God’s Great Faithfulness
Lamentations 3:21-26
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Nov. 23, 2008
*The big headline in yesterday’s paper said, “Bastrop mill closes; 550 lose jobs” Chances that they will resume operations are very slim. Economist Bob Eisenstadt was quoted as saying, “This is without question an economic disaster for Morehouse Parish.” (1)
*This economic downturn is real, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But our God is faithful! Others among us are going through the pain of grief. In the last few days both the Young family and the Boyett family have had to say goodbye to their moms, and we lost my brother much sooner than we expected. But our God is faithful! Think what His faithfulness can mean in your life.
1. First: God’s great faithfulness brings hope in our darkest hour.
*You can find hope in your darkest hour. You can have the same kind of hope that sustained Jeremiah in vs. 21 where he said, “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.” What was Jeremiah remembering in this verse? It was God’s mercy and compassion, the Lord’s great goodness and faithfulness to those who trust in Him.
*Now in order to appreciate the sustaining power of this hope, we need to know at least a little about how Jeremiah suffered. He is called “The Weeping Prophet” for good reason. Stanley Morris tells us that Jeremiah’s service as a prophet spanned more than 40 years -- during the reigns of Judah’s last five kings and beyond. Throughout his long, turbulent life he constantly had to confront a people who had rejected God for false gods. He warned them that this would cause their eventual destruction, but they refused to repent.
*Jeremiah was treated as a traitor by the people for the ultimatums he delivered from God. He was thrown into a dungeon without food. Even some of his own townspeople and relatives opposed him and tried to kill him. (2)
*Brian Bill tells us that as we come to Lamentations chapter 3, we see that Jeremiah bares his heart, not holding back the depths of his despair. . . In the first 20 verses his language was real and raw. In those verses Jeremiah made 9 complaints. Here are some examples:
-In vs. 3, Jeremiah felt like God was against Him. “Surely He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day.”
-Jeremiah felt that God was tormenting him mentally and physically. In vs. 4, “He has aged my flesh and my skin, and broken my bones.” In vs. 15&16, “He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel, and covered me with ashes.”
-In vs. 7, Jeremiah felt trapped. “He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; he has made my chain heavy.”
-In vs. 8, his prayers were unanswered. “Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.”
-And in vs. 18, Jeremiah was ready to give up, as he said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord.” (3)
*Christian, have you ever been there? Have you ever felt like you were in a hole so deep you could never get out? Do what Jeremiah did in vs. 21: Remember God’s great mercy and compassion. Remember God’s faithfulness.
*Brian Bill gave this simple definition: “God’s faithfulness means that everything He says and does is certain. He is 100% reliable, 100% of the time. He does not fail, forget, falter, change, or disappoint. He says what He means and means what He says. Therefore He does everything He says He will do.” (3)
*You can find hope in your darkest hour through the faithfulness of God. Harry Teuchert knows this is true. For years Harry had been a successful publisher of materials for churches. Everything in his life seemed to be perfect: A lovely home, a family, a solid future; but all this suddenly collapsed. Harry’s wife told him she was leaving him. She was in love with someone else.
*Devastated, Harry tried to cope, work, continue with his life, but this tragedy was too overwhelming. Despite all the other good things in his life, Harry felt like a complete failure with nothing to live for.
*He was on the road to meet with a church about their anniversary publication. Arriving early, Harry sat down in the fellowship hall. Suddenly, he began to think about suicide. His life was over. All was finished. As he sat at a table, he began to cry intensely, holding his head in his hands. The more Harry wept, the more he was convinced that his life had ended. He would continue no more. He was beaten. It would be so easy to end it all.
*In total despair he looked up, and noticed a faded poster on the far wall. In that picture was the image of a man in the same despair Harry was going through -- Head in his hands in complete anguish. Then, as Harry studied the poster further, he noticed a smaller image in the lower right corner of the poster: Three crosses, on a hill, surrounded by a dark sky. Beneath the center cross these simple words were inscribed, “I know how you feel; I’ve been there myself.”
*While staring at those words, Harry fell to his knees and prayed, “God help me.” Suddenly God touched Harry with a new flood of hope. He got up telling himself, “I’m going to beat this thing. I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.” Harry got on with his life. And today he is serving the God who came to him in his moment of greatest trial. (4)
*The Lord used a faded poster to remind Harry of God’s great faithfulness. And I hope He uses Harry’s story to remind you.
2. God’s great faithfulness brings hope in our darkest hour. -- And it is the source of our salvation.
*As Jeremiah said in vs. 22-23, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not fully and finally destroyed.
*Brian Bill asks, “Why doesn’t God destroy me? This is not a theoretical question. We all walk closer to the edge than we think. There is a thin line between disaster and prosperity, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, life and death.
*Why doesn’t God destroy us? He could and He should. He could because He is God and He should because we are sinners. Our sins would consume us if not for God’s faithful love.” (3)
*This is the love that God best demonstrated when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. “Through the Lord’s mercies (on the cross) we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. This is the faithfulness the Apostle John talked about in his first letter, when he said:
8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)
*God’s faithful mercy is the only source of salvation. How can I be saved? How can I go to Heaven? Many people think it’s all about religion. If I go to church, read the Bible, get baptized and pray, if I do all these religious things, I will be saved. All these things are important, but they cannot save me.
*Some people think getting to Heaven is all about rules. If I do this and this and this -- If I don’t do this and this, if I keep most of God’s rules, then surely God will let me into Heaven. God gives us rules so we won’t hurt Him, other people or ourselves. And all of God’s rules are important. But they cannot save me because I can never keep all of God’s rules.
*When I was in high school, I used to think that Christianity was all about keeping rules. Back then I skipped church as much as possible, but I remember one of the times I went with a friend. It was Vineville Methodist Church in Macon, Georgia. One of the senior adults sitting in the vestibule struck up a conversation with me. And he asked me if I was a Christian. I told him, “I’m not good enough to be a Christian.”
*See, I thought being a Christian was like being a good Boy Scout. You had to earn your salvation -- just like we had to earn those merit badges in the scouts. But salvation is not a merit badge. It’s a miracle! It’s a miracle that comes by opening your heart to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord: Trusting in the Lord, trusting in His cross, trusting in His faithful love and mercy. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
3. God’s great faithfulness is the source of our salvation. And it makes God Himself our greatest gift.
*God has given so many blessings to us! We could talk all day about how God has blessed us. Let me invite you to our Thanksgiving Service Wednesday evening at 6:30. If you are in town, come to hear others share about God’s blessings in their lives. Maybe you might want to share too, because God has blessed us in countless ways.
*I can certainly see God’s blessings during my brother’s last few weeks here on earth. God helped us many ways. That trip the first week of November had been on the calendar all year. I was going with Mary, as she went to a national preschool conference in Dallas. But when I found out that Jon’s cancer had spread, I was able to get a super-cheap, non-stop ticket from Dallas to Tampa.
*It turned out to be a crucial week for me to be with Jon and his wife. God allowed me to be there when they got the bad news that his cancer had spread even further to his liver, and that Jon had less than 3 to 6 months to live. God let me be there to give them spiritual support, and we were able to take care of important business. My brother didn’t even have a will, but we worked on it that week and he got it finalized the day before he died.
*Another great blessing was that Jon didn’t lose his job, when so many other people at his company did get laid off. Jon would have lost his health insurance, his disability and his life insurance. His wife would have been left with nothing but bills. She would have lost everything -- but God was watching over them.
*We hoped to have Jon through Christmas. But even though that was not meant to be, he did get to have a sweet celebration of his 10th wedding anniversary the night before he died. Both of his brothers got to talk to him that night, and he sounded good. Jon also heard from a friend that he had not heard from in 20 years.
*God gave us many good things to help in our time of loss. But God Himself was and is always our greatest gift. Notice how Jeremiah put it in vs. 24, “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”
*“The Lord is my portion,” -- my share, my possession, my territory, my inheritance. The greatest thing God can ever give you is Himself! And God is willing to give Himself to you. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” As Isaiah proclaimed, “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given!” (Isa 9:6)
*John Phillips tells a great story about King George VI of England, who died in 1952. On one of the king’s royal visits to Canada, local officials thought he might like to meet an Indian chief. Chief Whitefeather was chosen for the honor. He was asked to sing something for the king, and everyone expected a native war song. But Chief Whitefeather was a Christian and he had something else in mind. Just picture the surprise of those government officials, when the chief began to sing before the king:
-“I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold.
-I’d rather be His than have riches untold,
-I’d rather have Jesus than houses or land,
-I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand—
-Than to be the king of a vast domain
-Or be held in sin’s dread sway;
-I’d rather have Jesus than anything
-This world affords today.
*The stunned officials waited to see what King George would do. The king went over to Chief Whitefeather, took him by the hand and said, “I’d rather have Jesus, too.” (5)
*My brother had Jesus. That’s why he is in Heaven today. And we can have Jesus too -- through the faithfulness of Almighty God.
4. God’s faithfulness makes Him our greatest gift. -- And it guarantees His goodness to all who trust in Him.
*Jeremiah testified in vs. 25&26: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
*We might have to wait on the Lord, but we should be willing to wait for His help, because the Lord is good to those who wait for Him! And when we wait, we can wait in hope and trust. We can wait quietly, without complaint, because the Lord is good to those who wait for Him! Our faithful God will never fail us!
*In 1989, a terrible earthquake almost flattened Armenia. It killed over 30,000 people in less than 4 minutes. One father rushed to his son’s school and found the building flat as a pancake. Standing there in tears, he remembered a promise he had made to his son, "No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!"
*It looked absolutely hopeless, but the dad went to the back right corner and started digging in the pile of rubble. The other grieving parents tried to pull him off, saying, “It’s too late! They’re dead!”
*But he just kept digging for his son stone by stone. He dug for 8 hours, then 12, 24, 36 hours without stopping. Finally in the 38th hour, as he pulled back a boulder, he heard his son’s voice. He screamed his son’s name, "ARMAND!"
-- And a voice answered him, "Dad?" -- It’s me Dad!"
*Then the boy added these priceless words, "I told the other kids not to worry. I told them that if you were alive, you’d save me and when you saved me, they’d be saved.” He remembered his Father’s promise: “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!”
*Fourteen children were saved that day because one father was faithful. But how much more faithful is our heavenly Father! (6)
*Whether we are trapped by fallen rubble, or crushed by the hardships and struggles of life, we are never cut off from our Father’s faithfulness. Trust in the Lord. And don’t ever lose hope. Jesus Christ will always be faithful to you.
1. The Monroe News Star - November 22, 2008 - Bastrop mill closes; 550 lose jobs - By Greg Hilburn - ghilburn@thenewsstar.com
2. Introductions to the Books of the Bible by Dr. Stanley L. Morris - Copyright 1993 by International Bible Translators, Inc., Copyright 1993, Ellis Enterprises Inc.
3. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “Our Faithful God” by Brian Bill - Lam 3:22-25
4. Original source unknown - found in christianglobe.com sermon “Help Me Make It Through The Night” by King Duncan - John 3:1-21 - 2005
5. John Phillips, “Exploring the Psalms”
6. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, "Chicken Soup for the Soul."
