Sermon for HCBC (24 May 2020). To listen use the audio player below or click here. Also available on your favorite podcast app (“Hunting Creek Baptist Church”).
Introduction
Humans were made for relationship with God and each other. That’s the story we find in the opening chapters of the Bible (Gen 1–2). But something goes wrong. Humans make a mistake. They desire independence from God, and that’s what they get—what we call spiritual death. And this death fractures everything including human relationships. There is a deep longing to be in relationship with God and each other because we were created for that.
The problem is that sin creates wreckage. It fractures our relationship with God and with each other. In Lamentations 5, the people of Israel ask a burning question: Have we gone too far? Is God done with us? Has he abandoned us? Are our mistakes unforgivable? Have you ever made a mistake that you thought was unforgivable? Maybe you’ve spent years trying to redeem yourself. Maybe that mistake happened after you were a Christian, and you just don’t understand how that could be so. Aren’t Christians supposed to be done with serious sin? And maybe your mistake was repeated again and again, and you were locked in this awful cycle of sin, promise God and yourself you’d never do it again, return to the same pattern of sin, repeat. And you wonder if God can forgive you. Maybe you crossed a line you said you’d never cross.
Or, maybe someone did something to you that has devastating consequences, and you feel like you’ll be broken forever. Your spouse was unfaithful. You were physically or emotionally abused. A friend betrayed you. Your family abandoned you.
Do you ever feel like you’re alone in the wreckage? Like God has abandoned you? That’s exactly how Israel felt in Lamentations 5, and on the surface it looked that way. But Lamentations 5 has something of an open ending. There are no answers from God on specific questions, resolution doesn’t happen in the book. But we know that the story doesn’t end in Lamentations. Lamentations ends with an appeal that God will answer with a resounding declaration: I will never forsake my people. God is irrevocably committed to his people. Sin and suffering do not have the final word. God does. And it is a word of absolute commitment to redeem his people and never abandon them.
Israel’s Disgrace
Israel’s sin has resulted in massive devastation. Lamentations 5 is a community lament. Everyone in the city has suffered. Israel has been disgraced. She feels rejected by God. Look at verse 1: “Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace.” The chapter opens with a plea directly to God. Remember. Look. See.
Then the community describes their disgrace in stark detail in vv. 2–18. Nobody is exempt. Innocent people suffer. Powerful people suffer. Vulnerable people suffer. All that’s left according to v. 15 is sorrow.
Why are they in this situation? Look at v. 16: “The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!” Sin brings wreckage. And nobody knows that better than the community in Lamentations 5. “Woe to us, for we have sinned.”
After describing the wreckage in vv. 2–18, the chapter pivots. That’s in v. 19. I’ll come back to that in a minute. But notice the final appeal in vv. 21–22: “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.” The translation “unless” is commonly debated among interpreters. But its function is this. It’s to say even though the situation right now is impossibly bleak you will restore us. A better translation is: Restore us God even though you have rejected us. The reason that’s better is because Lamentations is appealing to the constant and faithful character of God. Though he has punished Israel for their covenant violations, he will not abandon them. This is precisely the terms set forth in Leviticus 26. If they break the covenant, I will punish them. But even though they violate the covenant, I will not forsake them. So, Lamentations ends with an appeal to God’s character. The very prayer “restore us” is a mark of confidence in God’s loyalty to his people.
There’s one more piece of hope in this text. That’s in v. 19: “But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.” How do they know God can restore them? Well, of course, there is his faithfulness, but more than good will is needed for there to be hope. Here is the basis of the confidence: God is sovereign. The Lord reigns forever. His throne endures to all generations. This is really a remarkable text because in the preceding verse, we are told that Mount Zion lies desolate. That means the temple is destroyed. In the world of the OT, destruction of a temple meant the defeat of a god. But Lamentations affirms a truth we see repeatedly in Scripture: the living God does not dwell in temples. He is still sovereign over all the nations. On the basis of God’s faithfulness and his sovereignty, God’s people have hope.
God’s Irrevocable Commitment
Do you feel like you’ve gone too far? Do you think God is angry with you? Have you made a bad decision? Are you still doing that thing you don’t want to do? Do you bear the scars of being sinned against? There is good news because God is faithful and sovereign, and he is committed to his people.
How can you know God is for you? Because the God of the Bible acts unilaterally. He initiates a covenant with Abram. On the basis of that covenant, he delivers Israel from Egypt. And now he invites all people to enter a covenant with him through Jesus’s work on the cross. Christ has established the covenant. God now invites us to enter the covenant by placing our trust in Christ. And because God is a covenant-keeping God, he is irrevocably committed to all those who are in Christ.
What does that mean for us? Let me just sketch out a few thoughts from Romans 8. This will hardly do justice to the chapter. Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Your guilt and your shame are gone if you are in Christ. That means God is sovereign and faithful over sin. Sin does not have the final word. Your worst mistakes do not have the final word because God is committed to his people. Grace greater than all our sin.
Romans 8:19: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” God is sovereign and faithful over suffering. The worst situations will be redeemed because God is committed to his people. That’s the truth of these famous verses later in the chapter. Romans 8:28–30:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Did you catch it? God is so committed to his people that he ensures their justification and glorification giving us confidence that the best things are yet to come.
Then there’s the crescendo of Romans 8, beginning in v. 31:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you are in Christ, God is irrevocably committed to you. Your sin and your suffering do not have the final word because Christ is the final word. God makes this commitment to us. He has stamped us and sealed us. Here’s the really remarkable thing. God makes this decision unilaterally. We don’t decide for God. He decides for us. Paul goes on in Romans 9 to make that point. It’s clear in Ephesians as well. Ephesians 1:3–4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” Ephesians 2:1–2, 4–5: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked … But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” For now, it’s not necessary to get caught up in the debates on these verses. Just note the point Paul makes. These are about identity. If you are in Christ, this is your identity: You belong to God. And his commitment to his people is irrevocable because he initiated it.
Two Correctives
God’s unilateral commitment offers two correctives. First, God’s unilateral commitment to his people frees us from suffocating shame. Some of us are overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and shame for past mistakes. We’ve really messed up. We’ve done some dark stuff. We’ve crossed lines we never thought we’d cross. God’s commitment overcomes your shame. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
Second, God’s unilateral commitment to his people frees us from toxic self-righteousness. Some of us think we’ve done a pretty good job. We think we are virtuous and good people. We might not say it that way, but it’s evident when we say things like, “I would never do that.” Self-righteousness is toxic to the soul. It will kill you. It will drive you away from God and from others. Why? Because it is sin. And sin leaves wreckage. But God’s commitment to you overcomes your need to feel righteous or perfect.
Both shame and self-righteousness are really two sides of the same coin. What do suffocating shame and toxic self-righteousness have in common? They are both attempts to redeem ourselves. Shame says, “I have to pay for what I’ve done.” During the Black Death in the 1300s groups of people would go from town to town whipping themselves as a demonstration of their repentance. Don’t wallow in your shame. Christ bore the shame of the cross to set you free from the shame of your sin. In the same way, self-righteousness says, “I am an adequate savior. I’m good enough to redeem myself. I’m not like some people.” Christ died for you even though you’ve yet to realize that you need his death—that you deserve his death. So whether you’re choked by shame or blinded by self-righteousness, the answer is the same: You need Christ because in his death and resurrection, God has demonstrated his irrevocable commitment to us. First John 4:10: “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Quit trying to redeem yourself. There is only one redeemer and his name is Jesus and he made the first move.
Conclusion
Remember this: no matter how dark it gets, no matter how big your mistake is, it’s not over because God is fiercely committed to his people. And he has demonstrated his commitment on the cross. Paul puts it this way in Phil 1:6: “He who began a good work in you will finish it.” What God unilaterally determined to do cannot be overcome. I am the God who brought you out of Egypt. I am the God who freed you from the domain of darkness. I have set my heart on you. I am committed to you.
In the OT, a man named Hosea marries a woman named Gomer. All of Hosea’s friends thought he was insane because Gomer was scandalous. You never knew who she would be with. But Hosea committed to her. Hosea and Gomer had three children, but sometimes people don’t change. Gomer never was faithful to Hosea. She would disappear from home for days and come back with jewelry and gifts that her lovers had given her. Hosea was heartbroken. He was angry. But he continued to provide for Gomer. He tried to make it difficult for her to sneak out. He would hide the car keys. He did everything he could to keep her home. But nothing worked. For most of us, the story would end there, but not for Hosea. One night, he paid off her lovers so they would leave her alone. He purchased his own wife from other men. Then he took her on vacation and told her he was irrevocably committed to her. Here’s what the Lord says to Hosea in Hosea 3:1: “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” God has made an irrevocable commitment to redeem his people and never abandon them. And he demonstrates his commitment on the cross. Wherever you are today, the story isn’t over.