Gratitude in a Ruined City (Part III)

Message Title: Finding Gratitude in a Ruined City (Part III)

Description: Part III of a Sermon Series through the book of Lamentations. The people of Jerusalem believed that they couldn't be destroyed because they had the holy temple and the Dividic promise. Too bad they were ignoring God.

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Manuscript (This is my rough draft. I never finished writing it out)

SHOCK

Two years ago the Lakers had an incredible team and they rolled through the playoffs and arrived at the finals. Their challenger was the Detroit Pistons. Every anyalist and every newspaper columnist predicted that the Lakers would crust the Pistons. Basically, the games were just a formality, the NBA Commissioner might as well have given the Lakers the trophy. But something happened. The Lakers lost 4 out of 5 games to the Pistons. Everybody was shocked. The whole town of L.A, the players, myself, and all of the world couldn’t believe what had happened.

Turn with me to Lamentations 3:5.

⁵The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its places; He has destroyed its strongholds and multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning. ⁶ He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden; he has destroyed his place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and her Sabbaths; in his fierce anger he has spurned both king and priest. ⁷ The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has handed over to the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.

If you’re familiar with the Bible than you might grasp that there’s something shocking about this passage. God chose these Israelites to be his people, but here God has become like an enemy. God set up a system, in the temple, so that these people can worship and live in harmony with Him. God set up the temple as a sacred place, but here God is trampling on it. God is rejecting his alters and forgetting the feast that he appointed. The temple is central to these people’s connection with God and he just wipes it away.

The shock of God’s actions continues. Look at Lamentations 1:10

¹⁰The adversary has stretched out his hand over all her precious things, for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, the ones whom You commanded That they should not enter into Your congregation. ¹¹All her people groan seeking bread; they have given their precious things for food to restore their lives themselves "See, O LORD, and look, for I am despised." ¹²"Is it nothing to all you who pass this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain which was severely dealt out to me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of His fierce anger.

If you’re familiar with the Bible than you probably understand how this passage is even more of a surprise than the passage before it. Ultimately God is the one who brought destruction to the city of Jerusalem, but this passage reveals that God brought the destruction through some nations that God banned from ever entering his assembly. These rejected and unholy nations are the ones who God allowed to trample his holy temple.

If we sense the shock today, image the magnitude and intensity of the Israelites astonishment when these nations broke through the walls of Jerusalem and began to burn the city down. Before the fall of Jerusalem, the people of Judah believed that their city could never fall, for two reasons. First, God had promised King David that he would always have a man on the throne, and these people clung to that promise. A few years before the fall of Jerusalem, the Assyrians, who were the force of this time, were camped out not that far from the people of Judah. During this time, the people clung to this Davidic promise and believed that since they had the sacred and holy temple that no harm would befall them. Amazingly, the powerful Assyria crumbled and the Babylonians became the macho man. It was this experience that gave them even more hope and belief that their city could never fall and they could never be defeated. So when the Babylonians came knocking on their door, there was a confidence that all would be well. Second, they believed that God would protect them because of Temple. Look at Jeremiah 7:4.

Do not trust in the deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

They had this huge faith in the sacredness of the temple. They knew that this was something special and holy and that the Lord would never let it be destroyed or captured by unholy people. So they believed that they were secure. Now, there’s nothing wrong with viewing the temple as sacred and holy and that it is a protector. There’s nothing wrong with believing in the promise of God that a king from David would always be on the throne. There’s nothing wrong with this.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

In Jeremiah 6, we begin to understand what’s wrong with what these people are doing

Jeremiah 6:16

Thus says the Lord, “Stand by the way and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘we will not walk in it.’ 17”And I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen.’ “Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.” “Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their plans, because they have not listened to my words, and as for my law, they have rejected it also.”

This passage teaches us that the people have decided not to listen to God’s voice and to reject the law. They may believe in the sacredness of some the things he established, they may trust in the strength of his promise, but they don’t want to hear from God. They trust him, but also ignore him.

I know, I know, these people are so hard to grasp and understand. They have this faith in God and his promises, yet, at the same time, they don’t. Everything we’ve studied has showed that they were worshipping foreign gods and putting their trust in other nations, and yet they still believed that God would protect them because of this promise and temple. I don’t understand how they can have this confidence in God and yet feel they need to get strength from other nations and seek and follow other gods. It just blows my mind. They believed this God’s Davidic promise would keep them protected. They believed that this temple was too sacred and holy to be overtaken. They worshipped foreign gods in the temple. They put their trust in surrounding nations. They worshipped foreign gods. These concepts don’t seem to go together. These are just people who are hard to grasp.

If we turn back one book to Jeremiah 4:4, we can get some more information into what’s going on with these people.

A few years before the destruction of Jerusalem there was an eight year-old boy, named Josiah, who became king. In 2^nd Chronicles 34:3 it says,

For in the eight year of his reign while he was still a youth, he bean to seek the God of his father David.

When he was eighteen, the law of Moses was found. As Josiah read it, he was convited that the nation was not living the way it should, so he gathered all the people and made a covenant renewal with God. Then he made many reforms, destroying the pagan alters, killing mediums and people who practiced witchcraft, and got rid of anything that wasn’t good or holy. It says in 2^nd Samuel 23:25

Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

Unfortunatly, after he died, the kings following him began to do evil and wicked things. So in Jeremiah 4:4, we read this

⁴Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart,

All the reforms became only a matter of the exterior. God is telling the people to circumcise their hearts and to make these reforms go deeper than just actions but deep into the heart. Any true repentance that came from the time of Josiah can only be found in their outward actions of these people. There is absolutely no remnant of repentance and devotion to God left in the hearts of the people. They may be going through some of their rituals, they may be placing their trust on promises and the temple, but ultimately they don’t want to hear from God, so they’ve ignored him.

GOD’S SILENCE

The people of Jerusalem have received a huge shock. Their theology/understanding of God is broken and they don’t have much left. But now they have a bigger problem

Lamentations 2:9

Her gates have sunk into the ground, he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; the law is no more; also, her prophets find no vision from the Lord.

Earlier in Lamentations, also in the book of Jeremiah, it talks about how prophets were giving false prophecies, pleasing the ears of their hearers, but now, when they actually want to hear something from God, they can’t

Lamentations 3:44

Thou has covered thyself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.

Nobody can reach God. God isn’t answering to anyone.

Lamentations 3:8

Even when I cry out and call for help, he shuts out my prayers

This is a difficult passage to take in, because even Jeremiah can’t get through to God. Jeremiah, the one who was working with God, is receiving the silent treatment. This is just one of those passages that you have to wrestle with. Jeremiah is part of the these Jewish people and even he is dealing with the consequences of their sin.

There is no hope in this ruined city. There’s nothing to look forward to. Look at these depressing words from Jeremiah.

Lamentations 3:17-18

¹⁷ I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. ¹⁸ So I say, "My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD."

Jeremiah is at an all-time low. Jeremiah identifies with the other Israelites in that He was a part of the besigned city, so he has to under the consequences of their actions, but the worst part of his sadness and grief come from a different place. What hurts Jeremiah more is the fact that God is so distant right now. It is because Jeremiah can’t commune with God that he has lost his peace and all hope. But something changes. There’s something deep inside of Jeremiah that won’t let him loose hope.

Lamentations 3:19-29

¹⁹ I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. ²⁰ I will remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. ²¹ Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: ²² Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴ I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." ²⁵ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; ²⁶ it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. ²⁷ It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. ²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him. ²⁹ Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope.

The hope that Jeremiah finds is in the love and compassion of God. Because God’s mercy and grace is so great, Jeremiah knows that there is always a chance for God to embrace his people. So Jeremiah tells his people that the only way to grasp onto God’s compassion and love is to seek God. Jeremiah tells us to seek God. To sit alone and wait and wait and wait. Wait as long as it takes until God responds to your prayer. If God doesn’t answer, if God doesn’t come down to meet you, than wait and wait some more. Your only hope is God. And your only way of reaching your hope is to seek him out, which means pushing everything else out of your schedule, getting rid of any idols, making God your priority by just sitting and waiting for Him.

The people of Israel thought that God was bound and that God was forced to protect them. They wanted to trust in God without seeking him. The desperately sought the benefits and blessings of God, but never sought out God himself. This is why Jeremiah’s one piece of advice is to seek God with everything.

SEEKING GOD

Jeremiah understands these people better than I do. He has been there warning them about their sins long before the Babylons invaded, but right now they’re dealing with great depression and disappointment. They’re mourning the loss of their city, the death of friends and family, and the obliteration of their theology, but Jeremiah has some problems of his own. Let’s get back to Lamentations

Lamentations 3:7

7He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy. 8 Even when cry out and call for help, he shuts out my prayer. 9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; he has made my paths crooked.

This whole passage from 3:1-18 is very disturbing, because Jeremiah is in so much anguish. He is a part of the Jewish people and so he is sharing in their mourning. If any of you have experienced the deep anguish that comes from tragedy than you know the intensity Jeremiah is feeling. We don’t have time to get too deep into this passage so let’s jump to verse 17.

Lamentations 3:17-18

¹⁷ I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. ¹⁸ So I say, "My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD."

Jeremiah is at an all-time low. Jeremiah identifies with the other Israelites in that He was a part of the besigned city, so he has to under the consequences of their actions, but the worst part of his sadness and grief come from a different place. What hurts Jeremiah more is the fact that God is so distant right now. It is because Jeremiah can’t commune with God that he has lost his peace and all hope. But something changes. There’s something deep inside of Jeremiah that won’t let him loose hope.

Lamentations 3:19-29

¹⁹ I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. ²⁰ I will remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. ²¹ Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: ²² Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴ I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." ²⁵ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; ²⁶ it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. ²⁷ It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. ²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him. ²⁹ Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope.

The hope that Jeremiah finds is in the love and compassion of God. Because God’s mercy and grace is so great, Jeremiah knows that there is always a chance for God to embrace his people. So Jeremiah tells his people that the only way to grasp onto God’s compassion and love is to seek God. Jeremiah tells us to seek God. To sit alone and wait and wait and wait. Wait as long as it takes until God responds to your prayer. If God doesn’t answer, if God doesn’t come down to meet you, than wait and wait some more. Your only hope is God. And your only way of reaching your hope is to seek him out, which means pushing everything else out of your schedule, getting rid of any idols, making God your priority by just sitting and waiting for Him.

The people of Israel thought that God was bound and that God was forced to protect them. They wanted to trust in God without seeking him. The desperately sought the benefits and blessings of God, but never sought out God himself. This is why Jeremiah’s one piece of advice is to seek God with everything.

APPLICATION

When I was younger, my brother, sister, and I would plop in the back seat, as my mom and dad drove to our grandmothers house, which was 2 hours away. We would go for all the major holidays, easter, thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday. There were three things I loved about going to grandma’s house. First, the food. There was always great food there. Second, the cable tv. We didn’t have cable at home, so finally we could watch the good stuff. Third, there was candy, tons of it. We would arrive, and we would all give gradma a hug and then my brother and I would race into her bedroom to see who could grab the remote control first. We would watch tv until it was time to eat. We would eat and eat and eat some more before we ran back to the tv. Every once in a while we would come out for candy. My father finally pulled me aside and informed me that I needed to spend more time with my Grandmother. So I would sit there on the couch as everybody talked wondering if I had sat there long enough and if I could now go and watch TV.

I love my grandmother. I loved her back then too, but my actions said, I love all the things my grandma has more than I care for her. I love what my grandmother can provide for me, but I can care less about her. I’d ignore her and enjoy the things she had.

We can so easily do this to God. We can begin to seek the blessings over the Blesser. In fact, we can total begin to ignore God, because we start focusing on the things of God.

One great example of this is how us Christians talk about heaven. Streets of Gold, mansions, big and grand. Look at what we talked about last week: a place where there will be no pain, sorrow, tears, or death. Our focus on heaven is basically selfishness. It’s wealth (big house and gold everywhere) and wellbeing (nothing will ever go wrong) without ever mentioning that heaven is a place where we will spend all of eternity being enthralled by God. Heaven is about eternity with God and we make it into something else. We look forward to the blessings of God more than being with God.

Even a prayer, which at its very essence is a connection between man and God, can be used to seek the blessings of God more than God himself. Think about your prayers. What fills the majority of your prayers? What are you seeking? Are you seeking God? Do you spend most of your time seeking healing for others? Are you always asking for things? Do your prayers always begin with, “Oh God, help me”? How often do you sit in silence to listen? How often do you allow God to speak to you?

What about reading the Bible. Do you read it? Do you even remember what you read the last time you read it? Do you allow the Spirit of God to do something with the scriptures? Do you allow the Spirit to reveal God and his plans? Do you allow the Spirit to convict you and show you how you can please God?

There’s nothing wrong with requesting God’s help, but there comes a point where you begin to care more about what you can get form God than how well you can get to know him.

Turn with me to 1^st Samuel 4:2-3. Let’s look at another facet of ignoring God.

² The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield. ³ When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, "Why did the LORD bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the LORD's covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.".

They knew that the Lord was not in approval of them. They knew that his presence had left them, so they tried to manipulate God. God has to come with us if we take the ark, for it has his words in the ark. They are saying that God is bound to deliver us. He has to, because this is the holy ark. These Israelites are beginning to operate in formulas. The battle + the ark = victory. There’s no way this equation can go wrong. This is the secret formula that forces God’s hand.

In case you haven’t guessed, the philistines won the battle and captured the ark that was supposed to deliver Israel. There’s nothing wrong with the viewing the ark as holy and special, but when you think God is controllable than there’s a problem.

It is so easy to make all these things about formulas you do as opposed to ways you are trying to seek and please God. It is easy to get caught up in any religious activity and begin just to do it without having anything to do with God. But we fall into this trap so often. What makes this topic so hard to apply is that our outward actions don’t matter. Our heart can spoil any good thing we do and make it bad and unacceptable. A wrong heart can make a prayer useless. Reading the Bible with the wrong motives or with no motives at all won’t benefit you.

THE TRUE REASON

Turn with me to Jeremiah 7:3

³ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" ⁵ If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, ⁶ if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. ⁸ But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

⁹ " 'Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"-safe to do all these detestable things? ¹¹ Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.

The leaders had this understanding that the temple was sacred and holy, yet the priest were corrupt. Within the temple they worshipped foreign gods and oppressed other people. They murdered, robbed, lied, and exploited others. I get a sense from reading about these priest and prophets that they didn’t understand what made the temple such a sacred place.

Why was the temple so sacred? Turn with me to 1^st Kings 8. In this chapter Solomon has just built the Temple and now he is praying a prayer of dedication to God

1^st Kings 8:27-30

27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built!

Solomon realized that God is too big to be contained in the Temple. There’s no way to fit all of God in this place.

28Yet have regard to the prayer of they servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prays before thee today; that Thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, toward the place of which Thou hast said, ‘My name shall be there,’ to listen to the prayer which thy servant shall pray toward this place. 30And listen to the supplication of thy servant and of thy people Israel, when they pray toward this place; hear Thou in the heaven thy dwelling place; hear and forgive.

When Solomon built the temple he knew that this temple wasn’t going to hold God. God is too grand to just live in this temple. But Solomon’s prayer was that God would always keep his eye on the temple, that this would be the place where people could come and meet with God. That people who sinned, could repent and God would forgive them. This is a place where God would reconcile people to himself, where God would allow a means of continuing his relationship with the people of Israel. From Israel’s perspective, the reason why the temple was so holy is because this is where they could come and connect with the divine and enter a relationship with Him. But the reason why God viewed the temple as sacred was because this is the place where he can bring Israel to himself. This is where they can be purified and made holy, so that they can be God’s people. The temple and the law were just the means. It’s the people that God cherished and desired.

This is where the heart of God still lies: In his people (the ones he created). The priest and prophets never understood this. They viewed the temple as something special that could protect them, but they trampled on the people that were more important than any walls or brick.

Although the Church has a different function than the Temple, some people sanctify the Church and make it more important than people. Some people will be rude or belittle others if they don’t dress or act according to how they think a person seeking God should act. If someone is truly coming to seek God, he/she is ignored or criticized because they don’t fit another’s idea of what a Christian should look like. We’re missing the point.

Let’s look at one more passage.

Matthew 1:20

²⁰But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,^[c] because he will save his people from their sins."

²²All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

We see God’s concern and love for his creation that he sent Jesus to come and seek us out. Following the law, especially for foreign nations was hard, so God sent Christ to do a work that would allow us all an opportunity to come to Him. God is so concerned about us, that He sent Jesus to us. All we have to do is accept His work. All we have to do is pray, seek Him, and he will be found.