Reset - Lamentations 3:17-24

Let's stand and I pray. Amen.

All right, brand new series. This one's

called reset. Reset. And the big idea

for this series is really that when

Jesus comes into your situation, you

have to reset your expectations.

When Jesus comes into your situation,

you have to reset your expectations. You

got to change the way that you think

about things. Now, there's this

beautiful button on the front of the

original Nintendo Entertainment System

that says reset. Now, I really wanted to

put that as my sermon title slide, but I

didn't do it. I thought that was too

deep of a cut for most people. But, the

beauty of that button is that when you

lose in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for the

thousandth time in a row, you can just

go and reset and start over. You just

push the button and you get to start

over. And today, that's kind of what I

want to give you an opportunity to do,

particularly in your thought life. I

think there's a lot of people that

really struggle with their thought

lives. And

so, this is going to be an opportunity

for you to kind of hit that reset button

and to learn to see things for how they

really are.

Jonah was talking about his wife. So,

I'm going to talk about mine.

So, my wife has this this thing. It's

both a blessing and a curse. And that is

the fact that she is a terrible liar.

It's not that she can't lie. It's that

she won't lie. She just refuses to do

it. And so, I've learned over time that

I should be careful what I ask her. So,

for example, when I rearrange the garage

and I go and ask her what she thinks, I

expect encouragement. I expect her to

say, "Wow, that's that's amazing. You

crushed it. The garage looks great." But

instead, I usually get something like

this.

She will look at me and kind of pause

and she'll say, "Is it finished?"

I'm like, "Can't you just lie to me one

time and tell me I did a good job?" Like

But that's the problem though. Sometimes

we we open ourselves to receive lies.

Now, in this case, it's my ego, right?

My ego caused me to want to receive a

lie. But there's all kinds of other ways

that we open doors for Satan to come

into our lives and lie to us. And when

we receive the lies, get this, when we

receive the lies, we then begin to

believe the lies.

See, most of us don't struggle because

we love lies, okay? We're not like,

"Yeah, lie to me." No, most of us don't

struggle about that about that. Most of

us struggle because we don't always

recognize the lies. Because the devil

doesn't show up sounding like a villain.

You know, he doesn't come in with this

this big gruff voice and tell you things

that you know are outright lies. What he

does is he comes into your life and

persistently, he says the same lies over

and over and over until it begins to

sound like your own inner voice.

So, here's the warning today. Sometimes

that inner voice that you think is yours

is actually not yours.

See, the inner voice would speak truth

because God is truth. God doesn't speak

lies. If you look at Numbers chapter 23

Numbers 23:19

verse 19,

it says, "God is not a man that he might

lie. Or a son of man that he might

change his mind." God doesn't lie. He

doesn't change his mind. What you read

in the scriptures today is going to be

the same tomorrow. It's never going to

change because he does not lie. However,

the devil is the father of lies. He

speaks fluent lies. John chapter 8 verse

John 8:44

44,

"He was a murderer from the beginning

and does not stand in the truth because

there is no truth in him. When he tells

a lie, he speaks from his own nature

because he is a liar and he is the

father of lies. And friends, he has been

planting lies in your mind since day

one."

So, because of that, you need to know

your enemy's tactics. That's the way we

defeat an enemy. We know how they

operate and so we're able to defeat

them. And so, I just want to tell you

one of his greatest tactics is the fact

that he is persistent.

The devil is not all powerful.

Okay? He's not all powerful, but he is

persistent. He's a created being. He is

a fallen angel. He is not allowed to do

anything to you that God does not allow

to happen. So, what he lacks in power,

he makes up for in persistence.

He's going to tell you the same lie over

and over until his voice is disguised as

your own thoughts.

And he's going to tell you two core

lies. There'll be others, but there are

two core lies that he has told the world

since the beginning of time.

Lie number one is that you don't have

enough.

You just don't have enough. And then lie

number two, which flows from lie number

one, is that you are not loved.

You don't have enough and you are not

loved.

You don't have enough and you are not

loved. So, he's going to say to you, and

some of you struggle with this cuz you

talk to me about it. He's going to say

to you, "You haven't done enough to be

saved."

Larry.

>> [laughter]

>> We have deep conversations about this.

You have not done it. We all struggle

with this at some level.

You have not done enough to be saved.

He'll say

that it's not enough to just call on the

name of Jesus to be saved. He's going to

say that that you've sinned and

repentance is not enough. And the blood

of Jesus is not enough. The grace of God

is not enough. The mercy of God is not

enough. No, you have to pay for what

you've done. You have to earn God's

favor.

You have to pay a price. You have to

suffer because of what you've done.

That's what the enemy will say to you.

And because of that, you may feel

unloved

by God.

He's going to say, "Well, you don't have

enough time.

You don't have enough talents. You don't

have enough money.

You don't have enough of what everybody

else has.

And so, you begin to feel less than. You

begin to feel unloved because you don't

have the same things that maybe people

around you have."

And he'll say, "There's not enough of

you to go around.

People are disappointed in you.

All these people depend on you. And here

you are letting them down." And then you

start to feel like your value is based

on what you do instead of who you are.

And you begin to feel unloved.

You see, this this tactic of of making

you feel like you don't have enough

causes you to feel like you're a sinner,

that you're beyond God's help, that

you're living you're not living up to

expectations, that you've let everybody

down, that you're a means to an end. And

all those things at the end of the day

cause people to feel unloved.

And that's the lie of the enemy.

See, the danger isn't the obvious lies.

The danger is the familiar ones.

It's not just hearing the lies. It's

repeating the lies. And that's what the

devil does because, like I said, he's

persistent. He repeats the same lies

over and over until what you rehearse

becomes what you believe.

You become the person that is telling

yourself the lies.

So, what Jesus says in scripture, says,

"Be careful of your heart because it is

a deceiver."

You are going to lie to you more than

anyone else will ever lie to you. And

friends, the worst part of that is that

lies are the enemy of hope. So, as we

come to Lamentations chapter 3 today, if

Lamentations 3 · chapter mention

you want to open your Bibles or your

Bible apps and join me there.

Lamentations chapter 3, we'll go over to

Lamentations 3 · chapter mention

verse 16. Lamentations is written by a

prophet named Jeremiah. And he's writing

from a very difficult time in the nation

of Israel. The temple in Jerusalem has

been destroyed. People, the Israelites,

have been taken into Babylonian

captivity and the people there are

living in exile under the terror of this

man named King Nebuchadnezzar. So,

Jeremiah, the preacher,

is preaching through his own tears when

he says these words in Jeremiah or in

Lamentations chapter 3 verse 16.

Lamentations 3:16

He says, "He ground my teeth with

gravel.

He made me cower in the dust. I have

been deprived of peace. I have forgotten

what prosperity is. Then I thought, my

future is lost as well as my hope from

the Lord.

My future is lost as well as my hope

from the Lord." Do you see how the text

moves? He had hope. He's referring to a

time where he had hope.

And now he has lost hope.

And the thing about Jeremiah is he's not

lying. The temple was destroyed. Israel

was persecuted. His friends and his

family were taken captive by this this

evil king. He's not lying,

but he's living without God's

perspective.

He's a prophet. He's a minister, but

he's living without seeing God's

perspective. He got in the habit of not

living with God's word. And so, he was

consumed by lies.

And look in verse 19 what happens.

"Remember my affliction and my

homelessness,

the wormwood." That's the bitterness and

the poison, the thing that's tearing him

up inside.

He says, get this, keywords, "I

continually

I continually remember them and have

become depressed."

So, yes, destruction happened. Yes, his

loss was real, but he keeps replaying

the tapes of all the things that he has

lost. It says he continually remembers

them.

And that opened the door for the enemy

to strike. Over time, his voice merged

with the enemy's voice. And the devil

says, "Look, Jeremiah, there is no hope.

The Lord has forgotten you. The Lord has

abandoned you. The Lord doesn't care

about you. There is no hope."

And this hopelessness fills you and when

hopelessness fills you, the scripture

says that your peace leaves you.

So, what you replay in your mind shapes

your reality.

What you replay in your mind is going to

shape your reality. The The problem

takes up more bandwidth in your brain

than God does.

So, think about it this way. I very much

dislike the movie Titanic. Okay? Don't

boo me. It's a great movie.

I just hate the way it makes me feel at

the end.

I I hate that part. I I I feel like

there's plenty of room on that piece of

wood for Jack and Rose to be there

together. I don't think he had to

Do you agree? Yes. I'm not alone in

this.

Now Now, imagine this though.

Imagine that that since I dislike this

movie so much, imagine how crazy it

would be for me to continually to buy

tickets to go see this movie over and

over and over. I wouldn't do that

because I didn't like the way that the

movie made me feel. Yet, when we go

through difficult situations, we often

keep buying tickets for the same movie.

We We keep replaying the offense or the

hurt or the pain over and over and over

in our head and it becomes these

emotional reruns that never allow us to

actually heal.

So, I'm so glad that the book of

Lamentations is in the Bible.

Because if it wasn't there, I might

think that being blessed means that I

don't suffer.

And by the way, there are plenty of

people on TV this morning saying that

same thing.

I love Lamentations cuz

otherwise, I might be tricked into

thinking that being blessed means

there's no suffering. Or I I might think

that being afraid is a lack of faith. Or

Or I might mistakenly think that worry

is some kind of un-Christian thing that

that Christians should just not do.

So, I love this book because it reminds

me that there is pain and there is

suffering and there is things to be

afraid of.

Verse 19 again.

Remember my affliction and my

homelessness, the wormwood and the

poison. I continually remember them

and I've become depressed.

God is not ignoring your pain. He is not

minimizing the things that you have gone

through. Suffering and fear and worry

are part of the human experience. One

day, thank God, when we get to heaven,

that will all be gone. But while we live

in the in-between, we're going to face

these things.

So, we have to know that the danger

comes from dwelling on them.

The danger comes when we replay our

situation so much that it opens the door

for the enemy to sneak in with his lies

and try to remove God and his

perspective from the equation. And so,

what we need today is we need a reset.

So, how do we get there? How do we reset

our thought life? Well, let's look at

verse 21 now.

So, again,

this is interesting to me.

Uh Jeremiah was the prophet. That means

God gave him words and he said those

words to people,

but the words came from God. So, you

would assume in this situation right

now, hearing what uh what Jeremiah was

saying, that that God would give him a

new word. He's a prophet, so obviously

God's going to show up and give him a

new word, right?

Look at verse 21.

Yet, I call this to mind

and therefore, I have hope.

So, he had hope, he lost hope, and now

he has hope. How did he get the hope? He

called it to mind.

Friends,

hope came from summoning God's word.

He He He wasn't given a new word from

God. He was remembering an old word from

God.

He was remembering things that he had

been taught in the past, that God had

said to him in the past. Psalm chapter 1

Psalms 1:2

verse 2. It says, "How happy is the

person who" So, happiness is the

opposite of depression. So, how happy is

the person who, get this, delights in

the Lord's instruction? That's the the

word of God.

Delights in the Lord's instruction and

meditates on it when? Day and night.

That's what needs to be replaying in our

minds, not the lies, but the words of

God.

Meditating on it day and night. Is it

the problems? Is it the offenses?

Is it the suffering? Is that what we

should be dwelling on day and night? No,

it is the word of God because when God

speaks, the lies are exposed.

When you know the word of God, the lies

that you are believing about yourself

and others are exposed because his light

brings light to the darkness.

He says, "I call this to mind."

Jeremiah interrupts his own negative

thoughts,

the ones that are replaying his problems

and his suffering over and over, the

ones that are believing the lies. He

replaces them

by summoning truth

from the word of God.

Can we just take a moment and thank God

for the people that taught us the Bible?

Can we do that? Let's just symbolically,

let's thank them.

Let's just thank the people that taught

us the word of God. Because if it wasn't

for the people that teach us the word of

God, then all we would have is the lies

of the enemy and our lives would be

based

on those.

So, what we need to learn to do is

change what we say. We need to change

our testimony

so that we can change what we see. So,

let's talk about another prophet. His

name is Elijah. 1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

Elijah, he he

he did a great miracle.

He was on top of mountain. It was

incredible. God threw down fire from

heaven. It was this incredible event,

yet no one cared.

He He did this event He did this miracle

so that Israel would turn back to God,

but the people that saw the miracle

happen, they continued to to worship

Baal and other gods.

So, he felt like a a failure and then he

gets this note from Queen Jezebel that

says, "Hey, I'm going to take your life

by this time tomorrow." And so, he gets

depressed. He gets scared and he he runs

in chapter

19 verse 4. It says he went a day's

journey into the wilderness.

Isn't that what we do

when we're suffering?

Isn't that your natural tendency to just

kind of sit alone, to to isolate

yourself, to go away from other people?

The enemy loves it when you do that, by

the way.

But he went on a day's journey into the

wilderness and he sat down under a broom

tree and he prayed that he might die.

He said, "I've had enough, Lord. Take my

life cuz I'm no better than my

ancestors. They failed and I failed. I

thought maybe I could do something

different and it didn't work out the way

I wanted it to and so, I'm a failure

just like them. So, go ahead and take my

life. I am I'm worthless."

And God meets him in his depression and

he restores him. He gives him food and

water and sends an angel to him and

allows him to get some rest. But after

that, Elijah retreats to a cave and the

Lord says, "Hey, what are you doing

here?

Why are you in the cave, Elijah?"

And he says this.

Verse 10.

I've been very zealous for the Lord God

of the armies.

But the Israelites have abandoned your

covenant, torn down your altars, and

killed your prophets with the sword. I

alone am left and they are looking for

me to take my life.

Is he telling the truth?

For the most part, 98% of what he just

said is true. His problems are very

real,

but that's the thing with lies. Lies are

often a mix of truth with distortion.

He thinks he's alone,

but he's not.

I mean, he's the one that chose to go

out in the wilderness by himself and

leave all his servants behind. He's

alone because he chose to be there. He's

alone in a cave because he chose to be

alone in the cave. And so now that that

reality that he keeps seeing is being

replayed over and over in his mind and

he feels like, "Yeah, this is this is

reality now. I am alone."

Then the Lord says again,

"What are you doing here?"

And in verse 14, he repeats the problem

verbatim.

That's how you know.

That's how you know somebody's been

replaying the hurts and the offenses

over and over in their minds. When you

ask them about it multiple times and

they keep coming back and giving you

word for word the same story, that means

that when they go to bed at night,

that's all they're thinking about. And

when they wake up in the morning, that's

all they're thinking about. They're

replaying the tapes over and over and

over. And when you do that, when you

replay those tapes, it exaggerates the

problem.

In verse 12 though, we have this really

cool moment where there's a there's a

fire and there's an earthquake and

there's a windstorm and it says the

Lord's not in any of those things, but

then there was a still small voice. A a

soft whisper.

So, the enemy was shouting lies. That's

what the storms and everything

represent, all the lies that Elijah was

believing.

So, God comes into that and he whispers

the truth.

And he says, "Elijah, the truth is

there's a king in Aram that's going to

serve as your personal security. And the

truth is that there is a a farmer named

Elisha that's going to serve as your

lieutenant. And the truth is, there's

7,000

soldiers who have picked up their swords

and were so inspired by what they saw on

that mountain that they are ready to

fight against Jezebel.

Was he alone? No, he wasn't alone. He

just thought he was alone.

And so this still small voice speaks

into that cave

and tells him the truth.

One commentator said,

"The devil is loud because he's distant.

God whispers because he's near."

Love that.

So God's word can be as small as a a

whisper. It could be your daily devotion

in the morning. It could be a a a post

on social media. It could be just

something that a friend sends you via

text. It can be as small as a whisper,

but God's word is always louder than an

earthquake.

Friends, it'll literally rock your

world.

When you are full of the spirit and you

are prayed up and you open the word of

God, this word is living and active. It

is sharper than any two-edged sword.

It'll cut you all the way down to the

marrow. It'll reveal to you who you are.

It'll reveal the lies and it will will

reveal your hope as well. So we have

this text in both Isaiah and Jeremiah

and Lamentations

that moves from the situation where they

had hope, like mountain top experience,

I had hope and then I lost hope, but now

I have hope.

And this hope that's being referred to

here is a a new way of handling

adversity. You're not going to be able

to avoid adversity, but now you've been

given an a way to handle adversity. It's

a new way of addressing pain. You're not

going to be able to avoid pain, but now

you have this new hope, this new way of

processing your pain. Jeremiah said it

250 years after Isaiah said it or Elijah

said it. It is a different place. It's a

different people, but it's the same

lesson. He says, "I call this to mind

and therefore I have hope." So what did

he call to mind? These words.

Because of the Lord's faithful love

This chapter 3 verse 22 now.

Because of the Lord's faithful love

we do not perish. For his mercies never

end.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

God's love is constant. His mercies are

new every morning. His faithful

love never

fails.

God's mercy,

his faithfulness,

and his love are infinite.

So if you've ever believed the lie that

God is upset with you, that he's hurling

a a lightning bolt at you from heaven,

then I want you to understand this

scripture says that God's mercy, his

faithfulness, and his love for his for

his children

are infinite. You are in his hands even

when you don't feel like it.

You are in his hand even when you choose

to veer off course.

Now I do want to point out one last

thing. The lies did not stop for

Jeremiah or Elijah.

They they didn't stop.

The rest of their lives they were faced

with the same lies that the enemy had

been using since day one.

But the difference is

that they stopped listening to the lies.

See in Revelation chapter 12 verse 9

Revelation 12:9

we we read this

horrible verse

where it talks about what happened

in the heavenly realms earlier on

in human history.

It says the great dragon was thrown out.

That's Satan. The ancient serpent who is

called the devil and Satan. The one who

deceives the world.

So he's cast out of heaven and he was

thrown down to where?

To earth. And he didn't come alone. The

fallen angels came with him, right? So

hey, thanks a lot, God, right? Like he

was your problem, now you made him our

problem. The great deceiver and all of

his cronies are now here lying to us on

earth.

But then in verse 11 we have this

incredible passage

that says that this great dragon was

conquered. How?

They conquered him by the blood of the

lamb.

So you can't do this without Jesus.

Don't be confused. This is not a

willpower sermon. This is a Holy Spirit

sermon. So thank you, Jesus, for what

you've given me.

But then it also says they conquered him

by the blood of the lamb. That's Jesus

in the sacrifice on the cross.

And by the word of their testimony.

The things that they talked about, the

things that they believed.

They didn't fall victim to the schemes

of the evil one because they had a word

of God in their hearts. And when they

needed it, God drew from the well that

they had had placed in their heart, that

well that's just full of his word. And

when they needed it, it just comes to

the surface and it reveals the lies for

what they are.

So what I want you to take away from

today's sermon is number one, you you

need to learn to identify the lie. How

do you do that? You read the scripture.

And once you read the scripture, you

replace the lie with the truth from

God's word. And then, don't miss this

part, you repeat the truth daily.

Stop replaying the tapes of the pain and

the suffering and the hurt and start to

replace those tapes with the words that

God is speaking into those situations.

These two core lies that have held some

of us in captive for a long time will be

overwhelmed by the truth.

So I may not have enough,

but Jesus does.

Would you say, "But Jesus does"?

So

All right. So I'm going to say, "I may

not have enough." And you will say,

"So I may not have enough."

"They may not love me."

See how that works?

It's true.

Some people might not love you.

So sometimes you might not have enough.

But at the end of the day,

Jesus does.

And he is more than willing to give you

what you need.

So let's pray.