August 17, 2025
Teacher: Mike Laughrun
What does God-exalting worship look like from a place of sorrow, crisis, and loss?
Lamentations 3:1-9
(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.
Lamentations 3:16-20
(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 happiness 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.
Lamentations 3:21-25
(21) But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: (22) The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; 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.
Big Truth:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Lamentations 3:21-25
- Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. – Job 5:7
- (2) Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, (3) for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. (4) And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. – James 1:2-4
- For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” – Hebrews 12:6
- O LORD, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct. – Habakkuk 1:12
What is the situation in Lamentations?
Lamentations 1:1-3
(1) How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. (2) She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies. (3) Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
Lamentations 1:16
“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me …
Lamentations 2:19
Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.”
Lamentations 4:9-10
(9) Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field. (10) The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Lamentations 5:3
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
Why the crisis?
Lamentations 1:5
… the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.
Lamentations 1:8
Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy;
Lamentations 2:14
Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.
Lamentations 2:17
The LORD has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.
Lamentations 1:18
The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity.
Big Idea: Sin brings ruin.
What is the cry of Lamentations?
Lamentations 3:1-3
(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.
Lamentations 3:55
I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit
LAMENT
An authentic longing for God from a place of sorrow, crisis, and loss.
Psalm 13:1, 3, 5-6
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? … (3) Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, … (5) But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. (6) I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Big Idea:
God-honoring lament acknowledges the reality of our current situation.
Lamentations 3:14-15, 17-18
(14) I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. (15) He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. … (17) my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; (18) so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.”
Lamentations 2:21
In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity.
Big Idea:
God-honoring lament involves heart examination.
Lamentations 3:40-41
(40) Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD! (41) Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven
Big Idea:
God-honoring lament engages in ongoing, soul-shaping dialogue with God and with His people.
Lamentations 3:37-38
(37) Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? (38) Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
Lamentations 5:20
Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days?
Timothy Keller
Scripture teaches us not only that we can bring our sorrows to God, but that we must.
Lamentations 3:43-44 NASB
(43) You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain and have not spared. (44) You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.
Lamentations 3:55-56
(55) “I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; (56) you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’
Big Idea:
God-honoring lament directs our focus toward HIm in authentic worship.
Lamentations 3:19-23
(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; his mercies never come to an end; (23) they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Mark Vroegop
Lament is a grace filled language for suffering saints. It is a bridge between pain and praise.
Lamentations 3:25-26
(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.
Joni Erickson Tada
“We don’t always get answers in our suffering, but in lament we get God— and He is enough.”
Talk About It
- What does it look like to worship God from a place of pain, sorrow or loss?
- What are various reasons the Bible gives as to why we experience pain, suffering, or loss in this world?
- What is Lament?
- Is lament a personal practice or a corporate practice to be exercised with God’s family?
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