Even Though I Feel This Way Series

Introduction:

I cannot recall in my 27 years as Pastor a sermon that I preached from the Book of Lamentations until today. Today will be my first. But I believe that are present condition of the world makes Lamentations a good book to preach today as we begin our new series “Even Though”.

I have to say things have been bad the last two years in our country but also in the world we live. First, we had the pandemic, and a day does not go by that you don’t hear a new person coming down with Covid or that another person has died from Covid. And as I am writing this sermon, I just heard that Brett Kavanaugh, a Justice on the Supreme Court, just tested positive for Covid. We can not seem to shake the pandemic.

And then there is our government and the people in Congress just don’t seem to have their act together. It is not just Republican arguing with one another; the democrats can not seem to get it together either. And there is no way that Democrats and Republicans can work together in a bipartisan way.

People are short fused; you hear every day of violence on a plane, or a shooting at school, or a fight that breaks out at a sporting event. And there is all the racial unrest. Instead of seeing ourselves as Americans, we see ourselves as white or black or some other minority. Why cannot we all be Americans?

As we stare down at these problems, we are confronted with two options. The first is to see how bad things really are and to focus on them. And we have every right to focus on them because things are indeed bad.

Or the second option is to decide even though things are bad, I chose to rejoice and trust in my Lord. And that is where Jeremiah is in the Book of Lamentations. Things are bad for Israel. They have been invaded by the Babylonians and the Babylonian has destroyed the land and taken many Israelites into capacity. Jeremiah looks around his hometown and all he can see is pain and destruction. Places are destroyed, people have died, and many were exiled away from their families.

Jeremiah tried to warn his people that they needed to act like the people of God, or this was to occur. But the people were disobedient; they refused to listen to the Word of God as spoken through Jeremiah. So, Jeremiah laments the situation that his homeland is in. And he had every right to lament. Or he can take the second option that even though things are bad, I chose to trust in God. And let’s see what Jeremiah can teach us when he focuses away from the problem and on to God.

Scripture:

Lamentations 3:19-23 (NKJV)

19 Remember my affliction and roaming, The wormwood and the gall.

20 My soul still remembers And sinks within me.

21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.

22 Through the LORD'S mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.

23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

Point #1

Have you ever heard someone say this is how I feel, and I cannot do anything about how I feel? We are talking about my feeling, and I have every right to feel how I feel. And that is true, but you don’t have every right not to change those feelings if they don’t represent who you are as a child of God.

19 Remember my affliction and roaming, The wormwood and the gall.

20 My soul still remembers And sinks within me.

Jeremiah tells us, let me tell you how I feel. There are two types of people in the world: those who never talk about their feeling and those who tell everybody how they feel. Jeremiah is that second guy. You know what Jeremiah is feeling. He says that he has been afflicted which speaks of his pain and his suffering. His roaming speaks of his confusion. The wormwood and the gall speaks of the bitterness that he feels right this moment because his life has been changed by the Babylonians.

And then he says something that I have experienced once or twice in my own life where my very soul felt like it was beaten down. I had no spiritual anything left in me. Have you ever experienced that spiritual beat down? That is Jeremiah’s condition right this second, but Jeremiah is not going to stay there. And neither should you and I as Christians stay there.

But I know and I am sure you know some Christian or Christians today who have been overwhelmed with pain and suffering in their life and overtaken with such confusion that they don’t know which way to turn. And indeed, bitterness has set in. But unlike Jeremiah, they are going to stay there in their bitterness. They are not going to take that second option.