God is Faithful - Pastor Susie Gamez | Midtown Church Elk Grove

This might feel off topic, but you know, we're contextualizing here.

We're recognizing that we are living in some um some days and times where things are constantly changing.

And there's uh there's a lot of things that could cause us reason to lament.

Um there's a lot of things that could cause us reason to uh feel the pain of the world around us.

Um but congruently there's also things to celebrate, there's also things to be excited about, and both things can exist at the same time.

Um on that note, I just kind of like a lighthearted question here.

I'm curious, has anyone been paying attention to the World Cup?

Okay, a few people.

I know Sandy was watching the game yesterday at Yard House, and she said, What I know is that I think FIFA is rigged, and you know, there's some people who have that opinion.

We won't go into all those deep dives right now.

But um, admittedly, I look I love the World Cup too, but I really only ever watch soccer when it's time for the World Cup, so once every four years or so.

And up until now, I've I've only really ever followed Korea when Korea was playing.

Um Koreans get real excited about their soccer.

Um, and this year it felt like there was extra reason to pay attention because in our household we had four teams that we could potentially be rooting for.

So we could be rooting for Korea, we could be rooting for Mexico, we could be rooting for Canada.

That's where I was born and raised, um, and we could be rooting for the US.

Now I won't tell you which order in which we were cheering for each team, but if you ask our kids, they'll tell you that they are half Mexican and half Korean.

Uh they don't necessarily say that they are half Canadian, half American for some strange reason.

That's a whole nother sociological deep dive.

Um, but it's probably also telling if you had to guess which teams they were cheering for most.

But the fact that Canada, Mexico, and the US were the host countries this year also made a big difference in the amount of attention that soccer was finally getting here in the US.

Uh, I have friends who are living in Mexico or friends who recently visited Mexico, and and they confirmed it seems like the whole country was rooting for Team Mexico.

Uh I was told by one of my friends who lives in Mexico that uh their her her kids' preschool was canceled on the days that Mexico had matches.

People didn't even have to call off work, they were canceling meetings so that people could watch the games.

So that gives you a picture of how much the whole country was behind their team.

That's a snapshot of how much Mexico uh was behind their team.

Uh we just got back from a trip to my childhood hometown in Vancouver, Canada.

And there, too, there was lots of buzz around the World Cup.

All throughout the city, you saw World Cup decorations and watch parties were happening throughout the city, and there was an entire downtown area that was blocked off for weeks where it was pedestrian only, so that fans of whichever team had just won could walk up and down the streets celebrating with other probably intoxicated fans.

So we felt the buzz of the World Cup in the streets of Vancouver.

But here in the US, I've read that the expected economic boom or increased fanfare of the game has been kind of underwhelming.

In case you didn't know, um, soccer or football, as most of the world calls it, is definitively the most popular sport in the world.

Like by far, it is the most popular sport in the world.

There's an estimated 3.5 billion soccer fans across the globe.

It's by far the world's favorite sport.

But I do guess that it's true that most people here in the US prefer the other football, American football.

Some might even say the real football if you're here in America.

Um, and although it doesn't make more sense for soccer to be called football here in America, we call it soccer.

The point is, Americans love their football, their football.

Um, earlier this year, when the Super Bowl was held in the Bay, uh, it was almost impossible to find a hotel room nearby.

And if you did, hotel rates were almost 10 times their usual price.

That wasn't the case this summer, though, when the city was also one of the host cities for the World Cup.

Some hotels in the Bay Area had tons of vacancies.

A lot less people showed up than they expected.

Room rates were actually pretty on par for regular summer months.

So it had me thinking maybe San Francisco really is a faithful football town.

An American football town, that is.

Since moving here, I've heard the phrase faithful to the bay a lot more than I probably would have if we were still living down in LA.

And understandably so, but today, as we talk about the faithfulness of God, God's faithfulness, this slogan came to mind, faithful to the bay.

Um, and I did some research about how and why this saying came about.

So, Faithful to the Bay officially became a slogan on September 8th, 2020.

Did y'all know that?

That that I mean, since we've been living in Northern California, I've I've heard that phrase, so I thought it was around forever, but it was it was coined in September of 2020.

So the San Francisco 49ers launched it as a brand campaign to replace the older motto, which was faithful then, faithful now.

Do y'all remember that was a motto?

Did you know it was a thing?

Okay, faithful then, faithful now.

And um, I I guess they felt like they didn't have to faith stay faithful to that motto.

Um, so they changed it up.

The team updated the phrase to faithful to the bay in 2020 to show their loyalty to the local area after their rivals, the Raiders, moved to Las Vegas.

Did y'all know that's why it came about?

It was basically like it was shots fired over to the Raiders.

Um, this slogan came about because the Raiders, you know, they went from being the Oakland Raiders to the LA Raiders back to being the Oakland Raiders, and now they want to be the Las Vegas Raiders.

So now 49ers fans decided to, you know, shoot some shot shots in a you could say petty kind of way, and they would say, you all can do that, but we are gonna stay faithful to the bay.

The the Raiders, they they sound like a Hollywood marriage, on again, off again, full of divorce drama and heartache and heartbreak.

So the Oakland, LA, Las Vegas Raiders, they're fickle, they don't know who they are, but the San Francisco 49ers, they are faithful to the Bay.

That's the whole backstory of that slogan.

But not only are the Niners and their fans faithful to the Bay, the Faithful has been a nickname for the fans of the 49ers since the 1950s.

I'm telling you, I did my research, I learned a lot about the Niners and their fan base.

The faithful have stayed faithful through the good times and the bad.

And while there's been a few wins here and there, there's been a lot of heartbreak too.

I said all of that like I was a Niners fan myself.

But here's the point: the parallel, the segue into our topic today.

You can be faithful to the Bay, hello, James Kabalu.

Um, you can be faithful to the 49ers, the Raiders, or the Bears, my husband.

But your city, your team, even your family, your friends, andor your spouse can and will fail you at some point.

Sometimes the people closest to you may even betray you, but God cannot.

God does not, and God will not fail.

We sang this song just now, and I wonder if you sang it like you believed it.

Worthy you are, worthy you were, worthy you are, worthy you always will be.

What makes God worthy?

God is unchanging.

There is no one like God, there is no one as faithful as God.

In fact, God is the definition of faithfulness.

God is the definition of steadfastness, God is the definition of a firm foundation.

God is faithful even when we are not.

And today, as we continue our God is serious, we're looking at the faithfulness of God.

God is faithful.

I just said it, but 2 Timothy 2, verse 13 says that even if we are faithless, God remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

2 Timothy 2:13

Even if we are faithless, God remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

Meaning that God cannot be untrue to his own nature.

God is faithful.

God is faithful and we are fickle.

Even if we are faithless, God remains faithful.

You know, this statement is both convicting and comforting.

Even if we are without faith, or if we lack faith, or let's put it this way: even if we are straight up unfaithful to God, God remains faithful because it's true to his character.

He can't not be who he is.

Who God is doesn't change depending on how we act.

And God remains faithful to the sovereignty of his plans and his purposes.

It's convicting because this reminds us of how far we fall short of the glory and goodness of God.

And yet it's comforting because it's a reminder that no matter how far we fall short of the glory and goodness of God, God is faithful.

God is steadfast, his mercies never come to an end.

They're new every morning, and great is his faithfulness, even when we are faithless.

But let's be careful not to confuse a truth that is comforting for something that we become comfortable with, too comfortable with.

So comfortable that we can take God's love and God's faithfulness for granted.

If we're too comfortable with that truth, we can begin to act irresponsible, entitled, ungrateful, and even unfaithful because we think, well, even if I'm faithless, or let's put it this way, even if I'm unfaithful, I know he'll be faithful to me.

That's a distorted truth right there.

That's where the enemy can start to get a foothold and take something that's a truth that's supposed to be transformative and turn it into something that it's not supposed to be.

If we have that kind of mindset with God, oh, I can go and do what I want to do because God's always gonna forgive me.

God will always be there, God will always love me, God, you know, He's faithful even when I'm unfaithful.

That that doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship, does it?

Sounds like a dysfunctional one.

It sounds like a disordered one.

And if it keeps going down that path, it sounds like one that will end in divorce.

See, the most commonly cited reason for divorce is irreconcilable differences.

Irreconcilable differences.

I mean, that that's kind of just the truth.

A lot of times in marriages and relationships, things don't work out because differences feel so great that they just are irreconcilable.

Now, it's a blanket legal term that basically allows spouses to dissolve their marriage without assigning blame.

Like it's not one particular person's fault.

There's just an incompatibility or differences that are so great that the relationship is deemed irreconcilable.

Now, this may be the case in human relationships.

There may often be offenses that feel so big, wounds that cut so deep, habits and harm that have gone on for so long that those differences truly feel irreconcilable.

But when it comes to God, when Jesus laid down his life, he came to die once and for all, and for all who would receive him, all who would believe in him and make him Lord over their lives, none of our sins, though we're not worthy of forgiveness, none of our sins are irreconcilable to God.

Jesus came to reconcile us to God, and there is no such thing as something so grievous that that God would not be willing to irreconcile, not be willing to reconcile with us.

There's no irreconcilable differences, no differences so great that God wouldn't be willing to forgive unless that's what we choose.

God wants us to draw near, but there requires a level of brokenness.

There requires sometimes a rock bottom for a person to feel, for them to know that they are in need of a gracious, loving, forgiving, faithful God.

And he's not waiting for us to become faithful before he's willing to be faithful to us.

It's who he is.

But it takes two to make a thing go right.

God is faithful, God is patient, but if we choose to harden our hearts, plug our ears, or look away from his pursuit of us, he may just allow for our hearts to be hard and unresponsive to him.

God's faithfulness, while way beyond our capacity, is also meant to be our standard, our goal.

What we aspire to be in relationship to God, faithful, as he has been faithful to us.

I want to turn our attention to Lamentations 3, 22 and 23.

It's a well-known passage of scripture.

There's a uh a well-known song that uses these verses as its chorus, and it says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

His mercies never come to an end.

They are new every morning.

Great is thy faithfulness.

There's so much to learn about who God is in just these two verses.

God is steadfast, which is another word for faithful.

God is love and God is loving.

And that love is eternal because God is eternal.

God is merciful.

And just like his love, his mercies never come to an end.

They are new every morning.

Great is God's faithfulness.

So, what does it mean to be faithful?

The Hebrew word for faithfulness is synonymous with steadfastness, firmness, fidelity, someone or something that is steady, loyal, unwavering, reliable.

There's a geyser in Yellowstone Park called Yellowstone National Park, called Old Faithful.

Has anyone ever gone to see Old Faithful?

I've seen pictures of it, video clips of it, but um supposedly it's called Old Faithful because it famously erupts hot water and steam every day.

Every day approximately every 90 minutes or so.

It's reliable, it's consistent.

People travel from across the world to go and see this geyser called Old Faithful.

And it's kind of become a wonder because there are so few things in this world, it seems, that seem as steady and constant as an old geyser that will erupt every day, every 90 minutes.

Spike Lee is known to be a faithful fan.

You could even say die hard New York Knicks fan.

You know, he's been at almost every game, courtside at Madison Square Garden since 1985.

1985.

He's been faithfully cheering them on, hoping for a championship.

And finally, 41 years later, he was there to witness it.

Not at Madison Square Garden, but he saw them win the championship.

See, the opposite of being faithful is to be ever-changing or wishy-washy, not reliable, not steady.

This is a huge stereotype, but you know, people in LA, they have a reputation for being fickle, flaky, unreliable.

You make plans and you don't know if there's really going to be a follow-through, or if the plans that you made are for sure.

So people will say, Oh, I'll pencil that in.

Something new and exciting.

And if an opportunity comes along, I might just go take that opportunity instead of following through with my plans that I made with you.

Now that's a fickle friend if you have a friend like that.

And again, that's not a fair stereotype, but it but is is there.

And um, it's a contrast to the steadfast and reliable nature of God.

God is not waiting for a better option to come along as he's waiting for us.

God is waiting for us to recognize that he is the best option for us.

See, faithfulness often goes hand in hand with patience as well, because how many of you know that God has been patient with us?

Think about your life and all the things that you've done in your life.

You can probably come up with a testimony or ten of times when God has had to be faithful with your hard headed self.

God is patient.

Think about the most patient person that you know.

There are times that I admit I am not as patient as I could be with my kids.

Um, but there are other times where I feel like it is my duty to let my kids know how patient I actually am.

You know, I feel like there's some other parents that could probably resonate with me here, but but I I at times feel like it's my duty to let my kids know.

You don't know how good you have it.

Right?

Like we're not it's not a comparison game here, but it feels like it is sometimes because sometimes I have to let them know you don't know.

You don't know just how good you have it.

The opportunities that you have, I didn't have those.

The kind of presence that we're giving you, I didn't have that, right?

And so sometimes it feels like our duty to tell our kids, no, you know, I I know you know I'm not a saint, but sometimes I feel like one.

But just like we all fall short of the glory of God, we may think we are patient, faithful, and long-suffering, but we all fall way short, especially if we compare ourselves to God.

But even there's there's someone else in the Bible that I want to highlight here, too.

This is a person who might be seen as the epitome of faithfulness, even faithful to a fault.

There's someone in the Bible named Hosea.

Who is Hosea?

Well, Hosea was a man commissioned by God to do something that we'd all consider crazy.

Hosea chapter 1, verse 2, sums up the crazy that I'm speaking of.

Hosea 1:2

In Hosea 1, verse 2, God tells Hosea this.

Hosea 1:2

He says to Hosea, Go and marry a woman of promiscuity.

Go and marry a woman of promiscuity.

This was a command from the Lord.

Here we thought God would have wanted Hosea, a man of God, to marry someone like a Proverbs 31 woman, but a woman of promiscuity?

What in the plot twist is happening here?

Hosea was a man of God, a prophet, and a faithful husband to a woman who ironically fits the description of someone who sounds a lot like the first syllable of her husband's name.

She was a woman of promiscuity.

I I tried to say without saying it, right?

Um she was a wayward woman.

And she wasn't just a woman who made a bad decision or two in her life, she was chronically unfaithful.

She was frequently abandoning Hosea for other men.

She mistreated him terribly, and then eventually she leaves him completely, and then her bad decisions catch up to her, and she falls into deep poverty and she is sold into slavery.

So if what God tells Hosea in chapter 1, verse 2 does not seem crazy enough, go and marry a woman of promiscuity.

God then tells Hosea, after she had committed all these sins against him, to seek his wife Gomer, her name was Gomer, to go seek Gomer out and pay the price to get her back and redeem her.

Meaning, not just go and redeem.

Rescue her from that terrible situation, but take her back as your wife.

Now, if Hosea was your son, your brother, your friend, your neighbor, somebody that you knew, like at the office, you would probably tell him that this wasn't a good choice, that he was crazy for thinking that he should do this.

Even if he told you God told me to do this, you'd probably be like, I bet he didn't.

Because who does this?

Not only does this not make sense, it doesn't seem humanly possible to be this loving, this forgiving, this faithful.

And in fact, if this were someone who you knew and loved, you'd tell them, don't be dumb.

It does not seem humanly possible to be reconciled in this situation.

This is a case of irreconcilable differences.

It doesn't seem humanly possible because it's not.

In fact, the point of the book of Hosea is to demonstrate how lavish is the love of God towards us.

Hosea represents God's faithfulness, while Gomer was the embodiment of Israel's unfaithfulness, our unfaithfulness towards God.

Gomer's actions mirrored how the Israelites continually turned away from God and worshipped false idols.

They were unfaithful, and we've been unfaithful, as she was unfaithful.

Hosea's actions demonstrate to us the overwhelming, never-ending, extravagant, faithful, and steadfast love of God.

It puts into action the words, even when we are faithless or when we are unfaithful, he is faithful, extravagantly and unreasonably faithful.

In fact, the words of Jeremiah, Jeremiah known as the weeping prophet, the words of Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations might feel more true to what you might expect Hosea to be feeling than what Hosea actually did in obedience to God.

Jeremiah, while not personally responsible for the rebellion and the ruin that he saw all around him, he felt responsible.

He was grieved by the condition of the city and the people.

He looked at all the conditions around him.

He saw the suffering, the struggle, and there was so much lament in his heart.

He felt responsible and he confessed the sins of his people.

But at the same time, and it sounds a little weird to say it like this, but Jeremiah empathized with God.

His lament was a reflection of his brokenheartedness alongside God's.

See, Lamentations, the book of Lamentations, it's raw and it's real and it's honest and expresses feelings of deep despair and lament.

And I know just a little while ago I read from probably the most famous passage in Lamentations, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

Great is his faithfulness.

It seems weird.

Have you stopped to think about it?

It's called the Book of Lamentations, and this is the verse that people know from the Book of Lamentations.

The Book of Lamentations is about lament.

There's much reason to grieve, there's much reason to look at the world and feel heavy and burdened, and yet this verse, these verses in chapter three are the most well-known.

So what happens?

How did this shift happen?

The book of Lamentations is not a book about celebration and joy, it's a book of lament.

And again, like I said, it was most likely written by the prophet known as the weeping prophet Jeremiah.

And he had a lot to lament about.

He wrote Lamentation in the midst of Jerusalem's destruction.

He was writing from the rubble and the ashes.

The city was in ruins, and the people that God loved and called his own had rejected him over and over and over again.

They were like Gomer to Hosea.

And they rejected him over and over again, even though God had repeatedly sought to bless them.

So Jeremiah was brokenhearted because he knew that the selfishness, the stubbornness, and the sinfulness of the people would lead to more suffering and a more prolonged exile.

Jeremiah wept because his heart was broken over the things that broke God's heart, and God's heart was grieved over the disobedience and waywardness of the Israelites.

He grieved over the consequences of sin and the way that things had unraveled for his people.

You can look around the world today, here in the US.

Open up your news apps, your social media, and uh it won't take long to find a number of reasons to feel lament and grief, racial injustice, social and economic injustice, violence, discord.

All of these things are things that aren't hard to find within our culture and society.

And God was grieved over the sin of his people, and he was grieved over the state of his people.

And I wonder if there is not a lot that God is grieved over us right now as well.

Now that's that's kind of a broad stroke, but even in our own personal lives, I bet there are things that that um that keep us up, things that weigh us down, things that cause us reason for worry and lament.

Yesterday evening, we got a knock on our door, and it was the mother of one of our our kids' friends.

She looked distraught, and immediately I could tell in her voice there was something wrong.

Um she asked if if my son knew where her son was.

And so immediately I knew, okay, something happened.

And you know, she started to break down a little, and she said, Well, um, I can't find my son.

You know, at first, you know, she said they they had a bit of an argument, and you know, the her son left the house, and she said, You know, at first I just wanted to give him some time to cool off.

But it had been several hours since he had left and he didn't have his phone.

So, of course, she got worried.

Um, she she started actively looking for him.

She knocked on doors, she called everyone she could think of, and and some of us joined in on the search.

Marcos and and our son, they got in the car and they went to all the places that he thought he might be.

Now, no matter how mad his mom might have been earlier, there is no world in which she would want her son out on the streets overnight rather than safe at home with her.

As for him, one night out on the mean streets of Elk Grove, and he would have found out quickly that there is no place like home.

Just so you know, he he he was found pretty soon after that.

He was, I won't tell you where he was, but if you ever ever have a missing child, I have some suggestions for you too on where to look.

Um, but for the children of Israel, however, it seems that their chronic waywardness had caught up with them.

Now, this this young boy, he um he had an argument with his mom, but it was settled quickly.

He he was safely back at home within a few hours.

But for the children of Israel, they had a pattern of wandering away from God, and their chronic waywardness had caught up with them.

How many times had God been patient with them?

How many times had God provided for them?

How many times had God called out to them only for them to run away again?

And while God was lavishly, lovingly patient towards them, there were consequences for their decisions as well.

The city was now in ruins, the people were afflicted, and things were not good.

Yesterday, when my kids saw how distraught his mother's uh his friend's mother was, um I think that what registered for them was that it's obvious that this mother loved him and wanted him to come home.

But I think they also knew that he was probably gonna face some consequences when he got home.

Because they said to me later, they said, Hey mommy, if I did that, I'd be in so much trouble after, huh?

And I said, Oh, for sure.

Because as much as I love my kids, and though I know I'm no Mother Teresa nor am I Jesus of Nazareth, there is no place on earth that I wouldn't go to find my child if they were missing.

But when they were finally back safe at home, I would need them to know that I ain't no punk either.

And if they sent me on a wild goose chase looking for them, and they almost sent me to the ER from the stress of looking for their little wayward behinds, I would do my very best to make sure that they would not want to do that again.

But here's the thing: unfortunately, I can't guarantee that my kids won't make some bad decisions here and there.

I can't guarantee that they won't be the victims of other people's bad decisions.

I can't guarantee that they won't be faced with difficult circumstances and difficult seasons of life because in this life there will be trouble.

In this world there will be hardship.

In this life there will be suffering and struggle, and the residual effects of a sinful and broken world sometimes feel so great that it becomes hard to see and believe that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

You might know that here, but it might become really hard to feel that that is true.

It might be hard to hold on to the truth that you know but can't feel that this too shall pass.

Sometimes it gets really difficult to believe and feel and see that God is faithful.

Sometimes our seasons of hardship and seasons of grief last a lot longer than we'd like.

At times the suffering feels like too much for us to bear.

Grief and hardship can feel consuming.

Depression and anxiety can feel so heavy that it's hard to move, hard to breathe, hard not to feel overtaken or overwhelmed by it, and it can all feel like too much.

See, the weirdly beautiful thing about the Book of Lamentations is that it gives us permission to grieve.

It validates the very human part of who we are, it gives us space to feel the feelings.

And I I know it's strange, but I really like sad movies.

I like sad movies, I like sad songs.

If something can move me or make me make me cry, I like I feel deeply like I feel deeply moved.

And I almost feel like, isn't that the purpose of like of art?

Or or you know, when you watch a movie, it's supposed to connect with a very human part of you.

So if I watch something, like I love sad movies.

And my husband's always like, why do you want to watch all these depressing things?

Um you know, watch some Korean dramas and it'll probably confirm that um that Koreans actually just like love tragedy.

It's like a part of who we are, I think.

Anyways, for me, if if a movie or a song or a play or a book, whatever, if it can move me enough to make me cry, I feel like I can appreciate it more deeply.

And Lamentations, it's a book of poetry.

It's written as a series of poems.

I'm gonna move through this a lot quicker, but I want to explain something to you.

When you read through the Book of Lamentations, you can't quite appreciate it when you read it in English.

But the Book of Lamentations, it's set up as a series of poems.

And Lamentations 3 is interesting because do y'all know what an acrostic is?

Like, um, okay, so an acrostic is a poem.

Is there an example of an appro acrostic?

Okay, so say you have the word star.

You see how star is like the the the boundaries for which you are going to I can't wow, I should have written down how to explain this, but you know what an acrostic is when you see it now, right?

Summer.

The first letter starts with the first word of the out the whatever that word is, right?

Now, the book of Lamentations is a book of poetry, and Lamentations 3 is set up like a poem that actually follows the rules of an acrostic, and it uses the whole Hebrew alphabet to walk us through a poem of lament and grief.

So that's cool and all but why?

Sungchan Ra he wrote a book called Prophetic Lament, and he explains that Lamentations 3 is presented in an acrostic that uses the full spectrum of the Hebrew alphabet from Aleph to Ta, basically from A to Z, because while it might feel like the list of things to grieve and lament over in this life and in this world seems endless, using an acrostic that goes from A to Z provides a sense of order to chaos.

Using this structure gives the overwhelming feelings of lament, both a sense of boundaries and completion all at once.

By expressing the fullness of grief from A to Z, the author of Lamentation seeks that the people might experience an emotional catharsis.

He wanted to bring about a complete cleansing of the conscience through a total confession of sin.

And the acrostic guarantees that in some form the full account of their suffering will be expressed.

So using what seems like almost an elementary literary device in his writings brings about some order.

And especially in the midst of chaos, people want a sense of spiritual order.

The acrostic poem gives a sense of order to that chaos.

I don't know if any of you have gone through therapy.

If you haven't and you need it, I highly suggest it.

But it's kind of like when you do the work to talk through something with your therapist, and they help you put a name to what it is that you're feeling.

Like the feeling is so big, but as you process it, sometimes your therapist can help you start to identify, identify, and put a name to those things.

Oh, that's what I'm feeling.

That's what that thing is.

They don't necessarily solve the problem, but that might, they might be able to name for you.

Oh, you know what that is?

That's called intergenerational trauma.

You know what you're struggling with?

That's often called the imposter syndrome.

Well, what's happening there?

That might be transference.

So naming these things don't necessarily solve the problem, but can help bring a sense of order out of the chaos of what you've been navigating through.

So, yes, there's permission to lament throughout the book of Lamentations, but lament itself is not the final destination.

Let me read to you again from Lamentations 3.

In the middle of this book, which is full of lament and grief, there's a sudden shift that becomes one of Scripture's most powerful declarations of God's faithfulness.

I'll read it to you again, but this time, and I don't think we have it on the screen, but this time I want to start at the end of verse 20 that says, This is Jeremiah again saying, Yes, my soul is downcast within me.

For three chapters, Jeremiah has been recalling all the things that have caused his soul to be downcast.

And all of a sudden it turns a corner in verse 21, because here he says, Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.

There's a shift.

My soul is downcast, and yet I'm gonna remember something about who God is.

I'm gonna remember this about God, and therefore I can have hope.

All this weeping, all this sadness, all this reason to lament, and the and and uh the circumstances have not changed, things have not miraculously gotten better, but a shift happens in Jeremiah's mind, and therefore he has hope.

And he goes on to recall that because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is God's faithfulness.

And then he goes on to himself to say, The Lord is my portion, and therefore I will wait for him.

My circumstances right now have not immediately changed, but I shift my focus from all the problems, all the grief, all the lament around me, and I'm going to recall what God has done.

I'm going to recall who I know and believe God is, and it will give me hope for the future that God is, was, and always will be worthy of my worship.

God is, was, always will be faithful, even when I can't see the outcome.

This is what Jeremiah says.

Therefore, I will have hope because I will remember who God is.

I will tell my soul, remember, God is unchanging, He is steadfast, his mercies never come to an end, and his love never fails.

This is what enables Jeremiah to go from being a man of lament to a man of hope.

And I want to end again with a real life story.

I just so happened, I'm almost never on Facebook anymore, but I just so happened to be scrolling a couple days ago, and I came across a post that was written actually months ago by a pastor friend that I kind of know from a distance.

But what I had heard last year, late last year, was that um his family had suffered a tragedy.

Um his son had taken his own life, and um it's a heartbreak that I know that um no parent, no person ever wants to go through.

Uh but from a distance, I knew that um they were navigating through this pain uh with a lot of community support around them.

And his life, whenever he decided to post, would be a declaration of faith.

I know that a lot of times it was probably hard to write this, but as a pastor, he would have to get up.

I mean, and he took several months, but um, he got back and he was able to start preaching again about the faithfulness of God.

And I came across this post on what was uh he and his wife's 25th wedding anniversary.

And he writes this post dedicated to her, just acknowledging and naming for a great portion of the post about all the hardship that they they had been through, all the heartache, all the sorrow that they had unwillingly come to know in the last year.

And towards the end of the post, he says, after recognizing all of the trauma, all the heartache, he says, but we have reason to celebrate.

We've been married for 25 years now, so today we celebrate not because life is easy, but because God has been faithful.

We celebrate a mar gosh, we celebrate a marriage that is known laughter and now knows lament.

A love that death could wound but not destroy.

And this anniversary is not what we imagined, but even now there is so much redemption.

And he says this because sorrow does not cancel joy, it deepens it.

Sorrow does not cancel joy, it deepens it.

And grief does not end love, it proves it.

Beautiful words written by somebody who experienced deep grief and knows what it is to have to profess God's faithfulness in faith.

And it's a great reminder that there is room for lament in our lives.

We should make room for lament in our lives.

It's okay to feel the ache of what some have come to know as the dark night of the soul.

Times when it feels like heartache is greater than joy, and when it feels like it's hard to see, feel, or hear God.

And in those times you might even start to wonder if you'll see daylight again in the midst of what feels like a never-ending night.

But what we can learn from Jeremiah is the way that he was able to pivot in the midst of his lament.

He made a deliberate choice to stop being consumed by the rubble and the ruins that surrounded him.

And he forced, he commanded his mind, his spirit to look up.

So he moves from passive despair to active remembering.

And the advantage that we actually have over Jeremiah and the people of his day is that we don't have to guess or we don't have to hope for something that we have not yet seen the fulfillment of.

Jeremiah was clinging to a promise in the midst of total darkness.

Jesus had not yet come to fulfill the promise of God, but we have seen the fulfillment of God's promise, God's faithfulness to us in the promise of Jesus.

And so when Jesus went to the cross on that Friday, it looked like total defeat.

Just like it looked like it was defeat for Jerusalem and Jeremiah's day.

When Jesus went to the cross Friday night, all day Saturday, it looked and felt like ruins and rubble, and it seemed like there was too much reason to lament.

It was a dark night of the soul with no promise of a new day in sight.

There was no promise of a new day until Christ's resurrection early on Sunday morning.

And this is where Jeremiah's words came to life.

God's steadfast love comes alive with mercies that are new every morning.

Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

And there is a resurrection of life that is available to us, manifested through the promise of the resurrection of Jesus.

And therefore we have hope.

Great is his faithfulness.

The resurrection of Jesus can resurrect hope in your life.

The resurrection of Jesus gives life to the words.

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.

Because he lives, all fear is gone.

Because I know he holds the future, and why life is worth the living just because he lives.

So, church, be reminded: God is faithful even when we are not.

God is faithful even when it's hard for us to see it.

God is faithful even when it's hard for us to feel it.

And God is faithful, always has been, always will be, and is faithful even now.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your faithfulness.

And we started this service just by acknowledging, God, that you are worthy, that you don't change, that you are faithful to us.

Thank you, Lord, for the many reminders in Scripture of who you are, for the ways that Scripture points us to the fact that you are a sovereign God who has a plan.

And God, even when we are faithless, you are faithful because you are sovereign.

Your love never runs out on us.

Your mercies are new every morning.

And I pray especially for brothers and sisters right now that might be going through what feels like a dark night of the soul, or might be going through circumstances where it feels like there is so much ruins and so much rubble, so much heartache around them that it's hard to profess your faithfulness.

But God, in the midst of their sorrow, in the midst of their struggle, we ask, Lord, that you would deepen their joy, deepen our joy, deepen our faith, our declarations of who you are, and let the enemy not triumph over us.

God, you are faithful.

You are strong, you are loving, you are patient and kind.

And God, we pray that we would leave here filled with the promise of the Holy Spirit, filled with more strength to face whatever today and tomorrow may face, may present to us, Lord.

And help us, Lord, that we can face tomorrow because you live and the promise of who you are.

We thank you and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.