Journey of the Cross: Lament

Good Morning!

I’d like to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Psalms, which is almost exactly in the middle of the Bible.

If you’re using the blue Bibles that we’ve provided, page 521 is where you will find Psalm 139, where we’ll be reading from God’s word today.

Slow down. Remember to smile

If we haven’t met yet:

My name is Mike Northrup, and I’m a part of the preaching team at Broad River Church.

Along with my wife, Lynne and our three kids, we’ve been a part of the Broad River family for about two and half years now.

And we are so honored to be here with you today, and grateful that you came into God’s house this morning.

Connect Card

Welcome first time guests

invite to fill out connect card

Back of card is prayer requests

Mind your volume

Easter Sunday is coming up:

In just three weeks, on March 31.

Here in SONO, we’ll have two Easter services: 9:30am in English and 11:00am in Spanish.

Across town, at our Silvermine campus, there will be three opportunities for you to celebrate the resurrected Jesus: 8:30am, 10:00am, and 11:30am.

We’d love for you to join us on Easter, and we’ve got some invite cards available for you to grab on your way out.

So even now—three weeks out—you can start inviting people to join you this Easter at Broad River Church.

Series Introduction

We’re beginning a new, three week series today called Journey of the Cross.

These are the Big Days before the Big Day.

Easter is just three weeks away, and I want us all to arrive at Easter fully aware of just how big what happened on that day was.

If the story of Easter isn’t true, nothing really matters, ultimately.

And if the story of Easter is true, nothing could matter more.

Volume check.

But how can we appreciation the resurrection and rescue that Jesus performed for all of us without first realizing what we have been saved from?

God made it, we broke it, Jesus fixed it.

But what was broken?

What was our condition before Jesus?

We are in a season that the Church—for a very long time—has called Lent.

Lent is a season of Lament.

We’re going to talk about this idea of Lament today.

Lent is a season of Anticipation.

We should really be at the edge of our seat, waiting for what’s next.

Lent is a season of Repentance.

The Journey of the Cross is not the most popular way to live, and I won’t lie to you and tell you that it’s easy.

But Jesus said I’m going to take up my cross, and I want you to take up your cross and follow after me.

Let’s read these two verses together.

Psalm 139:23-24

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Sermon Introduction

About 60% of the people in the room today have had no experience with Lent.

The remaining 40% of you likely have all sorts of ideas about what Lent is about.

At it’s core, Lent is the forty days before Easter that followers of Christ set aside to fast, pray, and refocus their lives on God.

It’s a season where people often give up things.

Why? To help put them in the right headspace and heart-space to focus on the life of Jesus and what he’s made available to us.

Many Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent.

Other people give up coffee, or dessert, or lots of other things for Lent.

It’s where we get the phrase that seems to be used more tongue-and-cheek these days, “I gave that up for Lent.”

Because there’s this element of self-sacrifice, it’s easy to get confused into thinking that our sacrifice—and doing things the right way—is what the season is all about.

In life, it’s easy to get our actions and our activities confused with what the actions or activity was really pointed toward in the first place.

This can happen with a season like Lent, or really anytime you designate a season of your life to be focused on anything that’s important.

We get more concerned with the what than the why.

So these forty days leading up to Easter do include fasting, and more time for prayer, and focusing anew on God and His plans and His purpose.

And I can’t recommend those things enough. There is power in prayer. In fasting. In refocusing your life’s lens on Jesus.

But as we do these things on our way to Easter, don’t deceive yourself into thinking that you can earn your place in Heaven through your own goodness or efforts.

The work is part of the journey.

But the work is just to help you examine yourself in the light of God’s word.

And then what? To make a commitment to change in any areas you haven’t submitted to God.

That’s the goal.

And that’s why Lent is a season that always involves lament, repentance, and anticipation.

This is the Journey of the Cross, and this is what we are calling our church to for the best three weeks.

And it’s a risky call because none of it sounds like very much fun.

You’re calling us to Lament?

Okay, for starters, why don’t you let us know what Lament is and then why in the world we would want to do it?

What does it even mean to lament?

We get the idea from the Hebrew word Qina.

Qina is used all over the left side of your Bible—what we call the Old Testament—and that side of the Bible was written in this ancient language called Hebrew.

And Qina is always describing a poem of sorts.

A sad poem, or a sad song; like what you’d sing as part of a funeral.

Other times, lament was like what happened when God’s people came back to their homeland after being enslaved in another land, only to find that the Temple of God had been destroyed.

They sang songs of lament.

It’s words of mourning and very often it was a song of some sort.

When you lament there is great sorrow there. And there may even be some wailing.

Psalm 139 that we’re reading today is a Qina—a lament—and it was written sometime between 1010 and 970 BC.

Not all laments sound the same and not all of them are as old as this one.

Let’s play a little game called Name That Lament. It’s like Name That Tune, but sadder

Smile check. volume check.

Here’s a famous lament from 1965. Do you recognize it?

Yesterday All my troubles seems so far away Now it looks as though they’re here to stay Oh, I believe in yesterday

Everyone knows this one, right? That’s “Yesterday” by The Beatles; a very famous lament

Here’s another from 1973. Can you Name That Lament?

And it seems to me you lived your life Like a candle in the wind Never knowing who to cling to When the rain set in And I would’ve liked to know you But I was just a kid Your candle burned out long before Your legend ever did

The lyrics kinda gave this one away. That’s “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John. Originally written about Marilyn Monroe, then rededicated to Princess Dianna When she died in the 90s

Lots of laments in the 70s. Do you know this one?

How I wish, how i wish you were here We’re just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl Year after year Running over the same old ground What have we found? The same old fears Wish you were here

Who guessed it? Pink Floyd. “Wish You Were Here.” Not to be confused with “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera

Here we go! 1984. The golden age of heavy metal. Name That Lament!

Life it seems, will fade away Drifting further, every day Getting lost within myself Nothing matters, no one else

“Fade to Black” from Metallica’s sophomore album, “Ride the Lightning.”

1992. Name That Lament!

Time can bring you down Time can bend your knees Time can break your heart Have you begging please

Eric Clapton. “Tears in Heaven.” A real tear-jerker of a lament.

Last One. 2008. Or as I like to call it, just a few years ago, because there’s no way it was actually 16 years ago. Here we go:

I got troubled thoughts And the self-esteem to match What a catch, what a catch

Yeah, the preacher just quoted Fall Out Boy in church. “What a Catch, Donnie.”

Smile. Quiet down.

We can’t fully experience the joy, the freedom, the celebration of Easter without lament.

We’re going to cry out Hosanna on Palm Sunday, and we’re going to cry out He is Risen on Easter.

But before those cries is another cry, and that’s the cry that we all enter the world with.

We all make the same sound when we make our first appearance here on Earth.

I remember the first sound that Liam made. That Chloe made.

It’s the same first sound all of you made and the same first sound that I made.

What is our common first sound?

Pause

We cry, right?

I don’t remember my first sound, but track down someone who was in the room that day, and they’ll confirm it.

And why wouldn’t we cry?

There we are minding our business, warm and cozy in mama, and then, without warning, we are thrust into the world.

We’ve got photos of all three of our kids when they were minutes old and at least one of those photos they have this expression of, “stay away from me, unless you’re putting me back in. It’s too bright out here.”

As a parent, I’m not an advocate of physical punishment to correct bad behavior.

But that’s not what my sermon is about, so y’all can agree or disagree with me on your own time.

My point is, though, is that we’ve all seen or heard those parents that say things like, “If you don’t stop crying, I’m gonna give you something to cry about.”

But the truth is we don’t need anyone to give us anything to cry about.

Lament is important because we have things to lament.

Write this down. It’s not the most fun thing to write down, but write it down anyway.

We should lament over our sins.

This is a great use of the three weeks before Easter, and I’m inviting everyone here into this.

Yeah. We lament because of the brokenness in our lives.

Volume check

Instead of ignoring our brokenness, we look it right in the face and take the sorrow that we feel because of our brokenness Head on

We lament the things we struggle with.

And yeah, it can be our own personal sin, it can be the loss we’ve experienced because of other people’s sin, but lament is an important part of the Journey of the Cross.

It’s an important part of arriving at Easter prepared to celebrate like we never have before, because lament reminds us of the broken sinful world we live in.

Somebody hear me today, we need to feel that grief. That’s lament.

Did you write that down? We should lament over our sin.

Look again at what David says in Verses 23 and 24.

Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV)

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

24 And see if there be any grievous way in me...

The New Living Translation puts it this way:

24 Point out anything in me that offends you...

There’s sorrow because of our sin, and that’s a whole can of worms because even the idea of sin is confusing in today’s culture.

There are some things that we all are quick to put in the sin category.

Almost everyone agrees that murder, adultery… some things just belong in the sin bucket.

But then other things, those are just flaws we have.

volume check

I’m kind of full of pride.

I’m kind of envious of what others have.

It’s just something I struggle with.

It’s a character flaw.

I wouldn’t call it a sin.

It’s just my struggle.

I wouldn’t label myself as a sinner.

It’s not like I murdered anybody.

But when you track down what the Bible means when it uses the word sin, one really good description is “missing the mark.”

Every used a bow and arrow? Ever played darts?

What are you aiming for?

The bullseye, right?

Your goal is to hit the bullseye.

If you missed the bullseye, you missed.

Ever hear the expression “Close enough only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades”?

If you missed the bullseye, you missed.

It doesn’t matter if you missed by three feet (let’s call that murder) or by three millimeters (let’s call that pride).

Slow down and watch your tone!

Close enough doesn’t earn you a place in Heaven.

Just trying to be a good person doesn’t get you a ticket on the J-Train.

Missing the mark is sin.

Pause. Let the weight hit.

This is difficult to hear today, but I’m preaching to myself today, too.

Oh, you thought the preachers at this church were perfect and had it all figured out, huh?

Smile

Listen, friends. There are no perfect preachers. There are no perfect churches. And if you find one, don’t go there, because you’ll mess it up!

Smile And slow

We have all sinned.

We have all fallen short of the Glory of God.

We have all missed God’s bullseye of holiness.

That’s what God has called us all to.

That’s the goal: to be holy.

Holy really just means to be different.

God calls us to be set apart like He is.

If God is anything, he is set apart from everything else that is not God, and he calls us to the same thing.

That’s the bullseye. That’s what we should aim for.

We see it in scripture:

1 Peter 1:13-16

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Then, just one chapter later, God describes us this way:

1 Peter 2:9

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,

Listen to how he’s describing you and me!

a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

“Well, I could never be as holy as God.”

True.

“Well, if I can’t be as holy as God, I shouldn’t even try to be set apart as an example of how good God is.”

Not true.

We are called to holiness, and when we miss the mark it doesn’t matter if we miss big or we miss small. God calls it sin.

And when we miss it, it’s a time to lament.

It’s a time to be sorry about it.

Take a beat

Something I’ve noticed is that a lot of folks, at some point in their life, just stopped being sorry for everything.

It didn’t matter what they did.

No regrets. Wouldn’t change a thing.

I am who I am. It is it what it is.

I’m just living by truth, and whatever the fallout from that is, so be it.

Thank God we have a different plan.

Point to Bible

I mean, thank God, on behalf of everyone in the world that has to deal with the results of people living their lives like their actions don’t matter.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped feeling guilty.

Did you know that guilt is an emotion we are supposed to feel?

God gave us guilt, and guilt can be healthy and good.

Now, just like any emotion, there are people that have used what God meant for good to cause harm instead.

Some of you may have been raised in a guilt-based religious system that wasn’t healthy.

And there are people here who were raised in cultures of shame.

Shame and guilt are not the same thing.

I don’t have time to preach that sermon today, but very quickly what’s the difference in the Bible between guilt and shame?

I want you to write this down

Guilt is almost always attached to something you did.

An event. Something that has happened. A decision.

Guilt can be healthy because it can lead to change.

Shame is not about an event, it’s about who you are as a person.

Shame keeps us trapped in our past and in things we cannot control.

Shame and guilt are not the same

Please leave that up there so folks can write this down.

Watch the tone.

Some of you will experience great freedom when you understand the difference between guilt and shame.

And once you understand the difference, you should do everything you can to fight shame in your life.

Shame is a tool of the enemy who wants to destroy us.

But we don’t have to fight the feelings of guilt we have about our sin.

In fact, what I’m calling us to today is that we will not fight the feelings of guilt we have because of our sin.

I can lean in here

We’ll fight shame. We won’t fight guilt.

We want to go the other way.

This is the season.

This is that time to do that work.

This is lament and we want to embrace it.

We want to open our lives to God’s work and just like the David say “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

Bring the volume, tone, and speed back down.

Why is lament a positive thing that I would recommend to you at great risk of bumming your vibe?

Because lament is just a cry.

It’s a song that is reflecting your desire for a relationship with God.

Lament is to cry out that you want to know who God is more than ever.

To lament is to say, “I’m not hiding from you God.”

If you take the time to read the story of the first humans in Genesis, it’s really interesting what Adam and Eve did when they committed the first sin.

What’d they do?

They hid.

They tried to find a way to cover themselves up and hide.

We call this first sin “The Fall” because it’s a descent.

They stumbled over their guilt and fell into shame.

let that sink in, then speed up.

But what David is saying in Psalm 139, it’s like the anti-fall.

It’s like opposite day on the first sin.

David is saying, “I’m not hiding from you, God. Take as deep a look as you want to. I want you to clean up anything you see in me that is keeping me from a relationship with you.”

Read all through the Psalms, and you’ll see David admitting things that he’s aware of.

I know I’m anxious all the time.

I know I’m scared that when the pressure comes I’m not going to be able to stand up to it.

If I’m honest, I’m kind of prone to doing the wrong thing, and saying the wrong thing, and moving in the wrong direction.

It always feels like I’m just one step away from falling into something that isn’t where you want me to be.

So I need you to examine me.

Write this down:

To lament is to invite the Holy Spirit to expose areas we must change in our lives.

Whoa I thought this was the fun church!

What happened to all of the excitement, and jumping around, and the preacher telling jokes?

pause quiet , then build

I like all of that.

That is who we are.

We think church should be fun and enjoyable.

And if you’re here today, and you’re just checking things out, I’m so glad you’re here.

This is a place that you can belong, even before you believe.

slow and quiet

But more than being the fun church, we want you to finish the race.

I want you to endure to the end.

I want you to be right with God.

I want you to find your home in Heaven.

And so you’re right when you say that lamenting isn’t very fun and can make us feel like failures.

It’s not fun at all.

In fact, the Greek word for Guilt is actually about connecting a person with their crime.

Like a line is attached between the person who did wrong, and the person wrong was done to.

Draw it in the air

Our natural tendency is to try to get unattached from what we did wrong and here I am suggesting we connect with it.

We tried to find one definition of the word guilt in the Bible that was anything other than hard and no fun, but here’s what we found:

To effect with sadness

To cause grief

To throw into sorrow

To cause pain.

I wish I could spin it some other way.

Conclusion

Here’s what I know.

We all tend to avoid things that reveal our weakness and make us uncomfortable.

Just like Adam and Eve, we try to hide.

We all do it.

Sometimes, when my four year old knows she’s in trouble, she runs and hides under the covers.

Sometimes, when I’ve grieved God’s heart, I try to hide from the promptings of his Spirit.

When we’re confronted with our sin we all want to say, “That’s not who I am!”

But many times, that’s exactly the person we are.

But hear me out today:

Being confronted with our sin is a mercy, not a cause for defensiveness.

To lament, to be confronted with the sin in our lives is God setting us free from what binds us.

It’s God calling attention to areas in us that need his purifying.

What I love most about Psalm 139 is how soft David’s heart is.

Verse one:

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Verse 14:

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Listen to the softness of his heart. Listen to his availability to the Lord.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

We must allow our hearts to remain soft toward the conviction of sin.

And when God exposed it, we have to lament and grieve that sin that is in us, and then cry out with our desperate need for God.

Lamenting leads to repentance.

Repentance is the beginning of change in our lives.

Let’s pray.

Salvation Invitation

Salvation Prayer

Will you join me in repeating this simple prayer?

Broad River Church, no one prays alone here.

Join with us:

Lord Jesus, Thank you for coming for me. Thank you for dying for me. Thanks you for your resurrection. And the new life I have in you. Now I give you my heart. Forgive me of my sins. I want to follow you. All of my days. In Jesus’ name. Amen.