Sermon Tone Analysis

This week has been a very difficult and very significant week.

It’s been a week of much pain, sorrow, heartache, confusion, bewilderment.

It’s been challenging.

I can’t help but think how much I hate times like these, how much I detest these gut wrenching feelings.

Words certainly cannot describe all the emotions one feels during these times.

And honestly, as best I can/we can, we want to avoid these times as much as possible.

But reality cannot be escaped.

We as Bible believing Christians certainly know this to be true.

God has stated so many times in His word that the results of living in a sin cursed world cannot be escaped.

There will be no escape from crisis’ in this life.

They are bound to happen.

As soon as we enter into life, it’s not a matter of “if” we face extremely hard times, but “when”.

In Pastors short video that he shared this week, he made reference to the verse that we should not be startled or surprised when fiery trials come.

We know that because of sin, they will come.

On top of that, we even know that they not only exist because of sin, they also are used to model us.

Trials refine us.

James 1:1-4

And 1 Peter 1:7

And though we know these to be true, they often offer so little comfort to those that hurt, who mourn, who are in grief and we that are called bear one another’s burdens know so little on how to help during these times.

We know we are to trust God, we know that we should help them to trust God but that’s not so easily done.

When you know that the Bible says God is good but the experience that you are apart of isn’t showing that, it’s not a simply task to just trust God.

It works against our very nature, our very flesh, our very human mind.

This does not logically make any sense to us.

That is why today’s message will not be in 1 Corinthians.

As a church and as a followers of God, can I tell you that God has not left you stranded with just a simple command to “just have faith” during hard times.

God knew that in these times of great sorrow, we would need to be taught on how to go through grieve that will result in trust.

Today, I hope that this will be a great blessing to you as a church, to know that God has granted to us a way (a process) in which we can work through extreme trials, find hope, restore joy, and even live victorious through the pain.

That Biblical process is called Lament.

When we found out the news of Cait’s passing, I found myself instantly picking up as many counseling books, articles, and scriptures that I knew on this subject.

Trying to soak up what God’s Word would want me to say on this.

I read all of Ligon Duncan’s “When Pain is real and God seems silent” this week, then I turned to my counseling notes from Faith of Lafeyettes training and was refreshed in truths they taught, before finally coming to the book that has been most helpful in understanding this word called Lament.

That book is entitled, “Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy.”

Written by a Pastor during some of the most intense days in his life.

When they lost multiple children and worked through difficult tradegies amongst their church family.

I will be referring alot to this book during today’s sermon.

In his book, he defines

“Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness”.-

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy

In our dictionary, lament can be defined as a loud cry, a howl, or a passionate expression of grief.

That’s part of it, however, in the Bible, lament is more than sorrow or talking about sadness.

It is more than walking through the stages of grief.

Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

You might think lament is the opposite of praise.

It isn’t.

Instead, lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment.

It’s the space between brokenness and God’s mercy.

Christians affirm that the world is broken, God is powerful, and He will be faithful.

Therefore, lament stands in the gap between pain and promise.

- Dark Clouds

One of the most outspoken books in the Bible on the topic of lament is the book of Psalms.

You may not know this but 1/3 of the Psalms are lament psalms.

Out of 150 chapters… one third.

Just think about that!

A third of the official songbook of Israel wrestles with pain.

Do you think it’s important to God? I’d say so.

Look how much writing God has seen fit to include in His scriptures on this topic.

It’s dirty, it’s messy but God knew our hearts and what we would go through and chose to include these sad laments so that people struggling today could find hope as the authors of these laments did during there days.

Psalms is a great place to start.

Historically, Christians have loved the Psalms because they express our deepest emotions and put into words our most severe experiences.

We are gonna look at what the Psalms say on the topic of Lament.

Consistent within the many lament Psalms, you will typically find 4 important elements to lament to help us go from brokenness to belief.

These Psalms tell us how… how can we go from the hurt that I am feeling to trust back in God.

So today, we are gonna look at lament- and the 4 life-changing “C’s” to help us during times of Crisis.

These four words all start with C so that we can easily remember them as we work through lament.

Let’s start by looking at Psalm 77:1-4

I. Cry Out

The first and foremost step, sound so easy but it really is not.

The first step is simply to cry out to God.

What makes this so hard to do.

For one reason, it takes faith to pray.

In the book Dark Clouds, he says…

To pray, even with it’s messy words and tough questions is an act of faith.

Some of us are afraid of crying out to God because it is too messy, too honest, too risky.

But there’s something far worse: silent despair.

Giving God the silent treatment is the ultimate manifestation of unbelief.

Despair lives under the hopeless resignation that God doesn’t care, he doesn’t hear, and nothing is ever going to change.

People who believe this stop praying.

They give up.

If we even have a just a little faith, it requires that we pray.

But even this is a hard task.

Our faith has been shaken, our words we cannot even articulate, we are so filled with conflicting emotions, and just would rather do nothing.

But if you really believe who God is, it starts with this task.

Cry out.

In Psalms 77, the writer Asaph describes this tension as he is in lament.

Listen again what he says.

He’s praying, but it’s not bringing immediate comfort or resolution.

His prayers, it seems, are just not “working”.

Yet, he keeps praying.

When are prayers, aren’t answered, keep praying.

Lament isn’t a quick fix.

It’s not a say a quick prayer and your good.

It’s a lifelong process.

As you look through the Psalms, David is one of the primary contributors.

His laments vary in circumstances and events of his life.

Some of his Psalms were written in regards to his sins, others were written in regards to his enemies that were after him, others were about the conflicts in his home.

The latter part of David’s life was tragedy after tragedy.

He suffers the loss of his first child; his daughter Tamar is raped by her half-brother and David’s son, Amnon, who is then murdered by Tamar’s brother, Absalom.

Absalom then betrays David by staging a coup against his father, and exiles him from the thrown.

This is a small taste of the difficulties he endured.

His laments as you read them are not just one lament per life event.