The Lord Is My Portion | Lamentations 3:19-33 | Blessing Chishanu

By the time you leave theological college, some

of what filled those years will slowly become

a blur, fading in our memories. But every now

and then, something deeply formative stays with

you. For me, one of those moments came through

a conversation with Justin Stratus, my tutor

in doctrine while I was at theological college

at Trinity College Bristol. He said something

along the following lines. Studying theology

is like discovering grandparents you never knew

you had. My aim is not to merely sharpen you

cranially, so to speak, as you grapple with doctrinal

complexity. My aim, rather, is, among other things,

to introduce you to your grandparents, to Tertullian,

to Oregon, to Athanasius, to Augustine, your

spiritual forebearers, this great cloud of witnesses,

dear friends. He implored us as students to sit

with them, to interrogate them, to ask them hard

questions, to note their sighs and their silences,

pull on their beards, tell them, Grandpa, your

beard stinks there, your breath stinks. You see,

dear friends at Theological College, if we are

not careful, if we neglect this call to proximity,

we risk becoming what C .S. Lewis calls chronological

snobbery. Thinking that the story starts with

us. You see, we read the scriptures, these letters

from home with others across the timeline of

human history, across continents and cultures,

listening to voices of those who have gone before

us and those who read alongside us today. And

so, as I turned to these poems of lament, I took

Justin's counsel to mind, to heart, so to speak,

decided I'm going to sit down with Augustine

over coffee. He came slowly, shoulders bowed

beneath the weight of a collapsing world. In

AD 410, an unthinkable thing had happened. Rome

had fallen. The city had stood for centuries,

that symbol of power and permanence. Her banners

blazing across the ancient world, ransacked by

the Visigoths, trampled beneath barbarian feet.

Refugees poured into North Africa, carrying stories

of horror. And yet, amidst it all, Aurelius Augustine

dips his pen in ink and dares to write words,

not of despair, but of defiant hope, in his work,

The City of God. For Augustine, faith did not

mean refusing to grieve. No, dear friends. He

says, citizens of God, he writes, grieve and

they rejoice in hope. They grieve, yet they hope.

And so those words rang in my mind as I came

to the text of Lamentations. For this too comes

to us from a people who have watched their world

collapse, so to speak. And so just as Augustine

weeps over the ruins of Rome, centuries earlier,

this poet of Lamentations, Jeremiah, weeps over

the ruins of Jerusalem. Both men standing among

the smoldering remains of those ancient cities.

And so as we turn to our scriptures, as our forebearers

did, dear friends, to the counsel of God's word,

let's pray. Lord, your word is living. And as

the song said earlier on, would it reveal our

Christ? And so, Holy Spirit, we ask that you

would impress upon us that these things be true

for the glory of our King. Amen. In his book,

Dark Clouds and Deep Mercy, Mark Vrogel, Exploring

Lament, writes, While attending a meeting at

a Christian conference center, I noticed a picture

on the wall. It featured a painted scene of a

small English cottage tucked between two mountains

with a flowing stream. A small garden surrounded

the house. It resembled a Thomas Kinkard painting

with pastel colors and soft lines. And a bright

sky, the kind of art you find in a Christian

bookstore. This soothing refuge would become...

a place I'd love to visit, so to speak, one of

peace and tranquility. Below the painting were

the words of Lamentations chapter 3, verse 22

Lamentations 3:22–23

to 23. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

His mercies never will come to an end. They are

new every morning, new every morning. Great is

your faithfulness. Oh Lord, great is your faithfulness.

You see, the artist sets these beautiful words

against an equally beautiful landscape. But Lamentations

gives us a different portrait, a very, very different

portrait. You see, instead of an English cottage

nestled between the mountains, the city of Jerusalem

lay in ruins. Lamentations chapter one, verse

one. How like a widow is she. who was once great

among the nations, she who was queen among the

provinces, has now become a slave. There was

a time when Jerusalem stood tall in all her glory

and beauty. It was the envy of the ancient world.

The Talmud describes it this way. It says that

ten measures of beauty descended to the world.

Nine were taken by Jerusalem and one by the rest

of the world. Jerusalem is a beauty unparalleled.

Yet now that beauty lies in rubble and ruin.

And so in a very real sense, this poet's funeral

lament for a city whose glory has faded confronts

us. Lamentations 1 verse 6. All the splendor

Lamentations 1:6

has departed from daughter Zion. But the tragedy

remains deeper still, dear friends. Jerusalem

was more than just a beautiful city. You see,

this was home. This was the city of David, the

center of worship, the very dwelling place of

God himself. Here the nation prayed, they worshiped.

Here generations had met with the God of Israel.

And yet now it lies in ruin. Instead, we find

these terrifying words. Lamentations 1 verse

13b. He has given me into the hands of those

I cannot withstand. See dear friends, the great

tragedy of this account does not stem from the

presence of an external adversary laying siege

on their city. The great tragedy is derived from

the heart -rending reality that God himself seems,

watch my language, to have turned against his

people. He has given me. Into the hands of those

I cannot withstand. And this is not a conclusion

drawn only from the rubble. Years earlier writing

first. Writing to the first exiles in Babylon.

Jeremiah records the following. I carried you

into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. The boot

of the oppressor on your neck. I placed it there.

Can you feel its weight? Pull back the curtain

of reality. And you find not. chaos not random

chance not even babylon but the very sovereign

hand of god at work as the old hymn goes god

plants his footsteps in the sea if he were to

do so on the sand we would tell where he is the

way in which he chooses to act is beyond our

understanding how would the god of israel do

this to his beloved lamentations 1 verse 15 The

Lamentations 1:15

Lord rejected all the warriors in my midst. He

has summoned an army against me to crush my young

man. And so instead of a concordant scene filled

with serenity, Jerusalem is in ruin. Her structures

are collapsed. Her land is scorched and barren.

Bright skies are replaced with looming dark clouds.

Quaint gardens are exchanged for streets of suffering.

Thousands upon thousands lay dying in the streets

of Jerusalem. Hunger and plague sweep across

the land unchecked. So severe was the plight

that acts of cannibalism begin to take place.

Lamentations 4 verse 10. With their own hands,

Lamentations 4:10

compassionate women have cooked their own children,

who became their food when my people were destroyed.

And so the weeping poets... Drenched in sorrow

over all that he sees, weeps bitterly. Verse

1, verse 16, chapter 1. This is why I weep, and

my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to

comfort me. No one to restore my spirit. My children

are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.

He is in anguish, in deep. Like a bear lying

in wait, chapter 3, verse 10 to 18. Like a lion

in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled

and left me without help. He drew his bow and

made me the target of his arrows. He pierced

my heart with arrows from his quiver. I became

the laughingstock of all my people. They mock

me in song all day long. He has filled me with

bitter herbs and given me gal to drink. He has

broken my teeth with gravel. He has trampled

me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace.

I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say

my splendor is gone and all that I had hoped

from the Lord. Utter anguish and despair. He

has stared into the darkness and found no easy

answers. And perhaps we need to stay here for

a moment, dear friends. Because in some of our

evangelical traditions, we can be very good at

getting to the answer. We know the doctrines.

We know the promises of God. We know what the

forebearer said. We know where the sermon is

supposed to land. And sometimes in our eagerness

to rush to truth, we can rush with people through

their pain. And I'll sit with them. Hence my

long -winded start. Sit. But lamentations does

not let us do this, dear friends. The poet does

not clean up his emotions for God. He does not

rush past the ache. He names it and he stays

with it. Biblical lament dignifies grief as an

act of faith. You see, the emotive life in scripture

is not to be shunned. I come from a very emotive

tradition. There are other traditions which are

less so. Yet we are embodied beings and in those

spaces we are created to worship God as we are

and to experience life on this side of time with

the full plethora of the way God has made us.

Only then, having stirred into the darkness without

pretending it isn't dark, does one change the

direction in our text. The following word comes

out. Yet, yet this I call to mind. And therefore,

I have hope. Lamentations chapter 3, verse 21

Lamentations 3:21–24

to 24, where we'll spend a few minutes. Because

of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail. They are new

every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I

say to myself, the Lord is my portion. I will

wait for him. Number one, remember God. Yet this

I call to mind. In his unimaginable anguish with

the imperial yoke of Babylon, yet firmly fastened,

glimmers of hope begin to rise. Yesterday at

the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, the

message emblazoned across our screens was hope

again. And here, centuries earlier, from the

rubble of Jerusalem, Jeremiah says, Yet this

I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. But

Jeremiah's hope is not a political slogan. It's

not optimism that circumstances will prove. You

see, his is a biblical hope. And his hope has

an object. You see, his object is God. Jeremiah

remembers his God. Babylon is still there. Jerusalem

is still in ruins. Nothing around him has changed.

But something within him has shifted. Yet this

I call to mind. And therefore, I have hope. Jerusalem

is in ruins. But God is not. As Tim Keller put

it, we may hear our hearts say it is hopeless.

But he says we should argue back. Jeremiah argues

back by remembering his God. Perhaps he calls

to mind the God who called him from his mother's

womb. Yet this I call to mind. And therefore,

I have hope. Warren Wasby, along the same train

of thought, says the following. Unbelief causes

us to look at God through our circumstances,

and this creates hopelessness. But faith enables

us to look at our circumstances through the reality

of who God is. And that gives us hope. And yet

this I call to mind. I'm sorry, James. It's who

I am. You can hear a pin drop. Rupert, it's good

to see you. A few years ago, well, about five,

six years ago, my wife and I had the privilege

of having lunch with Peter Lewis, the long -serving

pastor of Cornerstone Church in Nottingham, a

renowned Bible teacher who had spent more than

four decades preaching and teaching the scriptures.

Towards the end of his life, he was diagnosed

with cancer. And he said something to this effect.

After decades of preaching the truth of the gospel,

there comes a moment when those truths are no

longer simply what you preach to others. They

are what you must cling to yourself. When the

diagnosis comes, when the darkness descends,

when the questions have no easy answers, this

is where you see your belief is tested. What

he was simply saying is after 50 or so years

of ministry, this is where the rubber hits the

road. In my lament, in the aggressive nature

of this cancer, where do I place my hope? Darkness

descends and the questions have no easy answers,

dear friends. Where do you place your hope? The

city is still in ruins. The world has collapsed.

Nothing has changed for Jeremiah at this point.

And yet, I call to mind. And therefore, I have

hope. You see, lament doesn't ask us to pretend

that all is well. It doesn't call us to deny

the pain. It doesn't say airbrush reality. Lament

looks at reality square in the face and then

looks beyond it to the God of hope. And so, dear

friend, I know you are in this room in your grief

and in your pain and in your sorrow, in your

lament. Remember God because hope comes from

remembering God. Point number one. Number two,

remember his character, his love, his faithfulness,

his mercy, his love. Because of the Lord's great

love, we are not consumed, for his compassions

never fail. The ESV renders it because of the

steadfast love of the Lord. His mercy has never

come to the end. The word for love translates

that great Hebrew word, hasid. English translations

struggle to put their arms around this very big

word. It's a comprehensive word. It's incomparable.

So it's an incomparable love. It expresses the

magnitude of God's love. I think within the text

it's twice that it's in the plural and not the

single within the singular within Lamentations.

His steadfast love, his loving kindness, his

faithful love, his covenant love, his loyal love.

You see, at the heart of this idea is covenant

fidelity. God's unwavering commitment to the

people whom he has bound himself to. And that

matters here because Israel has been faithless.

And yet God's character and nature does not change.

He is faithful. This is not fickle love. It's

not fragile love. It's not love dependent upon

the worthiness of the one who receives the love.

This love is anchored in the character character

of the covenant -keeping God of Israel. And so

God has bound himself to this nation. And this

is how God, dear friends, in Christ binds himself

to us. It may not sound sexy to use the words,

but it's steadfast. It's unchanging. It's unrelenting

in its devotion to you and I. Yes, he's the hound

of heaven who pursues us to the uttermost. Yeah.

Okay, slow down. So even while Jerusalem lies

in ruins, Jeremiah calls to mind the character

of Israel's God. The steadfast love of the Lord

never ceases. And dear friends, if you ever doubt

the steadfast love of God, look to the cross.

For their love does not merely tell us he loves

us, he shows us. The eternal son takes on flesh.

He bears our sin. He stands beneath our judgment

and gives life to sinners. If I may put it in

my own words, his body language on the cross

says dying to meet you. That is love in its fullest

expression. I am dying to meet you. The steadfast

love of God has a face. The steadfast love of

God has a name. And his name is Jesus. In your

season of lament, remember Jesus. His mercy,

verse 22, because of his great love, we are not

consumed. His compassions never fail. The language

of compassion here is deeply tender. It's related

to the Hebrew language of the womb, the visceral

nurturing affection of a mother for her child.

Isaiah 49 captures it this way. Can a mother

forget her baby at her breast? Though she may,

the God of Israel says, I will not. This is the

heart of God toward his people. His holiness

means that sin matters and yet his mercy means

that sin matters as well. And nowhere do we see

these two realities more clearly demonstrated

than on the cross of Christ. God does not merely

overlook sin. Christ bears his judgment. At Calvary,

justice is not abandoned and mercy is not withheld.

Justice is satisfied and yet at the same time,

mercy flows. That is the gospel. Yeah. Micah

articulates this well. Who is a God like you

and pardon sin and yet delights to show mercy?

God does not reluctantly show mercy, dear friends.

He delights in it. So Jeremiah is thinking through

this. I remember you. This is who you are. And

perhaps this is a word for us here at Theological

College. We can become masters at exegesis, exegeting

mercy itself, knowing the root word, its variations,

but never really experiencing what it truly means.

Articulating mercy while quietly believing that

our latest failure has exhausted the mercy of

God for us. Jeremiah says his mercies are new

every morning. In the truest sense, it means

I can go back to the cross every morning and

experience that mercy again. As we grieve over

our sin. As we lament over the broken aspects

of our lives. Faithfulness. I'm not doing well

for time. How much time do I have? You sure?

Faithfulness. Anyway, I'm from Africa. They said

25 minutes will be done by two. Faithfulness.

Hey, brother, you got me, man. I should say Chris

as well, perhaps. Faithfulness, verse 23. They

are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

To say that God is faithful is to say that you

can always count on God. That God will keep his

word. If we are faithless, he remains faithful.

He cannot deny himself. Great is our faithfulness,

oh Lord. But great is your faithfulness. Faith

in God's covenant loyalty will sustain you through

the darkest and the most difficult seasons of

your life. When it appears that the world is

collapsing around you, years after you don't

have lectures to go and speak to or teams or

groups or prayer partners here at Oak Hill, you

will need to learn this. I have someone I can

run to in the season of lament that I find myself

sitting under. Your friends will betray some

of you. Your body will fail you. You might lose

your ministry. Or your reputation? In those moments,

go back to God's covenant. Last but not least,

verse 24. Finally, Jeremiah says, the Lord is

my portion. Therefore, I will wait for him. And

perhaps this is where the passage reaches its

summit, its climax, top of the mountain. Jeremiah

has remembered God's love, his mercy, his faithfulness.

But now he remembers the greatest gift of all.

The greatest gift of all, dear friends, for Jeremiah

is God himself. Portion is the language used

for inheritance. When Israel entered the land,

the Levites received no territorial inheritance

like the other tribes. God says to the Levites,

I am your portion and your inheritance. They

did not seemingly receive anything from the Lord.

but they received God. And now look at Jeremiah.

The city is gone. The temple is destroyed. Security

is gone. And standing amidst of all those ruins,

he says, the Lord is my portion. And dear friends,

how much more can this mean for us today? In

Christ, God has not merely given us gifts. He

has given us himself. Christ is ours, sufficient

and everlasting portion. The psalmist puts it

this way. My flesh and my heart may fail, but

God is my strength, the strength of my heart

and my portion forevermore. And perhaps this

is where the text searches us here in theological

ministry. I say in theological ministry because

I am studying as well. All right. And I think

as a believer under Christ, a church leader,

you should always be a theologian. Anyway. And

perhaps this is where the text searches us for

those that are in ministry. Because our portion

can become remarkably respectable. The degree.

I'm doing a PhD. The book. The doctorate. The

booming church. The conference invitation. The

speaking platforms. Being invited to Oak Hill

College to preach. Good gifts. But terrible gods.

Hello. And I have to ask my own heart as much

as yours. If nobody knows my name, if the invitations

never come, if the ministry I imagine never materialized,

is Christ enough? Jeremiah stands amidst the

ruins of everything that he once held dear and

says, the Lord is my portion. So dear friends,

ministry beyond all kill is not your portion.

It's nice to say it here because I'm not graded.

I'm not marked. You know, deal with it after

I'm gone. Thank you, Jesus. The Lord is my portion.

Jeremiah stands amidst those rumors and anchors

himself on that which truly matters in the light

of eternity. Ministry is not our portion. Success

is not our portion. Recognition by the algorithm

on our Instagram profile is not our portion.

The Lord is our portion. And we have the great

privilege of going out into the world to invite

people into that great story, that great hope,

to teach the world to actually lament with hope,

not to lament with despair. Psalm 73, and I land.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing

on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh

and my heart may fail. But God is the strength

of my heart, my portion forever. And so with

that, dear friends, Augustine put his cup down.

He walks back into the ruins of Rome. Jeremiah

stands amidst the ruins of Jerusalem. And you

and I step back into the uncertainties of our

lives. But we do not go without hope. The Lord

is our portion. Amen. Shall we pray? Father,

firstly, we pray for that one who is in a season

of lament. We ask that by your spirit, you would

help them set their eyes on you. Would they remember

who you are, your story, your covenant faithfulness

to them? Would they meet mercy? Would they meet

grace? Would they meet the love of God? We pray

for ourselves, Lord, that we would be those that

are anchored in this blessed hope. In Jesus'

name, amen.