Next Step Christian Church
In House 7-23-2022
  • Stir In Me
  • Come Just As You Are
  • Breathe On Me Now
  • Pour Out My Heart

  • Whining

    I didn’t sleep much last night. Just the worst.
    And… when I woke up, my air conditioning was on too high, and it was a touch chilly.
    But on the walk from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned church… well, it was a bit toasty. Just the worst!
    ​
    Let’s get some things off our chest. On the count of 3 lets all say something annoying you right now.
    ​
    Everyone say: “Pastor Dusty”
    Ouch. That’s really harsh. Now I can whine about that, too!
    ​
    I’ve told lots of stories about my kids just falling apart, whining over the silliest things. Dylan comes to mind, sitting at the dinner table for hours until he would try his mashed potatoes and meatballs.
    I don’t tend to have a lot of sympathy, when it comes to those moments. I’m going to out-stubborn my children.
    For a kiddo, that really could be the “worst thing that ever happened to them.”
    As you get older, you get a little more perspective. You encounter deeper pains, more profound disappointments… so when you look at the kid crying over dinner.
    “Seriously? Get over it! Stop whining!”
    ​
    (That’s kind of a dismissive phrase, isn’t it?)
    We don’t call it “whining” when we think someone’s pain is legitimate. We call it “mourning” or “grieving” or “sorrow” or “lament.”
    But from God’s perspective… does it all sound like whining? He sees the beginning from the end, He sees the victory, He sees the beauty from ashes.
    While we are sitting in the ashes.
    Does God put up with our “whining?”
    Does He roll His eyes at me like I do with my kids?
    Seriously? We will be there in 5 minutes!

    The Fall of Jerusalem

    In our series through the prophets, mostly focusing on the “minor” prophets, we took a brief look at this guy Jeremiah. The “weeping” prophet. He was chosen by God, a hero in the making, crafted in his mother’s womb… and pretty much saw nothing but failure his entire life.
    The thing he warned about for 30-40… Judah didn’t repent and, sure enough, Babylon came. Besieged Jerusalem for 30 months. And then took most of the people off into captivity.
    So Jeremiah weeps at the coming destruction, and at the reality of the destruction.
    So we have this book, Lamentations. Tradition has this as the work of Jeremiah, the prophet, though we don’t know for sure. It is the work of a poet writing shortly after the fall of Jerusalem.
    Heart-broken. Grieved. Wounded. Angry. Maybe doubting God, here and there?
    This is kind of a weird thing to be in the Bible.
    And it’s kind of weird to be preaching on it.
    But I believe God has brought all these books together, works of literature by human hands, but God-breathed, God-inspired, God preserved these words from almost 2600 years ago…
    ...to teach you and I something about who He is
    …to teach us how to know Him, how to worship Him.
    What can that possibly mean with a book called “Lamentations

    Lament - The Poetry of Grief

    To “lament” is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.
    ​

    Acrostic

    It is poetry, poetic structure.
    Aleph, Bet, Gimel
    It feels kind of like “come up with something that bothers you on the count of 3.” Imagine the poet sitting there “what pains me that starts with the letter J...” Jerusalem something!
    Brings order to the chaos of grief and loss. It structures such an unordered and structured thing. Maybe it guides the poet… and the reader too, through the grief. When the hurt is too large, the artist gives words to say to feel a way through it.
    ​

    Lament 1 - the Widow

    Jerusalem has become like a widow. A-Z, she grieves. Lamentations 1 pictures Jerusalem as a widow who is lost.
    Lamentations 1:1–2 ESV
    How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
    ​
    And who did it? Who is to blame? Who punished Jerusalem? God did… exactly like He said He would… but that doesn’t stop people from mourning it, does it?
    Lamentations 1:14–16 ESV
    “My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand. “The Lord rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. “For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.”
    ​
    ​
    Lamentations 1:20 ESV
    “Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.
    The city personified, weeps and mourns… and knows it is our fault. We sinned and are brought low by the consequences. No one to blame but ourselves.
    That is lament.
    ​

    Lament 2 - Wrath

    ​
    The anger of the Lord.
    Lamentations 2:1–2 ESV
    How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.
    ​
    How does the poet feel about it? This gets vivid:
    Lamentations 2:11–12 ESV
    My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.
    ​
    Lamentations 2:20–22 ESV
    Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity. You summoned as if to a festival day my terrors on every side, and on the day of the anger of the Lord no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.
    ​
    So different from the last chapter. That was self focused on sorrowful. This is angry at God. You did this!
    ​
    When we read about God bringing “justice” to the people of Israel, to the people of Judah… it was abstract.
    Maybe we even chuckled at the “foolish people” who didn’t listen to God, who didn’t repent, didn’t listen to Jeremiah’s final warnings.
    And yet… the reality of that judgment, the wounded-ness, the brokenness, the starvation and the families torn apart, people driven to starvation, to cannibalism, and then to death or slavery.
    I am far more comfortable with the abstract… the poet doesn’t have that luxury. Because he lived it, is living it, can’t escape it, probably hears the cries when he tries to sleep at night!
    ​
    ​

    Lament 4 - Yesterday

    ​
    Chapter 4, another lament, contrasts the way it was with the way it is now. Again, an acrostic, from A to Z, all the things that were lavish and fine before, now broken.
    Lamentations 4:1–2 ESV
    How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands!
    ​
    Lamentations 4:5 ESV
    Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.
    ​
    Looking back at how good it was… and how awful it is today.
    “How I long… for yesterday.”
    What time and God has taken from us. Maybe it ends well? The “z” of the Hebrew alphabet “Tav”.
    Lamentations 4:22 ESV
    The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is accomplished; he will keep you in exile no longer; but your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will punish; he will uncover your sins.
    ​
    ​

    Lament 5 - Restore Us

    Lament 5 breaks the “alphabet” pattern, like the grief can no longer be contained. It lists all the people affected, begging God not to forget them.
    ​
    Lamentations 5:1–3 ESV
    Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
    ​
    ​
    Lamentations 5:15 ESV
    The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.
    ​
    There is an acknowledgment of God:
    Lamentations 5:19 ESV
    But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.
    ​
    But contrasting to him leaving them in their suffering:
    Lamentations 5:20–22 ESV
    Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old— unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
    And… that’s the end. That’s the end of Lamentations. And then 70 years in exile. Just about everyone dies. It’s a new generation that gets to see home again, and generations after that before it starts to even kind of look like home again.
    That’s the end of Lamentations.
    ​

    Permission Granted

    Lament is:
    A form of protest
    A way to process emotion
    A place to voice confusion
    ​
    Someone else’s grief. Someone’s diary. Really, some inappropriate words.
    ​
    Far from God rejecting it as “whining”… he welcomes it as worship. It’s honest. It’s raw… and the author doesn’t often say the “right” thing. He doesn’t get to “bless the Lord” most of the time.
    We like that part, it gives us closure.
    Except when we are the ones feeling the pain and we aren’t ready for closure. The “bless the Lord” part feels like someone trying to force us “just feel better”… and we just don’t yet.
    God welcomes that. He honors it. He receives it as worship.
    How do I know? Because He took those songs of Lament from David, from Jeremiah, from Job, from others...
    He took this book of poetry, “Lamentations”, maybe Jeremiah, maybe an unnamed poet. He took their human words of grief and lament...
    and He preserves them...
    and He says, this is My Word to my people. Show them how they can bring all their cares to me. Show them that I see them, truly, that I listen, fully.
    God invites us to bring our lament… when it isn’t all okay.
    God invites us to bring our burdens to Him. To “cast our cares” upon Him.
    ​
    There is no “suffering in silence” here.
    There is no “feel better quickly.”
    There is no fake “I’m okay.” That is a disease in “the American church.” That is a disease in our church.
    Rend your clothes, wail aloud, lament!
    That is Biblical! and that is honest!
    And maybe that’s you today. You’re in a place of hurting and pain and you’re sick and tired of pretending you’re okay.
    I get it, you don’t want to explain all the things to all the people all the time. But I pray you find a brother or sister in Christ you can lament with. And I know you have a Father who hears you… and it’s okay to not be okay.
    ​
    Maybe you really are “okay” today, or great. I’ll be honest, I’m not hiding some massive secret grief today. But we need to hear and know that lament is okay now… so that in that coming day when “in this world you will have trouble...” we know that our grief is welcome. Our anger, even our anger at God is heard.
    And, to our brothers and sisters who are grieving, we can mourn with those who mourn… with out trying to force the “resolution” on them.
    ​
    Kelly and I laugh because there “isn’t a worship song” that says this. That says “God, I am angry at you and that’s it.” Or “God, I am disappointed in what you’ve done in my life.” Or “how I long for yesterday...”
    But I am truly and forever thankful for some artist who, like Jeremiah, like David, have given us songs of lament, words to express pain and grief.
    So I wanted to share my favorite one, a song of lament. This guy, Jason Gray, gave me words of hurt and loss, and permission to feel them before God and before the church, in the footsteps of Lamentations.
    ​
    <Closing Song - Not Right Now by Jason Gray>
    ​

    Communion

    Lamentations ends with fear of God’s rejection.
    Lamentations 5:20–22 ESV
    Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old— unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
    ​
    But, like the answer to Job, like the answer to all suffering and pain, that isn’t God’s final answer.
    God’s answer is not to remove all the pain and suffering in the moment. We wish it were. I wish it was.
    God chose a different path. He chose to step in. To enter fully into our pain and suffering. Into our lamentations. To take on the sin and suffering of the world.
    To cry with us “God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”
    All of that, God took on flesh, took on my pain and my sin and my grief and my death...
    And he said “this is my body broken for you...”
    ...”this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
    And as often as we eat and drink, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. That is both lament and glory… for we know what comes for him and us after death.

      • Lamentations 1:1–2ESV

      • Lamentations 1:14–16ESV

      • Lamentations 1:20ESV

      • Lamentations 2:1–2ESV

      • Lamentations 2:11–12ESV

      • Lamentations 2:20–22ESV

      • Lamentations 4:1–2ESV

      • Lamentations 4:5ESV

      • Lamentations 4:22ESV

      • Lamentations 5:1–3ESV

      • Lamentations 5:15ESV

      • Lamentations 5:19ESV

      • Lamentations 5:20–22ESV

      • Lamentations 5:20–22ESV

  • I Am Not Alone
Next Step Christian Church
pastordusty@nextstepchurch.org
(720) 663-9085
https://www.nextstepchurch.org
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