Nothing in Life is Going Right - 12.13.20

Sermon Manuscript: Lamentations 3:1-24

Series: The Nightmare before Christmas

Title: Nothing in Life is Going Right

Date: 12.13.20

Location: Perris.Online.Church / Digital.Online.Church / Rock of Generations

 

 

Lamentations 3:1-8 (NASB)

3 I am the man who has seen misery

Because of the rod of His wrath.

2 He has driven me and made me walk

In darkness and not in light.

3 Indeed, He has turned His hand against me

Repeatedly all the day.

4 He has consumed my flesh and my skin,

He has broken my bones.

5 He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

6 He has made me live in dark places,

Like those who have long been dead.

7 He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;

He has made my chain heavy.

8 Even when I cry out and call for help,

He shuts out my prayer.

 

 

Sometimes when life is full of despair depression and loneliness, we mistakenly blame God.   

 

 

Lamentations 3:9-14 (NASB)

 

9 He has blocked my ways with cut stone;

He has twisted my paths.

10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait,

Like a lion in secret places.

11 He has made my ways deviate, and torn me to pieces;

He has made me desolate.

12 He bent His bow

And took aim at me as a target for the arrow.

13 He made the arrows of His quiver

Enter my inward parts.

14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people,

Their song of ridicule all the day.

 

 

How we feel, and how others make us feel, too often dictates how we interact with God.

 

 

Lamentations 3:15-18 (NASB)

15 He has filled me with bitterness,

He has made me drink plenty of wormwood.

16 He has also made my teeth grind with gravel;

He has made me cower in the dust.

17 My soul has been excluded from peace;

I have forgotten happiness.

18 So I say, "My strength has failed,

And so has my hope from the Lord."

 

 

We must be careful listening to our feelings, because when we can't find happy and hope, our mind can deliver us distorted thoughts.

 

 

 

Lamentations 3:19-20 (NASB)

19 Remember my misery and my homelessness, the wormwood and bitterness.
20 My soul certainly remembers,
And is bent over within me.

 

 

 

Lamentations 3:21-24 (NASB)

21 I recall this to my mind,
Therefore I wait.
22 The Lord's acts of mercy indeed do not end,
For His compassions do not fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I wait for Him."

 

 

 

The distance from sorrow to joy only looks long when we try to solve our sorrows ourselves. Either way you go, the answer is always Jesus.

 

 

Lamentations 3:25-32 (NASB)

25 The Lord is good to those who await Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
26 It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and keep quiet,
Since He has laid it on him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust;
Perhaps there is hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to the one who is going to strike him;
Let him be filled with shame.
31 For the Lord will not reject forever,
32 For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
In proportion to His abundant mercy.