God’s Promises for Every Need: Grief
Lamentations 3:19-25
#EveryNeed
INTRODUCTION… http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/k/e/r/kerr_ht.htm
Hugh T. Kerr was a minister in the mid-1900s. He was an ordained a Presbyterian minister who led churches in Kansas, Illinois, and eventually in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A pioneer in religious broadcasting, his 1922 Christmas Day sermon was broadcast to the North and South Poles by radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh… which is the radio station famous for making the first commercial broadcast in 1920. He was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA in 1930. He also helped compile the Presbyterian Hymnal, the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, and helped found World Communion Sunday in 1933.
Kerr wrote a hymn for the 50th anniversary of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which he served from 1913 to 1946. The hymn is called: “God of Our Life.” I am pretty sure I have never sung this song and I looked, it is not in our hymnal. I found the words to be wonderful:
“God of our life, Through all the circling years,
We trust in Thee;
In all the past, Through all our hopes and fears,
Thy hand we see.
With each new day, When morning lifts the veil,
We own Thy mercies, Lord, Which never fail.
God of the past, Our times are in Thy hand;
With us abide.
Lead us by faith To hope’s true promised land;
Be Thou our guide.
With Thee to bless, The darkness shines as light,
And faith’s fair vision Changes into sight.
God of the coming years, Through paths unknown
We follow Thee;
When we are strong, Lord, Leave us not alone;
Our refuge be.
Be Thou for us In life our daily bread,
Our heart’s true home When all our years have sped.”
The reason that I was reading over that particular hymn was that it was inspired by one of the verses in the passage that we are going to read today. Lamentations 3:23 says, “they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” It was that verse and the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the church he was serving that motivated him and inspired him to write those words.
LAMENTATIONS BACKGROUND
Before we jump into the passage, I want to give you a tiny bit of background on the Book of Lamentations because it is important and because Lamentations is one of those books that does not get a lot of attention. The Book of Lamentations is a collection of poems that is normally seen as somber and gloomy.
We know Jeremiah wrote the book. 2 Chronicles 35:25 says, “Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah; and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a rule in Israel; behold, they are written in the Laments.” We also know that Jeremiah was crushed over what was happening in his country and to God’s People. Jeremiah 9:1 says, “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”
Jeremiah experienced a lot of terrible things in his life: pain, sorrow, loss, violence, loneliness, and betrayal… in his nation and personally to himself and all of it affects him. The purpose of the Book of Lamentations is to help the People of God have faith in God in the midst of grief and sorrow and sadness.
That also happens to be the purpose of our sermon today. It is my hope and prayer that you are encouraged in your faith in God in the midst of grief today. It is my prayer that if you are not feeling grief right now, that the Holy Spirit will save this message in your heart and mind and recall it when you need it.
Let’s read from Lamentations 3 today. I’d like to read from 2 translations this morning to get a firm grasp on what Jeremiah is writing to us. Whenever we read the Bible, we want to make sure we understand what we are reading. Words are important. The meanings of words are important. Sometimes reading from a different translation can be helpful to understand a passage. So we will read first from the English Standard Version and then The Message.
READ LAMENTATIONS 3:19-25 (ESV)
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
READ LAMENTATIONS 3:19-25 (MSG)
I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lost-ness, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, His merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great Your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left. God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.
GRIEF
When we read over Lamentations 3, we get the sense that Jeremiah is dealing with a great amount of loss. He uses words like, “affliction,” “wanderings,” and “[my soul] is bowed down within.” These are all words of loss. These are all words of grief.
Most of the time we associate grief with death, which makes total sense, but grief can also come with any loss that impacts us. There is a scale made by experts that rates the scale of life events with the impact of stress it makes on us (Meier, Minirth; Baker Books pg 94). It is called the Holmes’ Social Readjustment Rating Scale. I tried to pick out those that deal with loss and would produce some kind of grief for us.
Death of a Spouse, 100
Divorce, 73
Death of a Close Family Member, 63
Fired at work, 47
Retirement, 45
Death of a Close Friend, 37
Foreclosure, 30
Child Leaving Home, 29
As you can see, the most stressful event that brings grief is the death of a spouse. The loss of a marriage also causes grief, but in a different sort of way. The loss of a job or retirement is a kind of loss of purpose that also brings even another kind of grief for us to deal with.
We are focusing on our needs in grief today, but as I was thinking and praying on this I realized there might be several streams of grief in our lives. Grief coming from death is the most obvious area that we deal with. Grief from losing someone we love rocks our world and changes how we think and feel. Some grief we never get over. And yet, divorce brings grief over decisions and hurt and what could have been. Being fired from work brings grief over loss of relationships, the loss of the appearance of success, and the loss of what we expected to happen. That grief is very real. Foreclosure can be the death of a dream and can hurt for years. A child leaving home brings grief of a different kind in that one loses a whole stage of life and enters into another. Each of these are different for different people, but we all experience them.
Grief is real. The needs created in us when we grieve are real.
Grief comes because of the uncertainty of physical life. Grief comes because of the feeling of loss. Grief comes and it is awkward and uncomfortable. Grief brings guilt and brings anger and the desire for closure. Grief is so complicated and personal and is very unfair.
In this passage, Jeremiah reflects on his grief and assigns one word to it in his mind: “bitter.” If you look over the passage, you will notice that the word “bitter” does not appear there, but bitter things do in verse 19. Wormwood is a desert plant in the daisy family from which people extracted medicine that tasted bitter. Done wrong the medicine was actually hallucinogenic poison. Gall refers to the bile produced by the gall bladder which is also bitter. Wormwood and gall appear together in Jeremiah and Lamentations as a metaphor for the bitterness of life in Jeremiah 9:15 and 23:15. Even the Prophet Amos says, “Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.”
Grief brings need into our lives. Jeremiah reflects that he has the need for relief from sadness. He had the need to not feel lost. He had the need to feel like he wasn’t wandering. We need answers if things feel unfair. We feel the need to process the loss of the person. We need justice if we have been wronged in some way. The loss of a whole chapter of our life makes us need to turn back time to familiar situations.
GOD’S PROMISES FOR EVERY NEED
Grief and sorrow and overwhelming sadness come into our lives and create a need in us. The prophet Jeremiah tells us that when we feel these needs that we are to look to God. Again, the purpose of the Book or Lamentations, and I think even these specific verses we read today, are to help the People of God have faith in God in the midst of grief and sorrow and sadness.
* May you be encouraged today that we serve The Divine Deliverer.
* May you prayerfully consider the God we serve as The Divine Deliverer.
* May you understand how God Delivers us when we are in need from grief.
THE DIVINE DELIVERER
RE-READ LAMENTATIONS 3:19-25 (ESV)
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
Jeremiah looks around him and sees only his own sadness and loss and his broken heart. He looks around to other people and finds no answers. He looks inside himself and sees nothing that will satisfy any of the needs that he has.
He looks up and finds all that he needs: Hope, Love, Faithfulness, Belonging, Goodness.
HOPE
In verse 21, Jeremiah says he has hope. His hope is not because he is ignoring the world around him. He has not forgotten anything that has brought him grief. His hope is not because he is lessening any loss. He is still in the middle of his grief and loss and yet he says very clearly, “I have hope.” Hope in God is not denying misery. It is never ever that. Denying misery is fake. There is nothing about God that is fake. Hope in God is turning our mind to God in the middle of our grief and finding that He is close to our broken heart. God gives peace in prayer. God leads us to words of comfort in His written word. God leads us to a trusted friend of faith to listen and to counsel with. God sharpens our memories in the Holy Spirit and reminds us of God’s past presence in our lives and our future promises in Him.
Hope in God meets our needs in grief because hope means the grief we feel is not the end. Honestly, grief for non-Christians is the end. There is nothing worth thinking about on the other end of their grief. For the believer in Christ, we have hope on the other side of grief that leads to peace.
LOVE
In verse 22, Jeremiah reflects on the “steadfast love” of God. He has “great love” (NIV) for us. He has “faithful love” (NLT, HCSB) for us. The kind of love that Jeremiah remembers God has for him is an indestructible love. This kind of promised covenant love that God has for us leads to mercy in our lives that comes to us over and over again. It is in times of grief when we may find it hard to love others or love ourselves. The love of God never fails us. The love of God never gives up or runs out. God is eternal and boundless in love. It is very important that we understand the steadfast and never-ending quality to God’s love. You and I love, but our love can begin and change and shift and end and grow and shrink. God’s love is always described in Scripture as steady and never-changing and constantly renewed for us. God always loves us.
Romans 5:8 = “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
1 John 4:8 = “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Love from God meets our needs in grief because we can know that we are valued. Grief can make us think that we are lost or less than we were. You matter to the God of the Universe. You are treasured by the God Who sent His Son for you. We can have value with God even though the rest of our lives is in shambles. His love is constant for us.
FAITHFULNESS
In verse 23, Jeremiah says very specifically about God, “great is Your faithfulness.” I want you to know that God is 100% faithful to me and to you. Why? It is not because you and I are so great. It is not because you and I are so very faithful to Him. It is not because you and I have earned the respect of the God of the Universe. Why can God be counted on? Great is God’s faithfulness to us because great is God’s faithfulness in always being Himself! God will never act out of character for Himself. He is perfect. He is holy. God is always God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is faithful… that is part of Who He is… and God will never not be Who He is. I hope that makes sense. God’s faithfulness to us is constant and real and part of His identity.
Faithfulness from God meets our needs in grief because we are not left alone. Grief can make us feel alone or abandoned. I hope you know that God is available in prayer at any time. God has already spoken to us by His Word (the Bible) which is living and active and speaks to us in all situations. God being faithful means the Holy Spirit is present with us because God already told us that He would be. Faithfulness means we are not alone.
BELONGING
In verse 24, Jeremiah says “The Lord is my portion.” What does that mean? This is not the only verse where we find that kind of phrase. Psalms 73:26, Psalms 142:5 also have this kind of phrase. What does it mean? The phrase means that you and I belong to God and He provides for us. Jeremiah knows that God is the source of his happiness and blessing because he belongs to God. He has the best inheritance imaginable and does not seek any comfort outside of God. You and I have that same kind of belonging because we have been grafted into the family of God because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus, you and I are not lost or orphans, but rather we are sons and daughters of God. The presence of the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we belong to Him.
Belonging to God meets our needs in grief because we have an anchor of where we belong. Grief can often rip out who we thought we were and value in our lives. Grief can take away the feeling of fitting in and that we belong. I am talking about soul things here because Jeremiah mentions his soul. His soul needed an anchor and a feeling of belonging and he got that from God our Heavenly Father. Belonging to God brings our soul hope.
GOODNESS
In verse 25, Jeremiah says, “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.” We cannot forget what Jeremiah is going through. He sees only trouble around him. He feels utterly lost. He says his whole life just tastes bitter. He has hit the bottom of his life and he feels overwhelmed with grief and sadness. In the midst of all of that, Jeremiah seeks out God. Do you know what you find if you feel lost and you seek out God? A good God. Do you know what you find if you wait for God in the midst of a bitter season of life? A good God. Do you know what you find when you don’t know where else to turn and you finally give God a shot? A good God. The goodness of God is as much a part of Him as His love and faithfulness and everything else we have talked about today. God is only good all the time. God’s goodness is good for our soul.
Goodness in God meets our needs in grief because through prayer, His Word, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives we can have a great sense of God’s goodness. It is a comfort and a heart changing attitude in the midst of the death of a spouse, a divorce, the death of a close family member, being fired at work, retirement, the death of a close friend, foreclosure, or a child leaving home that God is good and He wants only good for you. God is not only good, but He is working for your good in the midst of the situation you find yourself in.
ILLUSTRATION… http://www.homecomingmagazine.com/article/he-giveth-more-grace/
We started this morning with a hymn, let’s finish with one.
Annie Johnson Flint was born in 1866 on Christmas Eve in the small town of Vineland, New Jersey. She was welcomed by Eldon and Jean Johnson as their greatest earthly gift. Three years later, little Annie would lose her mother, who died as she gave birth to Annie’s baby sister. Mr. Johnson, who himself was suffering from an incurable disease, willed the children to the Flint family. In her early 20s, she had arthritis and would never walk again. Her adoptive parents both died in her early 20s and she and her sister were orphaned again.
Annie Flint, who later was dealing with cancer, arthritis, and blindness, had enough ability to write this hymn:
He Giveth More Grace
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater;
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase.
To added affliction He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed as the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father’s full giving has only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundaries known unto men.
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth and giveth and giveth again.
I think my favorite part of that poem is “When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father’s full giving has only begun.” That is exactly what Jeremiah is telling us in this passage of Lamentations.
SUMMARY/CONCLUSION
It is my hope and prayer that you are encouraged in your faith in God in the midst of grief today. What is God promising us in our need?
* God promises hope on the other end of the grief that only He can give.
* God promises constant love that you and I are valued.
* God promises faithfulness in that He will always be God and be present with us.
* God promises belonging with Him which is an anchor for us in grief.
* God promises goodness which helps heal out hearts in the midst of grief.
Be encouraged today!
PRAYER
