Hope in Times of Despair
Lamentations 3:1-6, 16-25
INTRODUCTI0N
The year is 586 BCE. The nation Israel had already been taken into captivity. Now, the city of Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonians. Soon, the walls of the city would be destroyed. The Babylonian army would plunder all the gold, silver, and bronze items in the temple. Then, they would destroy the temple. Many people would be killed, others would be taken captive to Babylon, and the rest would be left in Judah without anything. Their whole society and way of life was being completely destroyed. It is in this context that Jeremiah writes these words. [read ]
The words I read are from Jeremiah, a Hebrew prophet whose professional life was from about 626 BCE to about 586 BCE. He is responsible for the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations in the Old Testament. The Lamentations are almost like diaries, giving us first-hand insight into the personal life of this man.
I. When All is Hopeless
We have read the testimony of a man who felt mistreated by God. He felt hopeless. He did not expect anything good to come into his life. Jeremiah’s suffering had caused him to lose hope.
What has happened in your life that has caused you to feel hopeless? The loss of a loved one? The loss of a job? A habit or an addiction that is controlling your life? Broken relationships that can’t be healed?
When you are depressed, you feel hopeless. When you feel rejected by those you love, you feel hopeless. When you have a medical problem that resists all efforts of cure, you feel hopeless. When you are struggling with an addiction or struggling with a habit you cannot break, when you don’t expect anything good is going to come your way; you feel hopeless.
A. Pain is guaranteed for anyone who takes on the task of living.
If you’re not going through a hard time right now, just wait -- you will. That’s the nature of living in a world like ours. Some of you are in the furnace of suffering right now. Others of you have just come out, and the rest of us will be there sooner or later.
George Barna, the public-opinion pollster, conducted a national survey in which he asked adult this question: “If you could ask God one question, what would you ask?” The top response was, “Why is there pain and suffering?”
B. We suffer because of our own actions.
We may not always understand what thought or deed created a chain of events that has led to our suffering. On the other hand, if you have been a chain smoker and contract lung cancer or have an aortic embolism due to smoking, your thought and actions have been the cause.
C. We often suffer because of the thoughts and actions of other people.
We are caught in the overflow of events that affect us and we have no control over them. A drunken driver kills a young child. Someone is robbed and beaten up. A driver crosses the middle line and smashes head-on into another car.
D. Then, we suffer for reasons that cannot be explained.
We suffer because of circumstance. I have head preachers say that there are no circumstances with God. However, if there is human freedom there must be circumstance.
Back in 2001 a story in The New Yorker magazine reported that CNN founder Ted Turner was suicidal after the breakup of his marriage to Jane Fonda and losing control of Turner Broadcasting. Interestingly, Turner told the magazine that his marriage to Fonda broke up partly because of her decision to become a practicing Christian.
Turner is a strident nonbeliever who is filled with bitterness not just because of his marital and business problems, but also because his own father killed himself when Ted was 24 and then his sister later died from a painful disease. When asked about these tragedies, Turner responded, “I couldn’t understand how someone so innocent should be allowed to suffer so much” (Associated Press, 4/16/01). Ted Turner was suffering for reasons that could not be explained.
How can we negotiate life when the road is filled with one pothole after another, blind curves, and dead ends? The answer is not a new life, a new career, or a new spouse. The answer is a new attitude of hope.
II. Hope is Possible
In spite of all the uncertainties of life, hope is possible. What is this hope we need and how is it possible? The word “hope” is like the word “love.” It is widely used but rarely understood. The hope of many people are empty wishes waiting to be fulfilled by the gods of Black Friday. We are expressing a desire and wishing it would come true, but we have no guarantee that what we want is what we will get.
Chris Serber puts it this way:
“In hoping that it doesn’t rain or hoping that our ball team wins the game, have we forgotten what hope is? . . . Hope is much more than wishing on a star. It is so much more than cliché and empty promises. ‘I wish I had a new car I wish I were taller. I wish I would win the lottery.’” [The Audacity of Hope. SermonCentral.com]
A. Hope is a sure expectation that something good is going to happen
Biblical hope is the expectation that something good is going to happen because God keeps his promises. Biblical hope is a confident expectation based on solid certainty - it rests on God’s sure promises. “He that believes has eternal life.” Yes, that will happen because God keeps his promises. The writer of Hebrews wrote: Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise. . . .To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. [Hebrews 10:23, 11:1]
Something happens in verse 21 of our text. Jeremiah remembers something. His thinking has changed. He has been thinking of pain and suffering, but now he has a new thought:
Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing:
The Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue,
Fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. (vs. 21-23)
B. Jeremiah changed his MIND-TALK.
Jeremiah could think about his pain and rejection or he could think about the promises of God. Jeremiah changed his mind-talk. Mind-Talk is your inner CONVERSATION: it's what you tell yourself about the people and events in your life. It's how you interpret what happens to you and around you. Before you feel, you think. All of your emotions - good, bad, and indifferent - are the products of what you think about. In Proverbs 23:7 it states, As a man thinks within himself, so is he.
In the New Testament the heart is the center both of our physical life and spiritual life. Jesus made this comment:
For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly— [Mark 7:21-22]
And in another place Jesus said: For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. [Matthew 12:34]
C. Jeremiah found hope
Instead of thinking about all of his troubles, Jeremiah began thinking about the goodness of God. I just read this week that researchers have discovered that the brain activity we use to remember is the same brain activity we use to plan for the future. Our future is based upon our experience in the past. So by reflecting on the past, Jeremiah was able to think about his future.
a. Jeremiah found hope because God’s mercies are new every morning. That is certain!
Did you ever have a bad night where you rolled and tossed all night? Can you remember how good daylight felt? How wonderful the guarantee of a fresh day? This is the idea here of God’s mercies. We come out of the shadows into the freshness of God’s mercy.
b. Jeremiah found hope because God is good to those that wait on him. That is certain!
c. Jeremiah found hope because of God’s unfailing love. That is certain!
Jeremiah had the hope that God would restore the kingdom and release the people from captivity so they could once again be a nation. Jeremiah was so certain of this, he took the last money he had and bought a parcel of land just as the Babylonians burst through the walls of Jerusalem.
When Jesus was born the Jewish people were looking for a Messiah who would live out Jeremiah’s dream. There had been many who claimed to be Messiah but had been put to death and nothing changed. The people had almost given up hope when Jesus was born.
People in our day find it difficult to hope. Can we hope for justice? Can we hope for the elimination of crime? Is there any hope that we can have a world that is free from disease and warfare? Can we hope that someday we will be free from all the sins and temptations that drag us down?
III. Hope is a Reality in Jesus
A. NT People discovered that hope is a reality in Jesus.
Pete Wilson has said that “There are two very different types of hope in this world. One is hoping for something and the other is hoping in someone.” The apostle Paul described it this way in Ephesians 2.12-13:
At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God. 13 But now, in union with Christ Jesus, you who used to be far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
B. People discovered that it is a hope of heaven.
When the Bible refers to heaven I don’t think the writers were concerned with geography or real estate. They were concerned with a new relationship. Heaven is where God is and we have the hope of one day being with God where he is.
C. People discovered that it is a hope of Jesus’ return.
The story of God’s mighty acts begins in a Garden, recorded in chapter one of the Book of Genesis. The story of God’s mighty acts end in the Garden of a newly created universe, in the Book of Revelation. From the beginning of creation God has wanted a people to call his own.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished. 2 And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband. 3I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: “Now God's home is with people! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. 4 He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared.” [Revelation 21:1-6]
In this Advent season we are waiting for the return of Jesus to see that come to pass. We wait in hope, convinced that God will do what he says he will do.
Conclusion
A. Do you have hope in times of despair?
B. Are you ready to do whatever it takes this morning to trust God and his goodness, no matter what has happened, or what will happen?
C. Are you willing to receive the free gift of eternal life?
One day several years ago I was making a hospital and the church member asked if I would talk to the girl in the bed next to her. I said, “Sure,” and asked the girl if she wanted to talk.
“I am desperate to talk,” she said. “I am dying of cancer and I feel all alone. I don’t want to die alone.”
She may have been in her mid-twenties – it was difficult to tell. Her mother could not come to terms with her daughter’s death and had abandoned the girl. Some of the Christian nurses and laid tracts on her bed, hoping she would read them. But nobody would talk to her about dying.
I shared the gospel with the girl, and had a small booklet on God’s grace that had been prepared by Evangelism Explosion. Inside the back cover was the sinner’s prayer. I talked about God’s grace and how the booklet might help her to understand better. I did not emphasize the prayer, merely pointing out that the prayer might be helpful after she read the booklet and that I would come again the next day.
The next morning I returned to the hospital. The girl said immediately, “Did I have to say that prayer in order to be saved?” I replied, “Why are you asking?”
She said, “When I was a small girl, I learned a prayer of contrition in my Anglican Sunday School. A prayer that confessed sin and asked for God’s saving presence. All the time I was reading the booklet, those words kept coming back in my mind and that is the prayer I prayed.”
I said, “It is not what the lips are saying. What is your heart saying?” She answered, “I have found Jesus. I don’t feel alone anymore and I’m not afraid to die.”
That is hope!! to find Jesus and not be afraid to live in this world; to find Jesus and not be afraid to die and go to the next world. The old hymn says, “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness?” On what is your hope built?
Closing Prayer
Our Lord and Our Hope, we know that we often fail you. We forget to watch. We forget to wait. We make the holiday season more about ourselves than sharing the hope that only you can bring. Help us to remember that this season is about the message and ministry of your son, Jesus Christ, the one who came to heal, to liberate, and to bring hope. Renew hope in our lives today. Amen.
