Lamentations 3:19-26; 2 Timothy 1:8-12 "Faithfulness & Suffering"

Sometimes life surprises you with wonderful things. Sometimes you find that there is so much to enjoy and celebrate you don’t know what to do with yourself. Sometimes everything seems to be going right and you truly feel blessed.

But sometimes it seems that someone’s got it out for you. Sometimes life just doesn’t go as you plan. Sometimes, it seems that no matter how hard you try, things just don’t seem to be going right and you are at a loss of how to fix it all.

Sometimes you find yourself asking, “Why, God? Why me, why this, why now?” And sometimes you begin to wonder if God is really answering you at all. If you have had times in your life where you have experienced this, you know how difficult it can be.

My parents have been going through a difficult year and a half. Without getting into specifics, part of their yard, a part of it that they had been taking care of for the last 30 years, was surveyed and it was discovered that it belonged to their neighbor; a neighbor who they don’t particularly get along with. They have been in the process of a lawsuit trying to reclaim this land for almost a year and a half. They have been stressed out and fed up and really upset through this whole process. I spent this last week visiting them as the case went to court…

Did this bad thing happen to them because they were bad people? Or did they just find out that God sends the rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike?

You know, there are pastors in churches and on television who tell us that God doesn’t want bad things to happen to us. And they tell us that if we have enough faith and believe the right things and pray the right way, we can all find ourselves enjoying life all the time. Suffering is a sign that you aren’t right with God, they will say.

Well, I say, and more importantly, the Bible says, that this is just not true. Suffering, though it can be hard, is a real part of life that we have to deal with. Because there is sin in the world the world now has suffering in it and we all have to deal with it at certain times in our lives. But there is hope for us in our times of suffering. The hope is in God’s faithfulness. He will deliver us. He will protect us. He will give us the things we need spiritually, emotionally and physically, to face the difficult times as well as the good times in our lives. God is faithful, in spite of our suffering, and sometimes, even because of it.

Let us open in prayer

I. The Judges Cycle

There is an interesting pattern that plays out again and again in the Old Testament. It shows up particularly strong in the book of Judges and is hard to miss. It particularly stands out for me because I remember having to learn the pattern of it in school and in confirmation and then in college. This pattern is a cycle that the people of Israel went through again and again. And the cycle wasn’t a good one. In the cycle the people would turn away from God. They would get distracted by the things around them. They would start worshipping the gods that their neighbors worshipped. They would quit worshipping and following the one living God.

Because of their turning from faith and obedience, God would deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They would be terrorized or attacked by nations and peoples around them who were stronger than them and who would steal their crops and destroy their villages. And the cycle would continue. The people would, in their time of crisis and desperation, turn to God and seek him out. God would hear their cries for deliverance and send a judge, someone who would deliver them from their bondage. The judge would then rule over them and they would prosper, but then the judge would die and the whole cycle would begin again.

We see this cycle play out again and again through judges, and in many ways, it plays out throughout the whole Bible, though not always with the same specifics. Now, there are certain parts of this cycle that make a lot of sense to me and there are other parts that I don’t really like. I don’t like the fact that as we look through this cycle we see that God is continually turning over his people to destruction because of their sins. On the other hand I do like that they call out to God for help and he always finds a way to deliver them. But one aspect of this cycle I don’t think gets enough focus is where we start it and end it. We start with the people turning away from God. And we end it with the people prospering. For it to be a true cycle, we need to see that the prospering leads into the turning away from God.

Here is a truth that I don’t think we always pay enough attention to. It is when we prosper; it is when things are going well for us that we sometimes find it easiest to ignore what God is doing in our lives. Doesn’t that seem backwards? It is when God is providing for us and meeting not only our needs but also our desires and wants that we tend to forget about the very God who is meeting those needs.

I believe that this was true in the time of the judges and I believe that this is true in today’s world as well. When things are going well, when we are making ends meet, when life is going along as we want it to, we often find ourselves forgetting about God.

When everything is going fine, we maybe go to church but we allow ourselves to be caught up in the busy world around us and forget about the God who provides for us. But when troubles arrive, when life becomes difficult we then turn to God in our time of need. This is a sad state of affairs, but unfortunately it is very much the way we are built. And God continually is trying to break through it.

People ask why there is suffering in the world, especially for good people, and I know it is a bit more complicated than this, after all we need to understand how sin has destroyed the natural order of things, but one reason there is suffering in the world is that it keeps us reliant upon God.

II. Lamentations

The book of Lamentations can be a hard book to read. It is a book where we see someone at their bitter end. It is a book where we see someone at times in despair because of the way the world has treated him and his people. He is crying out in agony and pain because all seems lost, but then in chapter 3, in the midst of the pain and suffering, the Lamenter mentions hope. “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

In the midst of the pain and suffering the writer of Lamentations finds hope. In the midst of trial, the Lamentations look forward to God’s deliverance. Hope is found because though it doesn’t seem so at the moment, God is faithful and just and will bring salvation and deliverance.

One of our great hymns is born out of this scripture. “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” was written by Thomas Obediah Chisholm and first published in 1923. Thomas Chisholm wrote the lyrics of the song having experienced difficult times in his own life. He had poor health and was having to regularly give up what he was doing, quit his job or his ministry because of his health. And he realized that he had to rely not on his own strength but on God’s faithfulness. And thus a great song of Christianity was born.

Eventually we realize that it is through suffering that we come in contact with the faithfulness of God. It is through suffering that we are able to see that it is God’s provision that gets us through and not our own strength or perseverance.

III. A Step Further

Paul takes the idea of rejoicing in suffering a step further. He encourages us to suffer on behalf of God. He reminds us that God not only helps people in their times of suffering and is faithful to them through their suffering, but he sent Jesus to suffer on our behalf and to reveal grace through this suffering. Paul tells us that suffering is not something to be ashamed of. And again, I must point out that Paul knows what he is talking about. He is spending the end of his life in chains, a prisoner because of his faith. Paul is taking this a step further because he isn’t just saying to believe despite your suffering, he is saying that sometimes when you believe it will cause suffering. Paul is telling us that sometimes we have to suffer, not despite our faith but because of it.

This is a different message than much of what I hear in Christian circles today. Often I hear about how God wants to bless us (which he does) and prosper us and we should expect life to go well for us because of our faith. Often I hear that God is going to bring hard times on unbelievers but believers are going to experience God’s protection against evil. And yet, here in Paul, we get a different message. Here the message is that sometimes we will suffer for our faith. Sometimes life will take us horrible places because of what we believe. Sometimes it will seem that God is not protecting us but is allowing us to be fed to the wolves. When that happens we can learn from Paul who finds something powerful in suffering for God. We can learn from Lamentations, which reminds us to hold on to God’s promises and God’s faithfulness. And we can learn from the judges, who remind us that it is in suffering that we have open and teachable hearts and it is when we suffer that we are most willing to be changed by God and grow in him.

So let us learn from our suffering. Let us grow closer to God. And let us remember that God is a faithful God whose blessings are new every morning, even when we cannot see them. Amen.