Synopsis of 11.17.24

Delivered by Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III 

Lamentations 3:19-25 NKJV 
19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. 20 My soul still remembers and sinks within me. 21 This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. 22 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

I.               INTRODUCTION

1. Have you ever come to end of your self or questioned if the good you did matters? Have you been to a point where you questioned your capacity to go further? Have you ever felt like you were set up by God meaning He called you to something and then changed the rules?
2. If said yes to any of these questions, then you are at the right place at the right time. God has called us to something amazing, but it doesn’t come without
3. Many people have come to this point and they wanted God to find someone else? Know that the enemy would love nothing more than to see you break down.
4. Today we are talking about a spiritual breakdown. When you have a spiritual breakdown, you feel like you have no more strength to give to this.
   1. This makes the enemy frustrate others and discredits your witness. When they see how you reacted, they will not walk in their purpose either.
5. This word is here to encourage you not to break down. Instead of breaking down, break through!
6. There is a breakthrough on the other side of what you’ve experienced.
7. This is a book of Lamentation. First prenatal destiny. It says before he formed you in the womb, he knew you. Jeremiah was called before he was born.
8. In the scripture today, Jeremiah wants to resist his calling. In Lamentations 3:6, it says 6 He has set me in dark places Like the dead of long ago.- At this point, Jeremiah begins to pull back.
9. We believe Jeremiah was between the ages of 18 and 25.
10. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. He wrote both the book of Jeremiah and Lamentations.
11. The book of Lamentations is a result of what happens in Jerusalem. The Children of Israel had been taken over by the Babylonians, because of their disobedience.
12. The psalmist explains that the captors tried to get them to sing the songs they used to sing praises to God, but they hung up their harps and asked how they could sing their songs in a strange land.
13. Lamentations provides insight on what the people went through.
14. Lamentations helps us morn and create an opportunity for us to cry out to God.
15. Lamenting is broken down in 4 areas.
    1. Expression of Pain – It is saying to God, “This hurts”.
    2. It is Your Petition to God – Asking how long this thing will endure.
    3. It’s about Questioning God – Asking God why He couldn’t have picked someone else?
    4. It’s about Trusting and Hoping in God– When we lament, it shouldn’t be the end of our situation.
16. No matter how much pain we experience, we have to remember that God is up to something. God will show you his work right in the midst of what you are going through.

II.               THE PROBLEM OF ROMANTICIZING YOUR PROBLEMS

• Verse 19 says 19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall.
• So many of us find ourselves romanticizing our pain. We are attached to the pain of our past.
• Wormwood and gall represent turmoil. Jeremiah uses the phrases Jesus used when addressing the people.
  • Remember on the cross, when Jesus said, “he thirst”? In Matthew 27:34 it says “they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.”- Gall was a numbing agent. Jesus resisted it, because he wanted to endure the pain of the cross without numbing.
    • This also teaches us that like Him, we can go through our situation without trying to numb it out.
  • Jeremiah said I may look like I’m together, but internally I am broken. Don’t think that a person isn’t broken, just because you see them carrying their well!

A.    You Stay Attached To Suffering 

1. When you remain attached to your suffering, you will miss out on what God is trying to do in your future. You can become a person drawn to pain and bad situations.
2. This can also make you too afraid to walk into a new thing. You begin to rationalize with yourself saying stuff like, “But atleast this suffering is familiar. I don’t know what I might encounter in the new thing”.
3. It is never God’s intent for you to be so attached to drama, you begin to normalize it. At some point, you’ve got to come through.
4. Normalizing is the idea of going back to the pain we once had. What God wants us to do is frightening sometimes.
   1. Remember when Moses and the Children of Israel got to the Red Sea and they said, “Maybe they should go back”? Remember Lot’s wife looking back when they were escaping, and she turned into a pillar of salt?
5. This is why we press towards the mark. You can’t spring forth, if you are clinging to something else.

B.    You Develop A Distorted Perception Of Self 

1. Sometimes we wonder if we are crazy. These distorted views of ourselves, can cause us to miss out on God’s Promise for us. Remember God knew all about you, when He called you.
   1. Remember Gideon and his army? Gideon thought his army was too small. Moses thought his stutter would stop him from doing what God wanted him to do.
2. We often don’t see God being able to use us. We have to know we are who God says we are. We are fearfully and wonderfully made!
3. Jeremiah goes through a period of lament. He reminds the people not to cling to the trauma of our past.
4. How do we know that Jeremiah didn’t cling to his past? It is because he had the power to recall his promise.

III.               THE POWER TO RECALL HIS PROMISE

• To remember is different than to recall. Recall means a specific action is required for you to bring it back. When I recall something, it means I go and grab it and place it where it needs to be.
  • Jeremiah says in Lamentations 3:21, 21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.
  • David says in Psalms 119:11, 11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You. When you get a word, it might not apply to your situation right now, but God wants you to store it, so at the right time, you can recall that word back.
• When you recall that word, it is what will get you through your current situation. This is how the word of God works.
• Jeremiah has gone through trama, suffered loss, and experienced bitterness, then he says, “This I recall to my mind”. Know that God kept your mind while you were going through what you were going through.

A.    Don’t Let Your Frustration Be Greater Than Your Foundation 

1. This is the idea of foundation. When you walk with God you have a foundation. You cannot expect your children to believe everything you believe. You have to be the foundation for them.
   1. You have to lead them in the direction they need to go in order to establish a good foundation.
2. Foundation creates coping mechanisms that people without foundation won’t have. Unless the Lord builds the house, they that build, build in vain. An example of this is the example given about the house built on rock and and the other being built on sand. The reason why people give up, they are like the house built on the sand. They don’t have any foundation.
3. When you are built on rock or solid foundation, you will learn how to fast and pray through your rough situations.
4. What will be your family’s foundation? My foundation defines my strength and my ability. Things that used to break me, don’t break me anymore! My serenity says you can’t even destroy my peace! My stability says I am not swayed by culture!

B.    God Will Give You A Renewed Hope 

1. A foundation will provide hope for you. The devil is always attacking your hope. Don’t ever lose your hope!
2. Hope is the thing that can keep you trusting in God, when you don’t know how it is going to work. You have to give God glory for the role hope played in your life. The Hymn Writer says my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ and righteousness…
3. Old people used to say to the preacher after service, “You hoped me”. We used to think they were just speaking wrong and meant to say, “You helped me”. We discovered that they were saying what they meant. “You hoped me” meant, “I was about to give up, but now my hope is sustained”!

IV.               THE PERSPECTIVE TO REALIZE WHAT HE PREVENTED

• It is because of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed. They are renewed every morning.
• Mercy reflects Gods’ nature in humanity. Hope is the next step beyond forgiveness.
• Mercy is essential through the Bible. Psalms 103:8-10 says 8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. 9 He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. 10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities.– This suggests that God’s mercy, blocks stuff on our behalf.

A.    Mercy Prevented The Consequences Of My Failure 

1. Gods’ mercy is renewed every morning. Yesterday’s mercy is not good enough for today. Can you thank God for what mercy blocked?
2. We are not consumed. Jeremiah had lost a lot. The Temple was destroyed, and the people were in captivity. Jeremiah recalls God’s word to a sound mind. Now he has hope, regardless of what he sees.

B.    Mercy Prevented A Breakdown 

1. If God is still at work, how does it happen? His mercy is new every morning. Our existence is a result of God’s mercy, which held back what we deserve.
2. Because I’m here, I’m going to praise God in response of his provision!

V.               PRAISE IN RESPONSE TO HIS PROVISION

• I’m going to choose to thank God for his mercy
• What can I see that will give me glory? God’s mercy is new every morning! Great is his faithfulness!

A.    The Lord Is Faithful 

1. Jeremiah says great is his faithfulness. Imagine me standing with Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes. Tony the Tiger says the Frosted Flakes are great! In other words, like the Frosted Flakes over the Corn Flakes, faithfulness has a little something extra about it.
2. What makes the other great? There’s some stuff in your life that’s good or faithful, but it doesn’t compare to God’s faithfulness. You know you pouted, but He was still faithful to you.
3. You ought to give God glory for His faithfulness!

B.    The Lord Is Good 

1. Just in case you might have forgotten, there are things we go through where we ask how God can let these things happen to us? You might not always understand the goodness of God, without having trust in God.
2. When we believe God for a situation, or for a healing, for property, or for a husband, then by faith you have the right to believe God for it. If you are in immature spiritually, you interpret God as being bad if none of this stuff comes to fruition.
3. When we believe God, we trust him for the outcome. That way if it comes out bad or good, you still give God glory for being God. Romans 8:28 NKJV says 28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.