A Broken World and a Holy God
Notes
Transcript
Handout
We are back onto the topic of lamenting. We have covered how to lament.
Keep turning to God.
Bring your complaints
Ask Boldly
Choose to trust
Now we are coming to the topic of leaning from our lament. Your suffering isn’t free, it comes at a tremendous cost. Don’t waste it. We want the suffering we experience to conform us to the image of Christ for the glory of God.
Ecclesiastes 7:2 “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.”
As we look at Lamentation, this is a vivid reminder of who we are, and who God is.
Lamentations is written after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The people of Israel were on a steady decline after the rule of King Solomon. They were worshipping foreign gods and forsaking Yahweh. Prophets were sent to them, to speak in the name of God. They were ridiculed, beaten, and even killed. Jeremiah was one of the last prophets to face their cruelty, and he is the author of Lamentations. After he has seen Yahweh carry out, exactly what he said he would do.
Why is Jeremiah Lamenting?
Why is Jeremiah Lamenting?
Lamentations 1:1-6
The city that was full of life, that was great, has become desolate.
The city that was great, has been disgraced
All the people that have wanted Jerusalem destroyed, have seen exactly that.
(v.5b) Her children have gone, that is to say, their future has left.
(v.6) The princes are gone, those who led the people have scattered.
Jeremiah knew this would take place, he was the one who prophesied that it would.
Even with that knowledge, the reality is still surreal.
Lamentations 1:16
“For these things I am weeping; My eyes run down with water; Because far from me is a comforter, One who restores my soul. My children are desolate Because the enemy has prevailed.”
The reality that Jeremiah is pointing to is, God is distant. He allowed the people to be destroyed.
Who can defeat God’s people if God hasn’t decreed it?
NO one
Once again, how could God allow His enemies to triumph over His people.
Mark Vroegop describes this as “a great tension, connected to the presence of pain, and the sovereignty of God.”
If God is sovereign, why is everything falling apart?
Have you felt it?
The death of a loved one, the collapse of a business, the frailty from a disease, and in the howling wind of the storm of our lives, the question arises, why?
In Jerusalem’s case, it was clear
Jerusalem’s Sinfulness
Jerusalem’s Sinfulness
Lamentations 1:2, 8-9
Jerusalem sought foreign gods. She saw that other nations were prosperous, that they were great, and she wanted what they had.
Rather than staying with the Yahweh, the God who had been faithful to her. She chased Baal, Asherah, Chemosh, and other foreign deities.
Jerusalem looked to idols to give what they believed God wasn’t giving them. But beloved, when we give ourselves to anything besides God, the fruit will always be death.
I think of the last words the apostle John penned at the end of 1 John 5:21 “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
Sin, The Cause of Pain
Sin, The Cause of Pain
When God created the world, it was good. Why is their pain, why is there death. Because of sin.
Genesis 2:16-17
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For then you will surly die.
God is merciful and didn’t kill Adam on the spot, but death entered the world, and now, we all die.
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The very fact that we die, is proof that we have sin.
If we didn’t sin, we wouldn’t die.
If you sin, you need a savior.
God uses our suffering for our good and His glory.
When we ask that question, why!?
Becasue we live in a sin filled world, there will be death, there will be pain.
The blessing is knowing God, and knowing that the circumstances aren’t out of His control.
Becasue the circumstances aren’t out of His control, He can use it for good.
Sometimes like with Jerusalem, it is discipline
God disciplines those whom He loves.
You need to examine your life to see if there are things you need to repent of, things your being disciplined for.
Sometimes, it is the natural course of our sin...natural course. That kind of a atheistic was of looking at it isn’t it. It is the way that God has ordered his universe.
The sin, you struggle with alcoholism.
Effect, you have liver disease.
The sin, you gossip.
Effect, no one tells you anything.
The sin, you didn’t discipline your child.
Effect, they grew up, or are growing up into a hellion.
The laws of God are moral, but they are also protection measures. When we disobey, we reap the effects of that sin.
God’s Sovereignty
God’s Sovereignty
We cannot overlook God’s sovereignty in the suffering in our lives.
Her adversaries have become her masters; Her enemies are complacent; For Yahweh has caused her grief Because of the greatness of her transgressions; Her infants have gone away As captives before the adversary.
“From on high He sent fire into my bones, And it dominated them. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me desolate, Faint all day long.
“The Lord has rejected all my mighty men In my midst; He has called an appointed time against me To break my young men; The Lord has trodden as in a wine press The virgin daughter of Judah.
Yahweh has done what He purposed; He has completed His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has pulled down without sparing, And He has caused the enemy to be glad over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries.
Do we get the point, God is sovereign, with Jerusalem, He sent the disaster.
Lam 1:18
God’s Righteousness
God’s Righteousness
With the things of this world, and what comes to pass. The Lord is always in the right.
May we never place blame or injustice on God.
When we speak about learning from our lament. It is coming to this understanding.
God is sovereign, therefore God can help.
God is also righteous. There is not injustice in God.
God’s righteousness also points to His goodness.
Though it hurts, there is purpose in the pain.
With Jerusalem
A recognition that the pain that has come upon Jerusalem, is what they deserve.
There is a recognition that they have sinned against God.
The result of that should be repentance.
With this lament, given what they have learned, repentance should be the action.
As you lament
What is God teaching you?
