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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] morning fbc and we are good to have you guys back again on a sunday morning and we're going to take a break from the usual genesis series of sermons and once a month we'll be doing topical summers that are hopefully relevant to what is happening in the world right now let me just recap what we did in the last summer the last summer we looked at rejoicing so let me just take a few minutes to just recap what we learned and we looked at it at this emotion of anxiety and we look at
00:00:40 the text from philippians chapter 4 verses 4 to 13 and of course there are many great things you can learn from the text i've listed it all down from here but at the beginning of verse 4 it tells you to rejoice in the lord meaning all these tips all these practical things you can do to help you overcome your anxiety is much more effective when you have joy in jesus that is the root and this is the fruit this is the cure this is your vaccine that's your virus now what's interesting about this is simply
00:01:21 joy which is a deeper definition of happiness is an emotion anxiety which is a subset of fear is an emotion meaning one emotion helps you overcome another emotion now that's that's something for you to explore now uh in psychiatry they there's the theory out there called basic emotions in basic emotions theory and it was popularized by a man called peter ekman he studied babies and you look at babies across all cultures across all genders globally babies only have six facial expressions only six
00:02:03 and from that they posited a theory which had done a lot research that human beings essentially have six emotions what we call basic emotions out of these six basic emotions a lot of complex emotions come out love is one of them anxiety is one of them envy pride jealousy all these emotions come out these six and so the theory is that if you deal with this six as your root you deal with the symptoms now the bible has something to say about it and we just saw just now anxiety is dealt with by looking at joy the other thing what
00:02:41 the theory tells you the emotions come in past and you can see it right here you have the first pair here that's happiness and there's sadness and that's the other one you have surprise and then you have disgust and you have the other one you have fear and you have anger and the last one is what you call the fight of flight response we all have meaning if you do look at joy or rejoicing what must you do you have to understand is polar opposite which is sadness let me give you an example on the subconscious level how we
00:03:17 respond this is probably the most uh photograph most viewed painting in the world everybody knows this painting the mona lisa the question to ask yourself why is it so famous there are many other painters who can paint in my view a lot of a lot of critics have said it better paintings the reason why this painting is so famous is because it's ignatic what is it is the smile it's known as the mona lisa smile when you look at the smile it's called an asymmetrical smile it's not balanced it's not like
00:03:52 it's not really happy and and so people have viewed it right about it they say they ask is she really happy because if you look at a certain angle it looks like it's some people call it a constipated smile so you struggle to see what's behind the smile now what's of course more interesting is the fact that leonardo da vinci if you take the proportion of his face and you put it against it you can see the proportion matches and here's a sad face and there's a happy face so of course one of the many
00:04:24 conspiracy theories going around is that was leonardo da vinci actually painting his sadness and camouflaging in happiness so there is correlation between happiness and sadness that human beings we as people on an innate level find very very fascinating we're drawn towards this and john piper in one of his devotions picks it up quite interestingly does joy die in sorrow and so if we looked at rejoicing last month today we're going to look at this paula opposite we are going to look at sorrow and how we're
00:05:00 going to look at sorrow we are going to look at sorrow at probably the saddest book in the bible the book which at least for me i have never heard it preach and i don't think we have ever preached it in fbc and i'm going to challenge you whether you ever read it this is probably the saddest book to read in the bible and it's called the book of lamentations five chapters last time we we had this philippians four chapters i'm going to go through you short books and i'm going to encourage you to read five chapters
00:05:33 let's come before the lord in prayer lord we ask this morning your your grace goes before us as we come towards probably the tail end of the mco and we prepare to engage a new normal where life is so different teach us to reflect and have lessons to learn to apply to our life and ask ourselves what are you speaking to us especially on this topic as much as we learn about rejoicing in jesus teach us know what it means to have genuine sorrow and we say this in jesus name amen let me give you a bit of the
00:06:10 background the book this is written after what is known as the third siege of jerusalem and after this what happens briefly whole jerusalem is sacked and they're all sent to the exile into babylon is recorded in jeremiah 39 and second kings 25. i'm going to encourage you to read the whole five chapters of it and of course jeremiah 39 if you have time now this is a historical event is recorded in what is known as the babylonian chronicles and in fact in the chronicles there in the tablets the king is
00:06:40 mentioned king zedekiah king zedekiah is a king in stock by the empire what happens that he actually rebels against the king going into an alliance with egypt and so babylon attacks that's the background to it now how do you appreciate a book like this because it's such a depressing book and it's actually quite repetitive one to really appreciate it first you got to see the context where it comes from and the context comes from jeremiah 7 29 where god tells jeremiah cut off your hair throw it away take up a lament on
00:07:13 the barren heights for the lord has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath so what happens is that the context jeremiah had been imprisoned by king zedekiah in the court and the war is going on two years the babylonians and siege lay siege to the city food's running out and things are just going really bad and finally the babylonian is breaking and the general the general goes to the courtyard and rescues jeremiah the babylonians are actually kind towards jeremiah he takes a scribe known as
00:07:48 baruch and he goes and surveyed the city imagine the person coming out after a bombing just the city just been bombed you might mean world war ii where they bombed the city and you come up from a bomb shelter and you survey that's the way to appreciate the book number two to really appreciate the book you have to look at what we call symbolism symbolism and the few ways of symbolism first is imagery this is of course humpty dumpty everyone knows it now when you you when you think of humpty dumpty
00:08:17 you think nursery rhyme it just sort of just goes past you but if i give you this picture next to it then you appreciate the poetry much more because she humpty dumpty is very profound it's about fragility it's about things that get broken that can't come back together it's about putting yourself in a position where you will break a lot of people write about the psychology behind it so to appreciate the book of jeremiah you have to appreciate some of the imagery they use secondly if you want to really also
00:08:47 appreciate you have to understand the significance of numbers now we don't like to do that we think it's very boring so for all you bible scholars let me just give you a few tips go back and have time read it number one all the chapters have 22 verses 5 chapters except chapter 3 66 verses ask yourself why and the 22 verses correspond to the 22 alphabets of the hebrew language as i said why and in the third chapter at the 22nd verse you find his most famous verse coming out now a lot of people think
00:09:22 it's boring but those of you are bible study leaders to really appreciate the book the author went to great lengths to do this ask yourself why pm me privately but that's how we do bible study now what are we going to do today we're going to read 22 verses we're just going to go through chapter one and i want you to feel the verses lamentation isn't a book that's so much into heavy theology you got to experience the emotion behind the book so let's start right 22 verses verse 1 how desert lies the city once so full of
00:09:56 people how like a widow is she who once was great among the nations she who was queen among the promises has now become a slave bitterly she whips at night tears are on the cheeks among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her all her friends have betrayed her they have become her enemies after affliction and harsh labor judah has gone to exile she dwells among the nations she finds no resting place although pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of a distress the roads to zion mourn for no one comes
00:10:30 to appointed festivals all the gateways are desolate her priests groan her young women grieve and she is in bitter anguish her foes have become her masters her enemies are at ease the lord has brought her grief because of her many sins her children have gone to the exile captive before the fall all the splendor had departed from daughters zion her princes are like dear the final pasture in weakness they have fled before the pursuer jerusalem has seen greatly and so has become unclean all on her despiser before they have
00:11:07 seen her naked she herself groans and turns away her filthiness clung to her skulls she did not consider her future her fall was astounding there was none to comfort her look lord or my affliction for the enemy has triumphed the enemy laid hands on all the treasures she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary those who had forbidden to enter the assembly oral people grown as they searched for bread they bartered their treasures for food to keep themselves alive look lord and consider for i am despised
00:11:40 is it nothing to you or you who pass by look around and see is there any suffering like my suffering that was inflected on me that the lord brought on me on the day of his fierce anger for on high he said fire sent it down into my bones he spread the net from my feet and turned me back he made me desolate faint all day long my sins had been bound into a yoke by his hands they were woven together they've been hung on my neck and the lord has set my strength has given me into the hands of those i cannot
00:12:09 withstand the lord has rejected all the worries in my midst he has summoned an army against me to crush my young men in his wine press the lord has trampled virgin daughter judah 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 zion stretches out a hand but is no one to comfort her the lord has decreed for jacob that his neighbors become his foes jerusalem has become an unclean thing
00:12:41 among them the lord is righteous yet arrival against his command listen all you people look at my suffering my young men and young women have gone to the exile i call to my allies they have betrayed me my priests and my elders perish in the city while they search for food to keep themselves alive see lord how distressed i am i'm tormented within i mean hard i'm disturbed i have been more rebellious outside the salt bereaves inside there's only death people heard me groaning for there's no one to comfort me all my enemies have
00:13:13 heard my distress they rejoice at what you have done may you bring the day you've announced and so they may become like me let all their weakness come before you deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my sins but grown so many and my heart is faint and after reading this you will say wow so much darkness so much doom and gloom early sunday morning also might read something like that so bear with us as we go through this first chapter and you'll find there is some light at the end of the tunnel
00:13:48 so let me give you three points what is lament why lament and how to le man very simple so the first thing we ask is what is lament we we sort of understand it's got to do with something about about you know sorrow so what exactly does it mean and the common secular definition is is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow meaning i lament the word something i will i cry i i bang my head against the wall i let it out and in a secular terminology it means that you you you can't bottle it inside you got to just
00:14:24 let it out either that is bad you can't be stoic about it and that's there's a lot of truth in that but is that the biblical definition of lament and i'm i would suggest from the book we just the first chapter we just read and many other passages in the psalms lament is more than that let's look at some verses and remember what i told you just now about how to read lamentations let's look at verse one how deserted lies the city once so full of people how like a video is she how like a widow is she who once
00:14:57 was great among the nations so the verse tells you the splendor of judah and now is given the imagery of a grieving widow so that's how you pick it up a grieving widow so we see the word grieving there and of course he would describe the grieving widow in all his fullness how everybody grieves children princes daughters everybody and then it goes to verse 16 there's like a shift this is why i weep and my eyes overflow with tears and here we see pain we see the grieving widow being internalized by jeremiah as he as he
00:15:40 just weeps over the city he looks over the city and he weeps but at the end of the chapter you notice it goes to something else he has what we call interlocutory prayer it is a prayer for basically justice and he's now talking about the babylonians now you notice again the word babylonian army is is again deliberately not mentioned in this book and we'll discuss a bit of this next week and verse 22 it says let all their wickedness come before you deal with them now that's a cry for justice so here's
00:16:15 the biblical definition lament i'd like to propose this it's a prayer of pain which leads to trusting god and in chapter one the end of it is about trusting god that he would bring about justice a prayer of pain will lead to trusting god now two ways we deal with suffering one we we get we drown in it we drown in it so when things get very bad we we we get so soaked into it we go into depression and anxiety we get into despair that's one extreme the second is we become very stoic about it for those who don't understand cantonese
00:16:58 it simply means no problem i can deal with it i'm okay how are you brother i'm okay i'm okay you're not okay you bury it deep deep deep inside you lock it away now lament is a biblical way of dealing with these two extremes the man is allowing you to pull out your pain but instead of driving it inside and drowning your sorrows it takes it before god in prayer and also in worship so that's the way it's done so let's again look at some verses to sort of go deep in this and again on judah verse 3 after
00:17:36 affliction and harsh labor judah has gone into exile she dwells among the nations she finds no resisting place all who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress now what's what's here here is we have jeremiah looking at judah the grieving widow and looking at it from a vintage she dwells among the nations all who pursue have overtaken her look what happens when you go to verse 12 there's a shift is it nothing to you or you who pass by look around and see is any suffering like my suffering that was
00:18:08 inflicted on me the lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger you know this as a shift from a second voice he's gone to the first voice now what has happened jeremiah has appropriated the sufferings of judah of jerusalem and actually he shouldn't because they have been very very cruel to him they tried to kill him torture him the kings burned his crows imprisoned him starve him to death insulted him but he feels for his people so although he is not party to this sin that brought about the calamity of
00:18:43 jerusalem he whips for them he's not weeping for his own sorrows because he hasn't experienced it he doesn't have children he was safe in the courtyard the king nebuchadnezzar gives pacific commands not to harm him he's now grieving for his people so here's another breakdown lament is not done just for yourself but for others now that's very important because a lot of us may be reading i mean watching this are not suffering so you see you know what i'm not going through a trial this is not relevant to me you know it's
00:19:18 very relevant to you especially if you've got a very comfortable life extremely relevant to you because like jeremiah you are commanded to lament for those who suffer and what is the difference between lamenting and grumbling that's something we've got to look at and look at verse 20 look at the way jeremiah when he just sees the whole of the devastation he says this see lord how distressed i am i'm in torment within so what's the difference between grumbling and lamenting the grumbling this negativity very often centers on self
00:19:56 god if god is so real why did he allow this to happen to me if he's a good god why you know it it crosses the line to blaming god but look at the way jeremiah does it he doesn't understand it there's no reason for it he's just in distress and he thinks again that he brings it towards god so let me give you a proposition the difference between grumbling and lamenting is that lamenting does it with a posture of humility same words you can use why god why why do you let it happen to me as opposed to
00:20:30 why god why get on your knees that's very important as we sort of try to build how this applies to us and lastly is done not only alone is done corporately and the jews use the book of lamentations in a public recycle so let me ask you a question where was the last time you and i worshiped in the lament something for us to think about why lament let me give you a few reasons as we get into this firstly most critically only true lament do we see the full consequences of sin and the need for grace verse 11 all her
00:21:08 people groan as they search for bread they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive when you read the five chapters one of the most disturbing things that lamentation resides is the impact on starvation and it's very brutal just read especially chapter three you read it and you you saw just ah why does this happen so there's something for you to pause and to look at now let me just give you a simple example and no judgment to anybody say fbc has a fundraising all right a few months from now i mean we say all
00:21:42 right we won't have fun to build a dalisi center or a school extension to the church and we say give and you give money and say one month later we start another fund and we say you know we are not going to have a fund to help rohingya refugees let me ask you a simple question and no judgement to anyone which fund do you think would collect more money i challenge you with the dallas center now does it mean people don't care for rohingya refugees no it means more likely we don't know how to connect
00:22:18 with extreme suffering because we need a lot of sheltered lives so it goes past us these are things we see on the television and we see we turn channels when we when we read rule all these kind of stories it is something distant you know the rape of nanking what happened in in with the kamal rule massacres in rwanda until they come to our doorstep we get uncomfortable but what lamentations does that why these five chapters are critical it takes it front and center and tells you this is life life is
00:22:55 full of these things and mankind is very capable of inflicting the most horrendous sins on other people and the book in graphic detail tells you what happens when the babylonian army enters jerusalem and the atrocities it does and here's the thing those kind of atrocities are common in times of war you need to process this why because if you really want to understand grace you have to understand the horrors of sin and you have to understand that you and i are very capable of doing this if we are pushed to the corner i saw a program
00:23:36 about a japanese soldier at war he's an old man a veteran and at the interview he started to weep because he recollected the horrors of war you see we like to think we're good people you know we're not murderers or rapists we don't torture people we deserve to go to heaven you know you're good people you know by my own salvation i should get to heaven why do i need to be a christian when i get up there i'll just show god my good works it should be good enough and god says really if i push you to the corner you would do
00:24:08 unimaginable horrors during world war ii when jews were led to the slaughter what were germans doing a lot of the germans pretended it wasn't around there were people living outside australia who said they didn't know what was happening no that's not true they chose they chose not to see in the same way right now we choose not to see what's around us but if you are to see a ray of sunlight you must first appreciate the dark clouds if you have to appreciate the depths of grace you are to appreciate the depths of sorrow
00:24:42 and one way people say before you can see the light you have to deal with the darkness and then you recognize mankind is sinful and mankind needs a savior here's the other thing once you start to pause go outside your comfort zone look at how people suffer then the man teaches you empathy i'll give you a very simple example someone tells you hey pray for so and so i got cancer okay pray i prayed for so and so got cancer amen very mechanical right but if you pause you know you say oh so-and-so got cancer
00:25:23 wow imagine what that does to the family well i heard it suffered for two years i wonder who's gonna take care of the kids i wonder about them financially you just pause for five minutes and then you pray lord i really like to pray for this sister don't you think the prayer makes a lot of difference that's what lament does the man teaches us empathy now empathy has two dimensions one is to go to a person where their pain is instead of expecting a person to come to where you want them to be so is to feel
00:26:01 a person's pain that's one dimension the other dimensional empathy is to understand its purpose so let's look at the chapter and see whether it teaches us a bit of this verse 16 this is why i weep my eyes overflow with tears no one is near to comfort me no one to restore my spirit now he grieves but look at how the grief then goes my children are destitute as mentioned jeremiah is appropriating the pain of jerusalem because the enemy has prevailed and children here is jerusalem and judah but look at the end of the
00:26:36 chapter chapter 22 let all their weakness come before you deal with the meaning in this case the lament has a dimension of justice the lament has a dimension of justice the empathy has a purpose so for example one of the most significant events that happened last few years is what is known as the metoo movement and the metoo movement is a secular movement about violence done against women now here is where something i think the church has to recognize the church is very good about morality you know it tell tell them to have a
00:27:15 talk about gay issues abortion issues or they will go about the how the world is so immoral they'll write you sermons but ask them to deal with rape whenever last time you heard a pastor talk about rape when was the last time you heard a pastor talk about sexual violence against women they get all all iffy about it like all this this this all of the far left is doing this these are secular a woman who's been raped it's got nothing to do with politics and the tragedy is that these are secular movements where was the church in the
00:27:50 our needs of these victims so out of the me too movement which ironically is a secular movement the church ii movement came about which to me is an embarrassment because the church should be leading in issues of justice that's what lamentations is saying and look at what you can get this online is and it says this from this person posted i cannot count the number of times i heard guys in church publicly admit to molestation harassment assault only to be praised for the bravery and honesty no consequences the church legacy of
00:28:22 protecting abuses is sickening and i tell it it's got to do with misunderstanding or not understanding lament because we have got what we call a a church which is very sanitized and i'm not talking about the virus we have issues we can deal with this kind of issues they're not part of the church they are rape abusers husbands beating their wives uh domestic violence the church should be at the forefront of this so the man puts you in that place and you feel the pain of the victim and when you go to chapter
00:28:57 5 of lamentations the book graphically talks about the rape of women in jerusalem and they would go oh we're going to read that no in chapters 4 it talks about mothers who have children who are starving their arms and you say oh i don't want to read that you have to and you're supposed to empathize let's move on lament helps us in our struggle against personal sins now what the book does is that jeremiah appropriates the sins of judah in empathy and then he turns it on himself and looks at himself look at one verse
00:29:32 interesting verse 14 my sins have been bound into a yoke by his hands they were woven together they've been hung on my neck trying to understand the symbol and the lord has set my strength he's looking at the consequences of disobedience and in this case again he's talking about judah because judah has rabbled against the lord here are your consequences and one way of fighting sin in my life in your life is to look at the consequences of those sin let me give you example there are two extremes when it comes to
00:30:08 fighting scenes and everyone watching here is in one of these categories all very likely you're involved let's look at one one is you feel you're trapped the church has to tell you you better not do this you're going to go to hell you feel guilty you know how many christians are in this boat so one way of fighting if you feel that the sin has sort of trapped you is to look at the consequences of it and lament that is the parable of the tax collector and the pharisee stand at the distance beat your chest
00:30:41 and say have mercy for example how do people who have gambling addictions get out of their addictions you don't do it by telling a gambling person you'd better not gamble like this you're going to go to hell a person breaks that addition when he stops and says you know what i because my addiction my family is broken my children can't study my marriage is gone my finances are gone i i i've taken all my hard-earned money and i've destroyed my life and i i pull back i see the consequences of it that's
00:31:14 lamenting and you could replace that with any other sin that you and i are struggling with let's not get graphic but once you look at the horrors of sin it compels you to say lord is this the life i was supposed to lead and it helps you in that fight it doesn't completely help break it but it helps here's the other one some people deny their sins you know sometimes you work with some people and they'll tell you no it's not my fault it's that person's fault this person for i try to do so much good during this time i try
00:31:42 to help nobody appreciates me you know i try to i try to be i try to be helpful and nobody nobody appreciates and what lamentation does is okay because sin makes us self-centered pull away from that and look at the consequences look at your actions why is it people turn away why is it they reacted that way why is it your your good intentions of or trying to give money or or trying to go here and go there was met with such responses if you pause then you will end what's important you have a posture of humility
00:32:19 that teaches you to say well there's certain things in my life i need to look at let me give you probably the last and most critical point the man teaches us how to truly rejoice and that's probably the most critical teaching we have here let me just explain john piper said this repentance without joy is meaningless joyless repentance is oxymoron you're supposed to be rejoicing when you come to know the lord that's what philippians is all about but here's where it's mixed together how do you experience both joy and sorrow in
00:32:55 a time of calamity and when we go to chapter 3 in the midst of this devastation jeremiah gives some really powerful words of joy here's the second part of it repentance without sorrow is meaningless it means you haven't grieved over sin so here we see the connection between joy and sorrow and how we tie the last sermon and today's sermon and in simple english it does this if you really want to experience deep deep deep joy the pathway to this and this is really important is sorrow the pathway to that is sorrow let me
00:33:33 just break this down a bit you have for example sorrow christ crucified that's good friday isn't it that's good friday because we grieve we grieve over our lord who died such a horrible death and he himself grieved when he said my god my god why have you forsaken me so the first thing to do is to grieve and in our case we grieve over our sins we grieve over the sins of the world we look at this world and we know it's broken the pathway is sorrow and from sorrow it takes us to sunday that's again it's a sunday and there's joy
00:34:17 because there's victory some churches like to only concentrate on this so there are a lot of very depressed christians out there they go to church the treasure tells you you can't do this you can't do that they're good wreck they come to church they're in bondage they lead double lives and they're unhappy and that's the oxymoron there are a lot of very unhappy christians there's a whole group of christians out there who tell you there's prosperity there's victory there's all that hallelujah but
00:34:42 they're in sin they have joy but the joy is not starting from a place where they are broken in spirit and blessed are they who mourn they have not mourned over their sins so sorrow joy the two are connected where is lamentations let me suggest to you lamentations is that space between sorrow and joy you get that lamentations is that gap between sorrow and joy is the pain you feel but it leads us to the promise of the cross that's the function of lamentations and so let me just wrap up a mona lisa the
00:35:26 scientists say the mona lisa is always happy and sometimes sad and i you can read this if you like but that's what christians should be if you're happy all the time we've got problem with you that means you don't know how to grieve over the world if you're sad all the time we have a problem with you because you have not had the joy of jesus so a christian must have sorrow even if your life is fantastic let's just say you're sitting right now and you don't have any problems well you can start to be sorrowful for others
00:35:58 and that sorrow then tells us the promise of god we have hope in the promise of christ and we'll talk a lot more about that next week and why because grace overflows jesus died from our he's victorious over everything and that's where we say amen so let me end to ask us very simply how to lament let me give you just four ways of doing it very simple you can practice this after this morning sermon number one you learn to sit in sorrow with god like i said the simplest thing to do is to learn to sit in sorrow and i want
00:36:34 to give this context to the virus so that we can learn to do that look at verse four the rose to zion mon no one comes to appointed festivals all the gateways are desolate her priest has grown her young women grieve and she's in bitter anguish all the gateways are desolate so mourn mourn over people have lost their businesses more noble restaurants that can't open mourn over empty hotels you can say it's not my problem that's exactly why you should mourn stop pause and look at this world and remember we
00:37:08 are creatures we are not conquerors and learn to sit in sorrow with god two look at that before that she says this she did not consider future her fall was astounding there was none to comfort her isn't that like what happened to us in december we we heard a little story of a little virus in wuhan in chinese we were all enjoying ourselves and here we are in june the whole world has just collapsed number two pray over your own sins revealed during this period why is that so because the virus was so sudden we've been locked
00:37:42 down for so long let me tell you something when you're locked down and you're forced to be in four walls for so many weeks god will reveal things to you if he didn't it's not that he did not it's because you didn't see it i locked you in a room or apartment for six weeks so don't tell me your character don't come out sure come on one look what it says verse 15 the lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst he has summoned an army against me to crush my young people in his wine press the lord has trampled virgin daughter judah
00:38:13 meaning the lord used the babylonian army to make the jews realize their sins and don't you think the virus makes us realize our sins what are they you only you know sit quietly and repent and say lord yes for me i i learned many things about myself how i i don't deal very well with uncertainty i learned very much that a lot of my hope isn't based on grace this is my own sin my hope was based on fear i'm fearful a certain thing that's why i hope in god that's very unbiblical so let me tell you sit back and pray and god will
00:38:52 reveal things thirdly you now move from pain to promise this is the good news and look at verse 21 people have heard my groaning there's no one to comfort me all my enemies have heard of my distress they rejoice at what you have done but look at what the verse says may you bring the day you've announced so they may become like me now again just pray for justice to come so that the babylonians get punished but what more critically may you bring the day you announce and you look at the book with jeremiah what jeremiah is saying
00:39:23 that god is faithful to his word he recognizes that and what's god's word to us god's word is that he's faithful to us he sent his son to die for our sins we have life in him if we but walk with him and you may you may be watching right now you're going through a very difficult time you may be struggling with loneliness you'll be struggling with with if you lost your job you may have gone through a lot of issues but there's a promise the promise is this for you and i all of you are struggling we walk by faith because
00:39:54 god's promise is true and jeremiah in the devastation recognizes god is true to his word so let me end with this any prayer must lead to something either that we become self-centered so a prayer lament must lead to action and out there many people suffer they suffer the horrors of the book of lamentations and my question as i end is to challenge you perhaps this virus is shaking us out of a comfortable faith our life is just a certain sphere we have become cultural christians and we have avoided the horrors of the
00:40:32 world is god challenging you out of your comfort zone to go with those with deep sorrows and bring them the joy of christ i want to challenge you with that let me end with this and a famous song about when i survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died my richest gain i count but lost and paul contempt on all my pride forbid it lord that i should boast save in the death of christ my god all the vain things that charming most i sacrifice them to his blood see from his head his hands his feet
00:41:10 sorrow and love flow mingled down that's the connection isn't it the gospel is both sorrow and love or sorrow and joy and we need to appropriate that deliver such love and sorrow meats or thoughts composed so reach a crown with a whole realm of nature mind that were present far too small love so amazing so divine demands my soul my life my all god bless all of you
