To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/Lament/lam2.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Lament Part 2

Once again, I will be adding things in the recorded audio sermon that may not show up in the written version. Please consider listening to the audio.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous chapter on love, that among the many things that is true of divine love is this: “…love keeps no record of wrongs” (v. 5).

If you lament however, and pour out your complaint to the Lord, as David did in Psalm 142 (discussed last week), it may seem that you are doing exactly that. Yet, I am trying to make the case that there is a difference between lamenting, in which you identify the specific nature of your troubles, and in keeping a record of wrongs. The two can look very much alike, but what distinguishes them is your “why.” 

If you take offense and allow yourself to become bitter, you view everything in your life through the lens of what was done to hurt you. You become a victim. To everyone who will listen, you will recite in detail what various people did to hurt you. You do this in order to receive sympathy and support for your case against those who injured you. There is a tone of resentment that seeps through these discussions. This is evidence that your heart is unhealed and it is a clear indication that you need both healing in your heart and you need to learn to cancel the debt of the person or people who have hurt you. By the way, this is a bit different than processing your hurt with people who can help you heal. The person who has taken offense is someone who doesn’t plan to heal. They just want to complain.

 (Tom here, now, for this paragraph) We should remember that it is possible take offense at God, and even resent him. In such cases, we might complain to him, but our complaint to God has no trust, no hope. In such cases we are merely expressing our dissatisfaction, and we want to show not that we trust God, but rather, that it seems he has failed us. This was the kind of grumbling that the people of Israel did in their journey between Egypt and the Promised Land.

By contrast, the lamenter’s focus is one of trust in God. He or she has a purpose in verbally identifying the specific nature of his or her troubles in order to invite God into them. This process is very similar to asking God to heal your physical body. Usually when you do that you are very familiar with the particular ailment that you want God to heal. You mention it by name. When you are asking Him for healing, it is likely you will say something like, “Lord, I would like you to heal my back…” Or, “Please heal my skin cancer…” 

When you do that, you are not offended by the problem. You certainly don’t like the thing that afflicts you, but you want to identify it in order to bring it to the Lord for healing. That’s what we are doing when we are lamenting and pouring out our complaint to the Lord. This is why doing so is not grumbling or murmuring. 

What I’m recommending in this series is identifying to God the things that are creating misery, anguish, torment, grief, relational loss, anger, or even a sense of rejection in your life.

I am encouraging you to get specific in your lamenting to God about the particular nature of the pain you are feeling. Perhaps you have experienced a relational injury and you know that eventually, it will be to your benefit to get to a place of forgiving the person who hurt you. That’s good, but you won’t get there by pretending everything is okay. It’s much more authentic and beneficial to you if you talk to God about how you were injured. What was said that you find hurtful? Christians often make the mistake of prioritizing forgiving someone over receiving healing for the pain that sets them up for future resentment. If you attempt to forgive before you lean into your pain and bring it to the Lord, you short circuit the process. In order to be able to authentically cancel someone’s relational debt, you must not minimize what happened. It may be that there are a hundred other people who have experienced worse than what you experienced, but if what happened to you hurt you, it matters. So begin there. Feel your feelings. They are there to serve you. It was God who gave you the capacity to feel. Your feelings are like spiritual nerve endings which inform you of an injury. Pay attention to them. Identify them. Say out loud how someone’s actions make you feel. Did they make you feel shamed? Accused? Condemned? Judged? Insulted? Disrespected? Dishonored? Misunderstood? Rejected? Exploited? Victimized? Abused? Admitting them is an important first step to healing. Admit them and lament them. Grieve them. And, invite God in.  

Lamenting is good for your spiritual health. It keeps you from imploding. It helps you avoid fakery. Lamenters understand that you don’t have to “fake it till you make it.” Lamenters are not image managers. They get comfortable letting it all hang out because they know God is a God of big shoulders. He’s not fussy– not annoyed by the lamenter’s anger, frustration, hatred or by the raw language they may use to express their frustration. Why? Because a lamenter is turning toward God in his pain. 

Grumbling is not good for your health. Grumbling causes you to focus on your problems. The grumbler is stuck in a rut because He stopped inviting God in. He or she is actually keeping God at arms length. Grumbling is the breeding ground for resentment. The grumbler has an entitlement mindset and his temporary disappointment with God becomes permanent because He views God as someone who was supposed to help Him cope. He views God like an illicit drug– something to make him feel better. In their hearts, grumblers feel that God is a means to an end, and they feel he has failed to do for them what they expect him to do. In other words, the grumbler’s world is oriented around him/her self and not around what delights God. Perhaps it never was. 

It’s been occurring to me a lot lately that this way of thinking, that is, the one that is based on orienting my life around myself is a counterfeit version of real Christianity. The real disciple of Jesus is called to a life that is oriented around, centered in and based on Jesus of Nazareth. It’s normal for every person, including every genuine follower of Jesus to want things to go well. It’s normal to work hard at making life work, however we define that. BUT and this is a big “but,” but an actual follower of Jesus has embraced the idea that it is right, good and holy to forsake literally everything to follow Jesus, to surrender every agenda, every longing, every ache, every hope, dream and ambition in favor of living to please the Savior. He or she adopts and begins, over the course of time, to embody the motto, “not my will, but Yours be done.” He or she has come to the realization that he or she must be grounded in the value that God’s Kingdom is his/her first priority (Matthew 6:24). 

A lamenter can sound a lot like a grumbler. The thing that makes lamenting different is the reason behind your complaining. The lamenter is turning to God, not away from God and inviting God into his or her hardships. Doing this can lead to some questions, questions like “Why?” This question usually bubbles out of the profound confusion that disables the lamenter. The lamenter’s pain is profound, and his/her confusion is great. He or she simply must ask, “Why?” Next week we’ll lean into this question more fully.