Sermon Tone Analysis

We have spent our summer talking about Lament …

I'm sure that previously Lamentations would not have been on your top 10 books in the canon of Scripture, for some maybe even a book you’ve never read on purpose.

This series, frankly, has been surprising to me.

I approached this study with a bit of apprehension because I knew how dark and foreboding these chapters were.

Yet, somehow the Holy Spirit has helped us, taught us some important things, and given us a biblical “place” to be when life is filled with pain.

This series has been heavy, and I have been so encouraged by how you’ve listened and stuck with it.

I don’t know when or if we’ll ever be back to Lamentations.

So let me just remind you how special it is to study the Word together every week.

You are a special people, and I’m grateful that you listen so intently.

It is a great honor to teach you the Bible week after week.

The Value of Lamentations

We began this series with some key reasons for studying this book.

Let me remind you what they were:

Pain is inevitable, and I want you to be prepared.

Pain creates strong and scary emotions, and I want you to know what to do with them.

Sometimes pain does not go away quickly, and I wanted you to see:

Lament is not just a path to worship but a path of Worship

Lamenting well provides a great opportunity for evangelism as Christians interpret pain, what lies underneath it, and the ultimate resolution.

I hope that you have discovered a new category for how to deal with the sufferings and difficulties that you will face in your life.

I hope you have new language that you can use.

I hope you have new kinds of prayers that you can pray and that you are better equipped to help someone when they walk through a season of hardship due to their own sinfulness, the sinfulness of the world, or someone else’s sinfulness.

I hope that you have learned the language of lament, and I hope that it has caused some of you to become a Christian or to know how to be a Christian in pain or where to take your sorrow over the brokenness of the world.

What have we learned together this summer?

Here are some big ideas from the sermons this summer:

1) To cry is human, but to lament in Christian

2) Lament is not linear

3) Grace is only amazing because judgment is real

4) Hope springs from truth rehearsed

5)To lament is not to be faithless

6) Waiting is not a waste

7) Brokenness leads to mercy

I really hope that the subject of lament, the book of Lamentations, and the Lament Psalms will continue to be a special place for you when difficulties or hardships comes.

What’s more, these are very interesting times from a cultural standpoint, and I hope this book has given you a place to go when you are anxious, fearful, or even angry.

I hope that you have a new category in your soul.

Now you might wonder what is next.

Next Sunday Kendall is going to creatively offer us the opportunity to Lament … share our grief, victory … sing, pray, to listen, to weep, to laugh … ultimately he will point us to the One we can bring all of us to … the parts we show to the world and the parts that feel private and quiet and personal … I hope you will join us.

And then back to school Sunday - Aug 14th - start our new series in 1 Peter called Becoming … if anyone understood the active transformation that takes place when following Jesus it was Peter … one of Jesus’ best friends, an apostle, and a guy most famous for getting it wrong, before getting it right … so we are going to spend the fall looking at his letter to the church ...

let’s take a look at lamentations - open your phone, bible … let’s read this together … if you have the ESV feel free to read along … aloud

Lamentations 5:1

1Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!

2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.

3 We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.

4 We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.

5 Our pursuers are at our necks; we are weary; we are given no rest.

6 We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.

7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.

8 Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.

9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.

10 Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.

11 Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.

12 Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.

13 Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood.

14 The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.

15 The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.

16 The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

17 For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim,

18 for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.

19 But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.

20 Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days?

21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!

Renew our days as of old—

22 unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

The Prayers of Lamentations 5

This last chapter of the book of Lamentation is different than the other four.

It contains familiar themes about the devastation of the people of Israel, but it is unique.

For example, while there are twenty-two verses, they do not follow the pattern of using the Hebrew alphabet as an acrostic.

The verses are much shorter, and they are staccato-like in their wording.

There is a higher concentration of prayerful statements or requests in chapter five.

And it is the most request-oriented chapter in the book.

The fifth chapter is designed to be the conclusion to the book, and it offers the prayerful longing for God to bring about some level of restoration.

It ends with three prayers seeking God’s help and deliverance with uncertainty as to when or how, or even if, the Lord will answer favorably.

We see this in three places:

“Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us . .

.” (5:1)

“But you, O Lord, reign forever . . .

” (5:19)“

Restore us to yourself, O Lord . .

.” (5:21)

What do these three prayers have in common?

I think those three prayers are connected to the use of “O, Lord.”

You could think of these verses as saying something like “Don’t forget our pain!”,

“But you still reign!”, and “We need you desperately.”

It seems to me that those three statements really serve as a great summary of this book and its message.

So let’s unpack each of them, and then connect all of this to the gospel.

“Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us . .

.” (vv 1-18)

The first word of chapter five is as important thematically as the first words of chapters 1, 2, and 4. Those earlier chapters began with the word “How,” which was meant to communicate an element of shock and outrage at what has happened.

Chapter five, as you will see in a moment, has the same level of outrage, but the context for it is different here.

In this chapter the expression of outrage has turned to a heart-felt prayer for God to remember what has happened to them.

The word “remember” is very important when it comes to God’s relationship with His people.

It captures the essence of God’s grace to His people in how He keeps His covenant with them.

Here are a few examples:

After the judgment of God in the Flood, Genesis 8:1 says that “God remembered Noah . .

.”

In Genesis 9 when God promises to never destroy mankind in a flood again, He said “I will remember my covenant that is between me and you . . .

when the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant . .

.” (Gen.

9:15-16).

When the Israelites sinned with the golden calf, Moses pleaded with the Lord to be merciful by remembering His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Deut.

9:27).

David cried out to the Lord for mercy in Psalm 25: 6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.

7 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! (Psalm 25:6–7)

The appeal for God to remember in Lamentations 5 is for God to do more than not forget.

The request is for God to deliver His people in light of their disgrace.

The judgment of God has made them recongize their need and long for God’s help

 Their pain has turned them to God, asking Him to remember.