their virginity taken from them,

It was still considered shameful to lose your virginity outside of marriage.

Making the consequences multi-layered, complex, and inexplicably painful.

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The next picture of shame in vs. 12,

Is princes and elders being dishonored.

It says princes are being hung up by their hands,

And elders are not being respected.

If a prince is hung up by his hands,

He is either being tortured or executed.

It was an intentional position used to show this person with supposed power,

Is left completely exposed and vulnerable.

Likewise, elders are meant to be men of good reputation,

But the lack of respect is shameful.

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The final picture of shame in vs. 13,

Shows how oppression rules the day.

It talks about young men being compelled to grind at the mill.

This was a degrading work for a young man,

It was the work of a slave.

For example,

Judges 16:21 says,

Judges 16:21 (ESV)

And the Philistines seized [Samson] and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison.

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Next, vs. 14 conveys how the normal state of life in Jerusalem, including celebrations,

Has all come to an end.

The gate is where legal and social interactions took place,

But now, it is deserted.

Likewise, the light-hearted pleasure of young men,

Like making music,

Has been replaced by the harsh life of grinding at the mill,

And staggering under loads of wood.

All joy has left the hearts of the people.

All merriment has been turned to mourning.

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The glory of Jerusalem has vanished.

That is what vs. 16 illustrates.

The crown represents the honor and glory of Jerusalem among the nations.

And it has fallen from their head.

Because they have sinned.

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All the events described up to this point,

Has made the people’s hearts sick,

And their eyes dim.

They are losing their vitality.

Hopelessness has set in.

Then in vs. 18,

Jeremiah comes full circle.

Not just in this chapter,

But for the entire book.

Lamentations began by saying,

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people!”

Now, as he starts to wind down,

He again says,

“Mount Zion lies desolate.”

This has been a key theme of Lamentations,

The scandal of God’s chosen city,

Lying destroyed and abandoned,

So much so,

That their is no shelter or sustenance to be found.

Instead, this once magnificent city now has wild animals roaming the streets.

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Rehearsing the pain of disgrace is the prominent tone of this chapter.

But there is a purpose behind this.

Jeremiah is in rapid fire mode as he lists all the disgrace.

Because this is the background of his request for God to remember.

Now, I don’t know about you,

But in my experience,

This tension of rehearsing our own disgrace,

And asking for God’s grace,

Is something that many of us are not very comfortable with.

We tend to keep the reasons for our pain and sorrow hush hush.

But the reality is,

Restoration does not come when we remain in denial.

Could you imagine what it would look like,

If as believers,

We all confidently walked into the darkest moments of life,

To help guide others toward God’s grace,

By being willing to accept the reasons for our pain.

Several years ago,

As police shootings of black men became a lightning rod around this country.

An article was published titled,

“Why Charlotte Exploded and Tulsa Prayed.”

The article talks about the shootings of Terence Crutcher and Keith Lamont Scott.

Crutcher was shot in Tulsa, OK and Scott was shot in Charlotte, NC.

The responses in these two cities ended up being radically different.

In Charlotte,

Protests quickly turned violent.

But in Tulsa,

Metropolitan Baptist Church opened its doors for a prayer vigil.

It became a place to lament,

To call upon God to remember.

Tension was bubbling up in both Tulsa and Charlotte.

People were looking for a place to cry out and share their pain.

In Charlotte,

This place became the streets of the city,

Elevating the tension and hostility to violent levels.

But in Tulsa,

It became a lament service at this church.

As people came,

The pastor distributed index cards for people to write out their pain and frustrations,

And post them on the walls around the church.

In this instance,

Pastor Owens did not just become a comforter for the city,

He led the people to lament.

That is what we see in Lamentations.

A person stepping into the pain and sorrow of the people.

As NT believers,

We are better positioned to do this same thing.

Because we know the full story of God’s remembering.

We should be the ones leading the way in talking to God about the reasons for pain.

Lament walks us through the reason for our pain,

By asking God to remember our disgrace.

GOD Reign Forever, Our Lord (Teach the text):

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This is the primary prayer in this chapter,

But it is not the only prayer.

The second prayer of Jeremiah,

Is “Reign Forever, Our Lord,”

For 18 verses,

Jeremiah rehearses in painful detail how the city was utterly wrecked and devastated.

“But,”

Jeremiah says in vs. 19,

You, O Lord, reign forever!

Your throne, God,

Endures to all generations!

Though the royal status of the people is no more,

Because,

As vs. 16 says,

The crown has fallen from their head,

God’s royalty remains forever!

As Jeremiah prepares to conclude this book,

He gives another example of reorienting his spirit.

Jeremiah brings what he believes in his mind,

Through his emotional resistance,

To take root in his heart.

He confesses that God is sovereign over everything,

Including his pain.

Jeremiah affirms who God is and what He is doing.

He reminds himself that everything happens according to God’s good and perfect and pleasing will.

That God is still on His throne,

And is still in control.

This is not only true for Jeremiah,

It is true for us today.

Every event in your life,

And in this world,

Moves toward the fulfillment of God’s good and perfect and pleasing will.

Because He reigns forever!

Jeremiah often rehearses this key truth of God’s character.

For example,

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God spoke through Jeremiah in Jer. 32:27-28,

Jeremiah 32:27–28 ESV

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? Therefore, thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall capture it.

God foretold Jeremiah that this trouble would happen to Jerusalem.

And after listing all the troubles that were the result of this prophecy’s fulfillment,

Jeremiah confesses,

“But you, Lord, reign forever.”

This is incredibly comforting.

Life so often seems completely out of control,

And in those especially chaotic seasons,

God feels distant,

While evil feels incredibly pervasive.

Perhaps you have felt this way.

I know that I have.

But even if you somehow can’t relate to this feeling.

You either have,

Or will walk with someone,

Who is struggling with seemingly cruel circumstances of life.

So, Lamentations shows us that God is still sovereign.

Your suffering does not mean God has stepped off His throne to take a day off.

He is still in control,

Even when life gets difficult.

Lament assures you of this,

When darkness seeks to overwhelm you.

I have had several nights,

Where I am laying in bed,

Thinking about all the trying circumstances in my life,

And my simple refrain is,

“God, help me!”

“I feel helpless and overwhelmed,”

“And I am unsure what to do,”

“So, I am trusting in You!”

Friends, every day is filled with uncertainty.

And when you add pain to that uncertainty,

It makes it that much more overwhelming.

So, Lamentations helps us to trust in the God,

Who wrote the rest all of this Book.

Because although the future was unclear for Jeremiah,

He confessed His trust that God reigns.

Today,

We have the NT.

And in it,

We see God reigning over the cruel death of His only Son.

The cross was all part of God’s plan.

So, if God can take the most unjust situation in all of human history,

And use it to redeem fallen humanity.

Then we can,

Like Jeremiah,

Confess,

“Our Lord reigns forever!”

Even if you don’t understand how God is using a hardship in your life,

Which is often the case,

You can still trust that He is in control.

I am certain if you reflect on challenging seasons in your past,

You can see how He was reigning.

So, today,

And into the future,

When the weight of hardship feels overwhelming,

Remind yourself of the truth of God’s sovereign character,

Specifically,

That God reigned through the cross.

Bring this truth in your head,

Through your emotional resistance,

To take root in your heart.

God gave you this redemptive story in His Word,

To be a beacon of light,

Showing you the way through the darkest experiences of your life.

Let Lamentations encourage you toward this.

Don’t allow your pain to reign on the throne of your life.

Remind yourself,

That God is on the throne.

As Jeremiah demonstrates here,

Prayerfully celebrate the reality of God’s reign,

Today, tomorrow, and forever.

Even if you have no idea how a current difficulty might resolve,

And no matter how strong the pain is,

It cannot interrupt God’s good and perfect and pleasing will.

Because God still reigns.

So, even if you have tears in your eyes,

Keep praying to God.

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Even if your prayer is a lament that asks God, “why?”

As Jeremiah asks in vs. 20,

Why God, do you continually forget your people?

Jeremiah shows us,

It is not easy to exit from pain.

Especially the level pain he has expressed throughout this book.

Yet, after affirming God’s character,

That God is sovereign,

That He is, and always will be, on His throne,

And that He has been on His throne in the midst of all that pain,

Shows how lament leads you to the hope of God’s grace.

Lament is this balance that asks God about the pain,

While still praising Him for who He is,

That He is good and merciful.

YOU Restore us to You, Lord (Response):

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The third and final prayer in this chapter is,

“Restore us to You, Lord.”

This chapter is not only the longest lament in this book,

It is the longest lament in the entire Bible.

And Jeremiah ends it with a prayer for restoration.

As we have seen throughout Lamentations,

Lament cries out to God.

It asks Him for deliverance,

Saying,

“God, I am in pain!”

“I need Your help!”

This is how the entire book ends.

With a lament that leads us to the hope of God’s grace.

Jeremiah’s prayer is asking God to change the state of the people.

To restore them,

Bringing them back to Himself,

That they may return.

Twice here Jeremiah uses the word, restore.

He does not specify what this restoration looks like.

But it is the idea of returning or turning back.

Meaning, Jeremiah likely has repentance and spiritual restoration in mind.

This has been the central message of his entire prophetic ministry.

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Look at what he he said back in Jer. 31:18.

Jeremiah 31:18 ESV

I have heard Ephraim grieving, ‘You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for you are the Lord my God.

Closely intertwined to this request for restoration,

Is the desire for renewal.

Jeremiah’s request for renewal is asking for the favor and blessing of God.

But its about more than just rebuilding the city.

It is a desire for heart-based renewal.

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Like what David prayed in Psalm 51:10,

Psalm 51:10 ESV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

These prayers demonstrate genuine repentance and faith.

If we want the same restoration and renewal.

We must have the same repentance and faith.

Because only God can restore people.

And we will only enjoy life to its fullest,

When God restores us.

So, turn from your sin,

And turn toward God in trust.

This is what Jeremiah had been pleading with the people to do.

And he could have ended Lamentations on vs. 21.

But he didn’t,

Because the people didn’t repent.

So, God destroyed Jerusalem,

To awaken their hearts and bring them back to Himself.

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Therefore, Jeremiah ends with the tone of God’s judgment.

Continuing his prayer from vs. 21,

Jeremiah says, “unless,”

“God,”

“You have completely rejected us,

Because You remain intensely angry with us.”

Now, this is not a despairing conclusion.

It provides the necessary fullness to his final prayer.

Each poem in this book comes from this place of severe grief and sorrow over the experience of God’s anger.

The people were unfaithful,

And God used pain to renew them.

So, each poem also points to God’s compassion,

As the reason for assurance of future deliverance.

God will restore and renew His people.

Lamenting through the pain reorients our hearts and spirits to this truth.

So, Jeremiah’s final lament agrees with God about what we need,

And what God has promised.

It is a prayer that leads us to God’s grace.

Jeremiah never saw the fulfillment of this prayer.

But we are fortunate to see it from this side of the cross.

Jeremiah’s prayer for restoration and renewal trusts in something that only God can do.

He shows how,

Lament tunes our hearts to ask God for more than just,

“Make the pain stop.”

Rather,

It compels us to pray,

“Remember our disgrace,”

“Reign forever, our Lord,”

And “Restore us to Yourself, God!”

When we lament like this,

It reveals to us our greatest need of all,

Our need to be made right with God.

WE (Paint a picture of the future):

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So, lament is the language used by people who trust in God’s whole story.

Today, we have God’s gospel story.

Therefore, we have all the more reason to speak this hopeful language of lament.

We know how sin has brought death and suffering into the world.

So, Lamentations ends,

Pointing us forward to the gospel.

Where Jesus was utterly rejected by God,

Because of His anger toward our sin.

Our sorrows lead us to the Man of sorrows.

Jesus is the only answer to every source of pain.

Every hurt, every tear, every loss reminds us of the brokenness caused by sin,

That something is terribly wrong with our world,

And something is terribly wrong with us.

We know sin and our disgrace is the cause of the pain beneath lament.

But we also know God’s grace shines bright through the darkness of suffering.

Because God’s Son left heaven on a mission,

To be born as a human,

Live a perfectly obedient life,

And die on a cross to provide us restoration.

As Jesus hung on the cross,

He drank every last drop of God’s anger toward our disgrace.

It was the darkest day in human history,

But it changed everything!

And after He died,

He was buried in a tomb,

But it could not stick.

Three days later,

His empty tomb declared His victory over sin, death, and the devil,

Completely transforming the way we view pain and suffering in this life.

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As Rom. 8:18 says,

Romans 8:18 ESV

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

So, brothers and sisters,

As we suffer,

We lament,

Waiting for the future day when Christ’s victory will be experienced in its fullness.

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We embrace this language of sorrow that bridges the gap of uncertainty,

Leading us to God’s grace.

Lamentations has shown us how the Bible speaks into the full range of human emotions.

It speaks into doubt, fear, anger, and overwhelming sorrow.

And God’s promise of restoration that is prayed for in the end,

Comes through Jesus Christ,

Who will return to this broken world again,

To make all things new.

These songs of sorrow have taught us about the brokenness of our world,

Inviting us to rehearse hope-filled truths,

And confronting our subtle and hidden idols.

All together,

Leading us to the hope of God’s grace,

Jesus Christ.

Pray.