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3:1 I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of his wrath;
2 he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
3 surely against me he turns his hand
again and again the whole day long.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;
5 he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
6 he has made me dwell in darkness
like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has made my chains heavy;
8 though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
he has made my paths crooked.
10 He is a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding;
11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;
he has made me desolate;
12 he bent his bow and set me
as a target for his arrow.
13 He drove into my kidneys
the arrows of his quiver;
14 I have become the laughingstock of all my people,1
the object of their taunts all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness;
he has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness2 is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the LORD.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;3
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;
30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
32 for, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
[1] 3:14
[2] 3:17
[3] 3:22
(ESV)
Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.
If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Lamentations chapter three. And if you are, you're wondering what happened about the major prophets, I thought we're in the middle of that series. This is still a continuation of that series. Throughout history, the church has long ascribed Lamentations to Jeremiah. Although it's unnamed, it certainly sounds like Jeremiah.
Joel Brooks:It's written during the time of Jeremiah describing the events surrounding Jeremiah. And in second Chronicles 35, we read that Jeremiah wrote a scroll of Lamentations and that he gave it to the king. And so really, this is a continuation of our study in Jeremiah. And Jeremiah wrote these laments. There's five of them.
Joel Brooks:Each chapter has a lament. He wrote these laments as a way of leading his people through their grief after what they just witnessed, which is what we looked at last week. The witness of the destruction of their beloved city, how many of their people were sent away into exile. And so Jeremiah writes a lament for his people to corporately grieve and to have their hearts directed to the Lord. Really to get the full full effect of reading Lamentations three, you've got to read chapters one and two.
Joel Brooks:But even I know that would, you know, stretch your patience reading through Lamentations for that long. So we're just gonna read chapter three. We'll read the first 24 verses. I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light.
Joel Brooks:Surely against me, he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
Joel Brooks:He has walled me about so that I cannot escape. He has made my chains heavy. Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones. He has made my paths crooked.
Joel Brooks:He's a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding. He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces. He has made me desolate. He bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver.
Joel Brooks:I have become the laughing stock of all my people, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness. He has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace.
Joel Brooks:I have forgotten what happiness is. So I say my endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
Joel Brooks:The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Joel Brooks:Therefore, I will hope in him. This is the word of the Lord. You would pray with me. Father, thank you for your word. We pray that you would honor the very reading of it.
Joel Brooks:You would work it into our hearts. Every word of what we just read is of utmost importance. So Lord, right now, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. Lord, would it be your words that remained and may they change us? We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. We all know that everything Jesus said was true, but perhaps there are no more truer words than this. The words he said in John 16 when he said, in this world, you will have suffering. You've heard me say it before that no matter where you are in life, you are either about to suffer or you are in the midst of suffering or you are just coming out of suffering. But suffering marks the human condition.
Joel Brooks:Ever since Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden, suffering and exile is just a part of the human existence. And so since we cannot escape suffering, we need to learn how to endure it. How to make sense of it. And that's why books like Lamentations are so important to us. A lament is not just a a prayer or a poem that's deep emotional cry of the heart in the midst of suffering.
Joel Brooks:It is that, but it's more. It it's also a carefully crafted prayer that seeks to make sense of the suffering. That helps us try to understand the meaning behind it because if we reflect on the actual purpose of the pain that we're experiencing, well then we can endure it. Then we can learn from it. I used to go cave exploring when I was a teenager, spelunking.
Joel Brooks:I did that because mostly because I was an idiot teenager. And when you go, there's a certain thrill to it. Because when you get into a cave and it's utter darkness, you can't see anything. You can't even see your hand in front of your face if you were to turn off the lights in there. And so there's a certain thrill, there's this appeal to to going into those dark unknown places.
Joel Brooks:But if ever your flashlights go out, if the lights really go out, the thrill becomes a terror. Absolutely. Because you can't see anything and you're in unfamiliar territory. There's no way of getting out. I mean, when it's well lit, you're like, oh, here's the easy path.
Joel Brooks:But but when it's utter darkness, no, there's there's too many sharp sharp rocks sticking out. There's too many ledges, too many holes, there's too many divided passageways. You will never ever find your way out if you don't have any kind of light. This lament here, it's it's like a little light. The faintest light that kind of breaks into the darkness, helping us get out of this cave.
Joel Brooks:It's not the sun. It's not a John three sixteen. It's not a Romans. It's it's not, you know, Paul telling us to rejoice in the lord always. Again, I say rejoice because when you're in the darkness, that's not what you need.
Joel Brooks:You don't need the full lights turned on. I mean, if if Paul at this point came by saying, rejoice in the Lord always. I mean, you just wanna slap him, wouldn't you? I mean, there's a time and a place for that, but not when you're in the darkness. You need just the faintest of lights to come in and to give you hope.
Joel Brooks:A good lament is that small shaft of light breaking through. Just enough. It meets you in your pain. It gives you words to express that pain. You're like, yes.
Joel Brooks:That describes how I'm feeling. Helps you understand it, and then ultimately, it's gonna lead you just with the faintest of lights. It's gonna lead you back into a deeper trust of God. Laments are so important. It's the reason that a third of all of the Psalms are actually laments.
Joel Brooks:Lamentations, as I mentioned, is composed of five laments, one lament per chapter. Each of these laments is 22 verses with one exception, chapter three. The reason there are 22 verses is because they they they follow the Hebrew alphabet. Every verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And it's the author's way of saying, I'm about to give you the a to z of suffering.
Joel Brooks:The alpha, the omega, the totality of suffering here. And chapter three is three times as long. Actually, in Hebrew, it's still just 22 verses, but each of the verses is longer. It goes a a a b b b c c c. It still repeats the same thing.
Joel Brooks:But you see here that chapter three is really the focal point of all of the book of Lamentations. And so you have all this pain leading up to chapter three, and then you have that bright light or or enough light when he gets around 18 to 22, 22 to 24, like shedding light in there that we we begin to hope in God, and then you go right back down into darkness. That's the flow of lamentations. It's letting you know that there is hope in the midst of this darkness. But this chapter here begins in darkness.
Joel Brooks:It's a darkness that Jeremiah, he believes that God has driven them into. I mean, verse two says, that the Lord, he's the one who has driven and brought me into darkness without light. Verse six, God has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. It's like he's in a tomb. Now this can either be a terrifying or a comforting thought.
Joel Brooks:That God is the one behind the suffering. He's the one driving you in there. It's it's it's a terrifying thought if you believe God was ultimately against you. Because then there's no hope. It is just a tomb.
Joel Brooks:But if you believe God is for you, well, there's comfort. It means that perhaps he's doing something in the darkness you cannot see. Remember, when it's completely dark, somebody could be doing this right in front of you. You have no idea. God might be right there working in the darkness all this time.
Joel Brooks:This is the first little, little shaft of light that comes through. God's there in the darkness. He's still leading. Jeremiah, he's gonna move on to give a whole series of images that describes how he feels in the midst of his suffering. Verses seven through nine, he's gonna say his sorrow so great, it's like he's in prison.
Joel Brooks:He can't move. We would say like he's he's maybe he's so depressed, he can't get out of bed. It's like chains are on him. Says even if he cries out, his voice can't escape, the walls are so thick, God can't even hear him. Says and even if he did escape, he just find himself in a maze.
Joel Brooks:Every road is blocked. It's crooked. It's zigzagged. He can never escape. There's no off ramp to his suffering.
Joel Brooks:If that image wasn't horrible enough, he goes on to say, God's like a bear or a lion just waiting around the corner. And the moment I went around the corner, he tore me into pieces. It's the opposite of what we just sang, Psalm 23. Jeremiah is not feeling like the Lord is his shepherd protecting him. No.
Joel Brooks:The Lord is his predator and he's the prey. Verse 12. He says that God has inflicted pain on him with such precision. He compares God to being like a hunter and archer. Shooting his arrows and they hit him.
Joel Brooks:He's the target. Perfect precision. Pain every time. And even though Jeremiah, he knows in all of this, he never accuses God of doing anything wrong. He knows that he deserves this punishment.
Joel Brooks:He and all the people of Israel, they deserve this because of their sins. This is God's righteous judgment coming upon them. Still his heart starts to become bitter. Verse 15. He has filled me with bitterness.
Joel Brooks:He has sated me with wormwood. The climax of Jeremiah's suffering is verses 17 through 18. Or I guess you could say, this is where Jeremiah hits rock bottom. And here he goes on to say, I've actually forgotten what happiness is. My hope in the Lord, it's perished.
Joel Brooks:In other words, Jeremiah, he can't even remember a time when he was happy. That once happy kid, you know, we saw back in Jeremiah one, the one who didn't have a care in the world, the one who was living during Josiah's great revival. The nation is just flourishings. So he's surrounded by loving families, got a blessed country, revival all is happening. And he's just this joyful kid.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't even know who that person is anymore. You you guys, you ever, you know, on your phone or on your TV where it pulls up the old memories, the old photos? You know, those TV or phones do that? And you find yourself, you know, you're watching a movie or whatever and if you pause it long enough, all of sudden, it just kind of pulls up the slides from your phone and and you just kinda get trapped. You forget about the movie.
Joel Brooks:You're just you're just watching all the old pictures. Not to completely creep you guys out, but sometimes our TV has pulled up your photos. I think you know, we have those new to redeemer dinners all the time, and I don't know what it is whether you got on our WiFi or Bluetooth or anything, but Lauren and I, we could be watching a movie and sometimes pictures from your phones will pop up on our TV. Trust me, we've tried to get rid of it. Alright.
Joel Brooks:There's there's it's like I'd like to unsee some of these things, but we just feel like the Lord is literally calling you to mind for us to pray for in that moment. That's not usually the case. It's it's happened a few times though. Now everybody's like, I'm never going to your house again. Trust me, I'm done.
Joel Brooks:Just don't get on our WiFi. Well, usually those photos are ours and when those pics come up, you can't help but get nostalgic. I mean, I see the pictures of all three of my girls. They're in the little Barbie Jeep, happy as they could be just riding little circles around in our backyard. And it's like, oh, where did the time go?
Joel Brooks:And then occasionally, there's a picture of yourself. Have you ever seen that? Like maybe it's a picture of you laughing or just being silly. And have you ever found yourself just staring at that picture? Literally looking yourself in the eyes and you're wondering, who is that person?
Joel Brooks:What happened? I mean, so full of life, so so energetic, so gosh, when's the last time I've been that silly, that happy? This is Jeremiah. Like, I can't remember. If I were to see a picture of myself as a child, I wouldn't even know who that is.
Joel Brooks:I'm so far removed from being that person. I don't know what happiness is anymore. And along with that happiness fading, so has his hope from the Lord. And so here we would just say Jeremiah's he's come to the end of his rope. But as you know, the lament doesn't end here.
Joel Brooks:It keeps going. Here he remembers the Lord. In the first 18 verses, the Lord's name is never mentioned. But here he mentions it. Before he only refers to God as he.
Joel Brooks:He's done this. He. He it's like he can't even bring himself to say the name of the Lord. And this is Jeremiah's way of saying like in the midst of all of this pain, what he feels is distance from God. What used to be this warm vibrant relationship, no longer.
Joel Brooks:Now if anything, God's just kind of a cold detached enemy. But then he says the name of the Lord. And it's it's not even in a positive context here, but it's enough. Just mentioning Yahweh. The Lord, whenever you have Lord in all caps, that's that's the covenantal name of God.
Joel Brooks:That is enough in him to wake up something in him. When he remembers the Lord, Yahweh, that's his covenant name. That's his name he gave to a people who he said he would never forsake and his love would always goes always go towards. And so he hears Yahweh, and then we get to verse 19. Light begins to break into the darkness here.
Joel Brooks:Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul actually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. So after the name of the Lord pops up, he Jeremiah, he does go back and he remembers all of his suffering and his afflictions, but that's not the only thing he remembers this time. He calls something new to mind, and this is gonna be something that gives him hope.
Joel Brooks:He's now making this conscious decision to remember something. We find these words in verse 22. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.
Joel Brooks:Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. So hope was gone earlier, but now it's I will hope in him. This is the beam of light now finally shining through into the darkness for Him.
Joel Brooks:And hear me, when you're in the midst of suffering, you need to cling to every single word that He says here. Every word is of utmost importance. The first thing that Jeremiah calls to mind is the steadfast love of Yahweh. Steadfast love. In Hebrew, it's the word chesed.
Joel Brooks:Gotta kinda sound like you're coughing up something. Chesed. We'll just say what you guys say? Say chesed. Chesed.
Joel Brooks:A little too much loogie in there, but it's yeah. It's just it's we'll just say chesed. Chesed. Chesed is the word that's used to describe God's covenantal love that he has for his people. It's used nearly 250 times in the Old Testament.
Joel Brooks:It's a powerful word. It's a word in which there's no equivalent in the English language. Which is why depending on your translation, you're gonna have it translated all over the place. Even within the same translation, it's gonna be translated all over the place. It'll be translated in sometimes as mercy, sometimes as loving kindness, sometimes as faithfulness, sometimes as compassion, sometimes as steadfastness.
Joel Brooks:All the same word hessid. They just they translate it differently depending on the context. But it's because no one word can capture it. I actually think the the best definition that I have of Hesed comes from a children's bible. The Jesus storybook bible.
Joel Brooks:Anybody still read that? You should. It's a children's bible and it's fantastic. I read it all of the time. By the way, one of y'all have borrowed it from us and you haven't returned it because I was trying to look it up and I had to borrow someone else's.
Joel Brooks:No judgment. Well, little judgment. So so here's how Hesed is described in the Jesus story book bible. The Hesed love of the Lord is that never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love. Never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love of God.
Joel Brooks:Read through your Bible and you're actually gonna find that Chesed is it's the center of gravity to scripture. It really is. I mean, it's the attraction. It's always pulling everything back towards God. The Chesed love is pulling us back towards Him.
Joel Brooks:It's the truth that the Bible just kinda hits on over and over and over reminding us, you wanna know who God is? He's the one with Chesed love. He's not dependent upon you in any way. It's just who He is. That's the kind of God He is.
Joel Brooks:You have Psalms like one thirty six. It's a call and response celebratory song, and it just hammers in the Chesed love of God. I need everybody to say this for me. For the steadfast love of the lord endures forever. Okay?
Joel Brooks:That was okay. Now, I want you to say it with a little more excitement and joy. Now we're talking. Alright. So you come to Psalm one thirty six, which is a celebratory call and response Psalm and I'm just gonna read part of it.
Joel Brooks:But every time I do this, what are you gonna say? There we go. Psalm one thirty six. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Give thanks to the God of gods.
Joel Brooks:Present us love. The Lord endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. Present love. The Lord endures forever.
Joel Brooks:To him who does great wonders. To him by understanding made the heavens. To him who spread out the earth above the waters. We're on only on verse 36 people, it or six people. It goes on and on and on.
Joel Brooks:What do you think the Lord is trying to teach us? Good. It's like a pep rally. It really is. That's what they're they're like, what is it that thing we need to know?
Joel Brooks:And it goes all through these powerful displays of God. And the reminder is, yes, he is so powerful and you know what that means? It means that love that he has shown on us cannot stop. It will always reach us for the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. And that's why Jeremiah here, even when he is in the dark, even when he's like, God can't even hear my prayers.
Joel Brooks:I've forgotten what happiness is. And he just merely mentions the name of the Lord. And what's this one truth that has been pounded in him ever since he was a little boy. When he hears the name Yahweh, his steadfast love endures forever. I don't see it.
Joel Brooks:I don't feel it. But he has a never failing, never stopping love. And everything begins to change here, but he has to will this to mind. Remember, he calls this to his mind, the never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always, and forever love that God has for him. And God can't help but show Chesed love.
Joel Brooks:It's who he is. So that's the central truth about the heart of God and it's what Jeremiah reminds himself of. And that brings him to this point of his mercies never end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
Joel Brooks:God's mercy flows out of his chesed love. And since His chesed love cannot be stopped and is unending, it means God's mercy is unending. That does not mean His mercy comes to us all at once. We read here that they are new to us every morning. God is only gonna give you enough mercy for today's problems, not for tomorrow's.
Joel Brooks:You can't stockpile his mercy. I mean, perhaps for some of you, that's what you try to do. You come in here on a Sunday, like, man, I'm just gonna get as much mercy as I can. I carry it with me for the rest of the week. You can't do that.
Joel Brooks:If mercy is a medicine, it comes with an expiration date. Today. It's only good for the day. At the end of the day, if if if you had a gauge that said mercy, it'd be full in the morning. And when you put your head to bed, it's on dead empty.
Joel Brooks:So he gives us enough mercy just for today. His mercies are like manna. Every day we go out and we gather it, we eat it, we draw it in. For some of you, the reason that you get so anxious, perhaps so worked up, you feel so defeated just because you are trying to carry tomorrow's burdens today, but you haven't been given mercy for tomorrow's burdens. If you think about tomorrow's problems, of course, they're gonna crush you.
Joel Brooks:They'll crush you because you haven't been given the mercy yet for them. You can't carry them. God has not given you that strength. Today's mercy are for today's burdens. Tomorrow's mercies will be given for tomorrow's burdens.
Joel Brooks:And God set it up for you this way because he wants you to seek him every single day. I mean, be honest. If God were to give you a week's supply of mercy today, would you seek him the same way this week? Man, I'm just thinking, know, my I'm thinking about this for my inheritance for my kids. I'm give it to him a little bit early.
Joel Brooks:I'll say, I'll give you a $100 every day because I know if I gave it to them all at once early, they're never gonna see me. Every day, kids, come on and I'll give you just a little bit, a little bit. God's like, what what I want is just to be I want you to be in my presence. I wanna be a part of your life. So I'm just gonna give you a little bit of mercy every single day.
Joel Brooks:And it's gonna come in fresh. He gives us mercy everyday because he also gives us a specific mercy for that day. Not all mercies are the same. God knows exactly what your day holds, and He knows exactly what type of mercy you will need in order to be sustained. In Jesus' sermon on the mount in Matthew six, He said, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Joel Brooks:Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Jesus is very sober minded when it comes to him understanding life. He knows suffering comes. But he knows it's only a certain degree of suffering that comes every day. It's a very specific trouble that comes.
Joel Brooks:And each day, we will be given the mercy that we need to overcome that very specific trouble. So seek God's mercy every day. And Jeremiah reminds us, God's very faithful to give you that mercy every day. That's why he says, great is your faithfulness. And notice now he says, your, everything else has been third person.
Joel Brooks:But now in the midst of suffering as the God's scripture as his word hits him, it's your. Very similar to Psalm 23, in which it moves from third person to a second person. In the midst of that suffering, the Psalmist starts saying, you are guiding me. Great is your faithfulness. Become of course a great hymn, we just sang it.
Joel Brooks:Written two thousand five hundred and thirty six years later by Thomas Crisone. Jeremiah, he finally ends with these great words. Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. We looked at this a few weeks ago when we looked at Joshua 13 and how the Lord is our inheritance.
Joel Brooks:The Lord is our inheritance. In this moment, everything that Jeremiah once held dear has been stripped away from him. All of it. His beloved city, his nation, his influence, his friends, respect, all stripped away and gone. And the only thing he has left is the Lord.
Joel Brooks:And what he is realizing in this moment is that the Lord is enough. He's enough. Someday, everything you hold dear to in life, it's either gonna be ripped away from you or it's just gonna kind of fade away, decay. Someday that will happen to every one of us, and all we will have is the Lord. And here we read the Lord's our portion, and the Lord is enough.
Joel Brooks:It's been a real privilege actually over the last year to walk through suffering with several of you. And one of the things that you have testified, those of you who have been in the darkest places, is there are times where all you had was the word of God. It's all you had and you found it to be enough. The New Testament actually has no word for chesed. So you won't find that word there.
Joel Brooks:What we're given instead is a person. Hesed comes to us in Jesus. Jesus is the Hesed love of the Lord coming to us. What Jeremiah was experiencing here was just a small taste of judgment that was actually due to him. All of our suffering, it's just it's just the smallest little taste.
Joel Brooks:Jesus takes all of the judgment upon himself. That's due to us because of our sins. On the cross, he was judged for us so that we might receive the blessings of god and and so that we might receive that never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love of God. Did you know that the Hesed love of God is actually the basis for the resurrection? When you read through the Old Testament, you're not gonna find any clear teaching on God resurrecting his people someday.
Joel Brooks:This it's it's kind of tucked away hidden in some places. It's hiding in the shadows. It's it's very subliminal. It's it's there, but there's no clear teaching like what you find in the New Testament. So so how is it that by the time you get to the New Testament, by the time Jesus arrives, the people already were talking and had a strong belief that Jesus or not Jesus, but God at the set point, God was going to raise them from the dead.
Joel Brooks:They actually had a very strong belief in the resurrection by the time Jesus got there. They didn't know how it was gonna happen. Jesus would reveal that to them. The apostles would reveal that to them. But at that point, they already had the strong belief.
Joel Brooks:How did they get there when it's not explicitly described in the Old Testament? It came because they had chesed pounded in them by God. Chesed. Wait. God says his love will never end.
Joel Brooks:It will never end. He even says like the thousands of generations, his love will be extended to us forever. How can his love extend to us forever when I go to the grave? It can't. So so if I'm dead, then God breaks his promise.
Joel Brooks:And the one certainty I have in life is God will never break his promise. Therefore, God is gonna have to raise me from the dead so He can forever show His Chesed love towards me. That's how the the theology, the doctrine, the resurrection began to percolate, and then Jesus comes and He explains it to them. And then Jesus says, actually, look at me, I am the resurrection and the life. But it's all based in the chesed love of God.
Joel Brooks:Even death can't keep us from His love. And that's why we have this great doxology from Paul, and I'll end it here. Romans eight, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, 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. Amen. Pray with me, church.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, for those who are here, who are in the midst of suffering, who are in the dark, Lord, would they call to mind your name? With a call to mind your covenantal, unfailing, relentless, forever love that you have towards them. And may that be the one certainty that they hold on to above all else. Lord, you have shown us that love for your son Jesus. And we know that even if that pain and suffering that we're in does indeed feel like a tomb, Lord, we know what you could do in tombs.
Joel Brooks:So Lord, even now, would you begin to resurrect people. Thank you, Jesus. And we pray this in your sweet name. Amen.