Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Sadness
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Analytical
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Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Anger
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Wallowing
Last week we read from Lamentations, and talked about the incredible “permission to mourn” God gives us.
The Bible not only allows us to lament, it teaches us how.
Expressing our anger at God, our confusion, our doubt, our questions, our grief, bringing it God as an act of worship.
We worship in spirit and Truth.
Frankly, I’m not great at that piece of things.
I want to skip past the “mourning” and get back to joy and peace… and it’s tempting to “fake it until I make it.”
That’s not always a bad strategy, but I need to be honest before God and before some trusted and trustworthy brothers and sisters in Christ.
HOWEVER: there is an equal and opposite error.
I think of a particular friend in the park.
Everytime I talk to him, he is surreptitiously drinking something out of his flask.
And it always comes with a story.
It’s because he is suffering PTSD from his experiences in the military.
His friend died “recently” (two months ago), that’s an excuse to drink.
Oh, another friend, one he went to high-school with and hasn’t seen for 10 years is sick, have to drink.
He lives in the grief, in the pain, in the sadness… but he isn’t “processing.”
He just lives there.
What do we do with that?
We understand the lament of the prophet.
As the song we heard last week “I know someday I’ll be okay… but not right now.” or “Not while my house is burning down.”
We understand a season of grief… but how long is the season?
Is there a time limit?
And is there anything we can do in the midst of it?
We know from the story of Job: it is possible to be mad at God and not sin, as Job did.
And it is possible to “curse God and die.”
To give in to despair and just wallow in the grief, rejecting God entirely, cursing Him.
How do we “lament” honestly and not “wallow” in our pain?
Lamentations 3
Remember the poet (possibly the prophet Jeremiah).
He has seen his nation fall, Jerusalem besieged for 30 months, people starving to the point of ultimate desperation, mothers eating their young.
He has witnessed the horrifying end of his world and now he sits in the ruins of it.
Lamentations Chapter 3 carries the anger at God of the other chapters.
Similar to those, it uses this poetic acrostic format, literally walking through the Hebrew alphabet, a-z, beginning each verse with the letter.
But Chapter 3 is three times as long, three verses in a row with Aleph, three in a row with Bet, etc…
I “call” or “restore” it to my “mind” or “heart”
LEV says “I will put this in my heart.”
So… what is it we “call to mind?”
Truth: Who God Is
That is who God is.
He is good, good to those who wait.
He is faithful.
He is a Savior, so wait for the salvation of YHWH.
I call all of that to mind.
I don’t feel it yet, but I practice it, I think on it, I remind myself that it is true, I preach it to myself.
Truth: What God Will Do
The chapter continues, he isn’t done with grief.
He isn’t done with mourning.
He isn’t done with anger.
He still feels all those things.
But he recites to himself, holds to the truth that he knows… even when he can’t see it.
This is temporary, I know what God will do, even if I don’t like His timing.
I know how the story ultimately ends, even when I hate this chapter.
I call that to mind.
He will not cast off forever, victory is coming.
Truth: What God Has Done
For those who are saved, you already have a story of God saving you.
And if you’ve been a disciple of Jesus for a minute or more, you have a dozen stories of God rescuing you.
Remind yourself of what He has done for you before:
Ummm.... yeah!
Preach it!
To myself!
When I need to hear it!
Write it down now, so you remember it in the darkness.
What do we feel?
What do we see?
Here it is:
That’s what we feel, that’s what we see, that’s our experience in the moment.
What do we know?
Walk by faith, not by sight.
(2 Cor 5:7)
We had a coach who used to YELL that at us.
(Well, mostly he yelled it at Jono).
“Walk by faith, Jono!”
Jono’s running, crying, “I don’t know what you mean!
Not sure how that applies right now???!”
Walk By Faith
It isn’t a command in that Scripture.
It’s a description.
We don’t see Jesus in the flesh right now, so we walk by faith.
It’s an acknowledgment that, we WISH we could see Jesus in the flesh, God clear in front of my face right now… but we don’t.
And that sometimes, in the midst of trials and tribulations especially, it is even harder to see.
I remember driving camp trail in the truck.
Organizing a group of kids to take the trash out to the dumpster.
We want to make a boring gross job (taking out the trash) fun.
So my solution: do dangerous things.
I’d wait for a straightaway and... flip off the headlights.
It’s dark.
Like all the way dark.
How many streetlights are there up at camp? None.
Maybe stars, maybe moon, but in the shadow of trees, and in contrast with the headlights.
Pitch dark.
So kids start screaming.
You know, super fun!
Continue foreward by “remembering” the truth.
I can’t go for long… because I don’t trust my memory that much, and I didn’t see that far ahead… but I can go for a minute in the dark because I remember what the light showed me… and I know the light is coming back.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
I remember seasons where my finances fell apart and I wasn’t sure I could provide for my family anymore.
I didn’t see God as “provider”, just the fear that I wasn’t.
I remember searching and seeking God’s face as my family was ripped apart and wounded in divorce, everyone hurt and broken… and all I saw was “end.”
The end of my family as it was, the end of ministry, the end of plans and visions and dreams… God where are you in this?
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