#169. Turn, Tell, Trust God: You Don't Have to Pretend You're Okay | What Lamentations Teaches Us About Faith, Life, and Parenting

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This is The Dwelling Place

from Entrusted Ministries.

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I'm Stephanie Hickox, and today as we

grieve with the Book of Lamentations,

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I want you to think what an honor

it is that the God we serve asks us

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to cast all our cares upon Him and

to bring our pain into His presence.

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The truths of the gospel transform

our grief, but they don't

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remove our hurt or our humanity.

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So what does it look like to

acknowledge the truth of reality

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While living with the hope of heaven.

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This summer, I had the

opportunity to go to the Gospel

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Coalition's Women's Conference.

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It was phenomenal, and I enjoyed all

the speakers, but I was especially

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blessed by Pastor Mark Vroegop.

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He's recently taken over as the president

of The Gospel Coalition, but he was

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formerly pastor of my friend's church.

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Her husband serves on staff, so

she confidently assured me that

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Mark Vroegop is the real deal.

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He is humble, and he lives

out what he preaches.

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And I believe that part of the mantle

that God has given him to carry out

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to this generation is to return us

to faithful lamenting before the

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Lord Sometimes in Christian circles

today, when you share the hard

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you're condemned for not having hope.

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And if you're walking through a

particularly difficult time or trial, this

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can produce a dissonance in your spirit

where you desperately want to cling to

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the Word of God, but people around you are

trying to wrap up your testimony in a bow.

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When God has asked you to patiently

wait for his redemption in a situation,

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the world is shouting that authenticity

is king and that they will embrace

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you for whoever you claim to be.

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If we want to remind our kids that

Jesus Christ is king, we need to ensure

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that they know there is a process by

which they bring all of themselves

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to the Lord and lay it at his feet.

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We don't want to stay there in our grief

and our pain, but we can't endure well

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unless we dwell with God in the difficult

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Mark Vroegop would call these

two tendencies the two ditches.

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We have some walking in denial

and some walking in despair But

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lament is right in the middle.

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And before I begin discussing the

Book of Lamentations that was written

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to be similar to a funeral address

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I thought it would be most helpful if

I could share some highlights and notes

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that I took from Pastor Mark's message.

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It was entitled Turn to God in

Suffering and was based on Psalm 102.

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But the principles of lament that

he shared are far-reaching and are

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truly applicable to the Christian walk

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If this is really resonating with

you and you'd like to learn more,

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I'd recommend his book, Dark Clouds,

Deep Mercy He wrote it, to try to

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encourage the church to lament well.

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And the reason this message is so near

and dear to Mark's heart is because he

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and his wife lost a child when she was

very close to term And even after that

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heartbreaking situation, God allowed

them to have continued grief and trials

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in the process of growing their family.

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After one particularly devastating

doctor appointment, Mark got in

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the car with his wife, and he

said, " Do you think you can pray?"

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All she could say was, " I know you're not

mean, God, but it feels like it today."

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I was so inspired by Mark and his

wife's example to share the deep

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valleys they've gone through because

I know they didn't stay there.

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They took their pain to Jesus Christ

so that they could learn to praise

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Him regardless of their circumstances.

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And that's exactly who I want to be.

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That's who I know you wanna be

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And I hope that we can inspire our kids

to have such a powerfully authentic walk

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that acknowledges difficult, but realizes

that the hope of the gospel really

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does transform whatever comes our way

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In his message, he said, "When it

feels like you can't survive, lament.

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Take it to the Lord."

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He is a God that sees and hears,

and He wants us to come to Him, and

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that doesn't mean that we just take

our praise reports to Him I know

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I'm giving you a lengthy preamble,

but what he preached is pure gold

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And I think it's a message

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that needs to be preached

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And I think it's a message that can cause

our spirits to give a deep sigh of relief

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And that reminds us to draw near

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Which is obviously what

we're all about here.

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First, we need to be abundantly

clear on what lament is.

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Lament is a prayer made in

pain that leads to trust

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Another way to say it is lament is a

prayer made in pain that leads to praise.

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Did you know that a third

of the Psalms are laments?

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That alone is evidence that we are

allowed to take the difficult to the Lord.

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Mark pointed out that a third of the

Psalms will be irrelevant in heaven

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because there will be nothing to

lament anymore He stated that the

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biblical language of lament is number

one, turn to Jesus in your pain.

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Number two, tell Jesus about your pain.

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And finally, trust Jesus with your pain.

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I'll say those again.

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Turn to Jesus in your pain,

tell Jesus about your pain,

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and trust Jesus with your pain.

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Because suffering is a central

aspect of the Christian life,

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we need a place to take it

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Mark says that most

suffering is unexplained.

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However, it is not meaningless.

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Perplexing suffering does

not mean pointless suffering.

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And just because you don't know the plan

doesn't mean it isn't a perfect plan.

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He challenged us that laments are

not intended to be cul-de-sacs.

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They are meant to be conduits This

means that you don't want to be stuck in

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the same circle of grief and despair.,

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You want the lament to pull you forward,

to be on the path of trust and obedience

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with the Lord He said we should be able to

say of our trials and experiences, " That

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moment rocked us, but it didn't ruin us."

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And it reminds me of the verse that says,

"We are struck down but not destroyed

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Because we believe God is good, we

insist on bringing our pain before

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Him Mark acknowledged that if we

didn't believe that God was sovereign,

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there would be no reason to lament.

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And according to Romans 8, hard is

not bad, but hard is still hard.

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To lament is to stop giving Jesus the

silent treatment, and it's one of the

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most costly praises we can offer to God.

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It means that in your suffering,

you reach the point of praising.

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You may be wondering, is there

a difference between a biblical

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complaint and a sinful complaint?

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And there most certainly is.

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Pastor Vergoop explained that a sinful

complaint says, "God, you owe me

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Why did this happen?

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And does not conclude in praise or trust,

but a biblical complaint lays our pain

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before the Lord, acknowledging how hard

it can be to live in a fallen world

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And it ends trusting in the good

and sovereign God of the universe.

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I hope that all of that provides a

really good foundation of why you

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shouldn't rush past these powerful five

chapters of scripture in Lamentations

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This might be a book of the Bible

that can train you of how to

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bring those cares before the Lord

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In our brief time together today,

I'll read a portion of it over you

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But it truly is worthy of your attention

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A lament is a loud cry, and that's

why the book is called Lamentations.

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But the Hebrew title comes from the first

word of the book, which is how or alas.

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No other book of the Old Testament

is filled only with lament.

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And this book is a funeral address

for the City of Zion, also known

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as Jerusalem, God's great city has

fallen, and his people are grieving.

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It was a shocking, heart-wrenching

reality for the people

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The only thing I can compare it

to for our generation is 9/11.

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But that was much more

a national disaster,

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The destruction of Jerusalem

also seemed to take out their

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entire spiritual foundation

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of what they thought was unshakable.

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It was a shocking, heart-wrenching

reality for the people.

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Lamentations is largely attributed

to Jeremiah, both because of the

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evidence and phrasing within the

book, but also outside of the book.

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Jewish tradition

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And early Christian tradition

unanimously attributed it to Jeremiah.

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And early copies of the Septuagint, which

is the Greek translation, even begin

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with referencing Jeremiah's weeping.

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God had warned 900 years prior that this

would happen if they didn't obey him.

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You and I have been reading

for months about His warnings.

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And though we might think, "God,

this judgment is so severe," what

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would you think of a God who has been

warning for nine hundred years that

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something was going to happen and

then chose to not follow through?

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Even in his destruction, we

can take comfort that he is a

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faithful God who keeps his word.

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And as clearly as he laid out this

path to destruction, he laid out

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the path to blessing and life.

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So when we read about the faithfulness of

God to discipline his people, we can also

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rejoice that he's a God that rewards his

people, and that one day we will no longer

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need to bring our laments before him.

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He will be the light and the joy that we

dwell with There are a couple literary

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devices enacted here as they follow

patterns of an acrostic poem, and the

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Jewish people read this every year on the

anniversary of Jerusalem's destruction.

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It falls on July or August on our

calendar, and my attention was

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certainly arrested when I read that

this is the exact date that Herod's

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temple was destroyed by the Romans

after the time of Christ in AD

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seventy, the exact same calendar day.

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Jeremiah would have written this

book after the fall of Jerusalem,

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but before those faithless

men carried him away to Egypt.

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Chapters one and five mirror each

other, and then chapters two and

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four, while chapter three contains

the main theme of the message.

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Although there is much to meditate on,

that's where I'll focus our time today.

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Beginning in three one: I am

the man who has seen affliction

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under the rod of His wrath.

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He has driven and brought me

into darkness without any light.

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Surely against me He turns His hand

again and again the whole day long.

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He has made my flesh

and my skin waste away.

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He has broken my bones.

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He has besieged and enveloped me

with bitterness and tribulation.

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He has made me dwell in darkness

like the dead of long ago.

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He has walled me about

so that I cannot escape.

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He has made my chains heavy.

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Though I call and cry for

help, He shuts out my prayer.

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He has blocked my ways

with blocks of stones.

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He has made my paths crooked.

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He is a bear lying in wait

for me, a lion in hiding.

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He turned aside my steps

and tore me to pieces.

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He has made me desolate.

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He bent His bow and set me as a

target for His arrow He drove into

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my kidneys the arrows of his quiver.

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I have become the laughingstock

of all peoples, the object

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of their taunts all day long.

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He has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with wormwood.

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He has made my teeth grind on

gravel and made me cower in ashes.

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My soul is bereft of peace.

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I have forgotten what happiness is.

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So I say, " My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the Lord."

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Remember my affliction and my

wanderings, the wormwood and the gall.

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My soul continually remembers

it and is bowed down within me.

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But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope.

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The steadfast love of

the Lord never ceases.

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His mercies never come to an end.

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They are new every morning.

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Great is your faithfulness.

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The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

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Therefore, I will hope in him.

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The Lord is good to those who wait

for him, to the soul who seeks him.

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It is good that one should wait

quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

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It is good for a man that he

bear the yoke in his youth

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Let him sit alone in silence

when it is laid on him.

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Let him put his mouth in the dust.

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There may yet be hope.

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Let him give his cheek to

the one who strikes, and let

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him be filled with insults.

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For the Lord will not cast off forever.

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But though he cause grief, he will

have compassion according to the

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abundance of his steadfast love,

for he does not willingly afflict

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or grieve the children of man.

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We studied in Jeremiah the extent

of his pain and rejection on this

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earth So we can understand why he

writes what he does in chapter three.

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But even in the midst of all

that, he focuses, he focuses on

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the character of our great God

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Let me read those central

verses once again.

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Lamentations three

twenty-two and twenty-three.

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The steadfast love of

the Lord never ceases.

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His mercies never come to an end.

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They are new every morning.

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Great is your faithfulness.

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And because these verses so

perfectly fit, I'll also share

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three fifty-five through sixty

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I called on your name, O Lord, from the

depths of the pit; you heard my plea.

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Do not close your ear to my cry for help.

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You came near when I called on

you; you said, "Do not fear."

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You have taken up my cause, O

Lord; you have redeemed my life.

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You have seen the wrong

done to me, O Lord.

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Judge my cause.

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You have seen all their vengeance,

all their plots against me.

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The book ends, " Restore us to yourself,

O Lord, that we may be restored.

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Renew our days as of old, unless

you have utterly rejected us and you

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remain exceedingly angry with us."

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When the book is read publicly, they

repeat verse twenty-one to end on a

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word of hope, " Restore us to yourself,

O Lord, that we may be restored.

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Renew our days of old."

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And I think that's a perfect

thing for us to pray.

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Heavenly Father, great

is Your faithfulness.

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Morning by morning, new mercies

we see, but we confess that we are

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often far too shortsighted to see

how merciful and gracious You are.

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Fix our eyes on You and

transform our perspective

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We know our attitudes need to be renewed,

and our hope needs to be set on eternity

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And we're deeply aware that there are

circumstances where it's too great of a

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challenge for us to do this in our flesh.

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We ask that you would teach us.

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We ask that you would teach us to come

to you in all of our pain and that

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we would not fall into the ditches of

denial or despair Instead, help us to

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offer to you the most difficult prayers

of praise, especially in our pain,

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because we know you are still worthy.

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We pray that our children would

not fall prey to the counterfeit

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promises of the world that say, "We'll

accept you for whoever you are."

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We know true acceptance is found

with the one who created us.

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We pray we would teach our children

holy humility, not authenticity for

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authenticity's sake, but honesty for

the purpose of transformation and

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relationship with you Thank you for your

faithfulness, Lord, for your mercies, and

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that you are our portion and our hope.

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Jesus, thank you that you,

the source of all hope, even

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modeled for us how to lament

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And it's in your great name that we pray.

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Amen