Great is Thy Faithfulness

A title for today's main message is, Great is Thy Faithfulness. Great is Thy Faithfulness. And if you have your Bibles, let's turn together to the passage of Scripture where that is found. How many of you know where that's found? I'll tell you. It's Lamentations chapter 3. Lamentations chapter 3. And we're going to begin in verse 1. And as you turn there, I'd like to begin just to remind ourselves where we are symbolically in God's plan of salvation. You know, throughout God's Word, the writers use agricultural imagery to explain what God is doing. And in keeping with agricultural metaphors, the process of reaping grain parallels the spiritual harvest of God's children. And the harvesting of grain in biblical times, it was not like it is today, just a quick process. You know, the harvesting of grain in biblical times was not a one or two day chore. No, the grain must sufficiently develop and ripen in order for it to be done properly. And the important element, for example, one important element was for the husk of the head of grain to be dried and hardened in order for the process of then threshing to occur. Threshing the process of separating the grain from the stalk and from the chaff, which was the hardened cover of the grain. And the technique in the old days was to strike the harvested ears of grain to thrash it. And make no doubt, Christ is in that imagery the reaper of the harvest, the harvest of those who have part in his spring harvest of mankind, the first fruits.

And ultimately, the harvested grain was then ready for the final phase of winnowing, where in the winnowing process, it's thrown up in the air, and the wind then removes the final foreign debris and other chaff, leaving only the usable grain, you see. So this is God's symbolic plan for the first fruits of mankind. And so where we are today is in that in-between process of the harvesting of the day of Pentecost, the first fruit harvest, in-between that, and then the day of the Lord, which is the day of trumpets, the return, picturing the return of Jesus Christ. So after the outpouring of God's Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which we observed previously, that marked then the beginning of a prolonged summer harvest process with this threshing, and with this winnowing, and the spring harvest gathering, as we are being prepared for Christ's return on the day of trumpets.

And so when you think of that threshing period, we can then understand of how important it is to understand that God is faithful as this threshing process is occurring. And as God is threshing and winnowing and separating to get to that usable part, we can understand how essential it is for those going through this process to understand that God is absolutely faithful. And our hope is in that faithfulness of God to help us keep strong during this period so we can persevere to hear the sound of those trumpets and the return of Jesus Christ. So this is the period we're in, and this is the level of deep understanding of the faithfulness of God that we want to observe today and to come away with a stronger understanding of it. And in that endeavor, we're going to allow the prophet Jeremiah to help us. And what we find here in verse one of Jeremiah, chapter one, is that the prophet Jeremiah was absolutely in one of those threshing periods where he was going to have to acknowledge and believe in the faithfulness of God so that he could have his hope secured in that way. Great is thy faithfulness is the ultimate conclusion that Jeremiah comes to and it's the ultimate conclusion that we must come to today. So let's begin. Lamentations three, beginning in verse one, I am the man, Jeremiah says. Lamentations three verse one, I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. That's of God's wrath. He God has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. Surely he has turned his hand against me time and time again throughout the day. He God has aged my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. He has set me in dark places like the dead of long ago. So this is quite a threshing here. He, verse seven, has hedged me in so that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry out and shout, he shuts out my prayer. This is how Jeremiah is feeling here. Verse nine, he has blocked my ways with a cone stone. He has made my past crooked. He has been to me a bear lying in weight like a lion in ambush. He God has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate. He has bent my bow and set me up as a target for the arrow. He has caused my arrows of his quiver to pierce my loins. I have become the ridicule of my people, their taunting song all the day. He has filled me with bitterness. He has made me to drink wormwood. He has broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes. You have moved my soul far from peace. I have forgotten prosperity. And I said my strength and my hope have perished from the Lord. Remember my affliction in roaming the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. And I think at this point Jeremiah takes a deep breath. Verse 21.

This I recall to my mind therefore. I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because his compassion fell not. They are new every morning. Great, great God is your faithfulness. Let's stop there. Well, it's quite a remarkable place here that Jeremiah is in. Let me just begin by stating the fact that the faithfulness of God is absolutely and actually grounded in the very character of God. God is faithful. The word of God is faithfulness in Scripture. If you look at the context, it essentially is an expression of trustworthiness. So God is trustworthy. We can fully rely upon him. He is reliable. Again, this is just part of God's very character. He's absolutely dependable, always in every way. So if we ask, is he faithful to his word? The answer from Scripture is a resounding yes, yes he is. Is he faithful in his dealings with his people? Yes, he is. And it's no exaggeration to say that the whole Bible just pulsates with this drumbeat of God's faithfulness. And if you want to, on a rainy day perhaps, simply take a concordance. You can look up all the Scriptures that reference the faithfulness of God. You will absolutely find yourself in a study of hours upon hours, gleaning from Scripture the amazing faithfulness of God, his word, and to his people. In fact, let me just show you three quick Scriptures here, just to punctuate that fact. We won't spend much time, but they're all found in the book of Psalms. So to keep your marker here in Jeremiah, if you will, I just want to turn you to a few places in the Psalms to punctuate this fact. The first, let's look at is Psalm 36 verse 5. You can take note of these or you can turn there with me if you like. Again, I just want to give you the smallest indication of God's faithfulness as revealed in Scripture. Psalm 36 verse 5. Here's a wonderful exclamation of God's faithfulness here by the Psalmist. Psalm 36 verse 5, the Psalmist says, Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. So it's this idea of looking up at the clouds. How faithful is God? Well, you look up at the clouds. How faithful is He? Well, His faithfulness reaches the clouds, the Psalmist says.

Psalm 89 verse 8. Go there, if you will. Just a couple of more. Psalm 89 verse 8. Of course, all this can be found in your study in the concordance here. Here's another one.

A wonderful phrase from the Psalmist. Psalm 89 verse 8, O Lord, God of Host, who is mighty like you, O Lord. Here it is. Your faithfulness also surrounds you. So this is another picture. So you cannot encounter God without then also encountering His faithfulness. So if you draw near to God, you too will be engulfed and surrounded by His faithfulness. You see, because it surrounds Him. It says here, it's who He is. One more. Psalm 119 verses 89 and 90. Psalm 119 verses 89 and 90. Psalm 119 verses 89 and 90. Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You establish the earth and it abides. So you build this wonderful picture here of the faithfulness of God. It's expressed in all of His being, His faithfulness. It's settled in heaven for all of generations. All right.

And I lied because I want to, I actually might want you to turn to one more.

I was just going to reference it, but perhaps it might be good for your eyes to rest on this fourth and final one just here in this introduction. James chapter 1 verses 16 through 18. You can listen, but if you're nimble, let's turn to James chapter 1 verses 16 through 18. Because this is, if you think some of those phrases were interesting in the Psalms, I love this turn of phrase here regarding God's faithfulness. This could be a hymn that certainly could be written about, and it certainly has been written about. We will see here. In fact, it's in our hymn book.

James 1 verses 16 through 18. James writes, Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. And here it is. Because with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Verse 18, Of his own will he brought forth by his word of truth that what we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Okay, let's stop there. So this whole chapter 1 of James, if you go back and look at it, it's all about trials. It's all about the threshing of God's people, if you will, the difficulties and trials. And so within that very context, James comes and says, Of God, God is one with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. God does not change like shifting shadows caused by the shifting sun, we could say. God is not like that. All right? And so the hymn writer picks up that phrase and he says, Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father, we know this song, There is no shadow of turning with thee.

Thou changest not thy compassion, they fail not, As thou hast been, thou forever will be. Right? Oh, wow! So James says here, he does not change like shifting shadows. As he has been, he will forever be. He's absolutely consistent with himself, utterly faithful. You know, you can't even put it into words. Language fails to capture the immensity of it all. He keeps his promises, he preserves his people, he sustains his creation. In preparation, I was just coming across different Google searches, always dangerous, you know.

But one aspect that came across, it was talking about, you know, if the earth was just a fraction, I'm talking a fraction closer to the sun, we would all be burned up. And if the earth was just a fraction further away from the sun, we would all be in a permanent ice age, you know. The scientists say that's happenstance. The Bible says God is faithful to his creation. He created us, he sustains us.

Can God be anything other than he is, faithful? No. And so we want to start in this way because maybe you're here this morning, and perhaps you're doubting the faithfulness of God. You've had circumstances come in your life, and they've been particularly pressing or difficult. Perhaps you look back to a previous time in your life, and a very difficult time, and somehow you've come to the belief that, you know, God just, that was a part of my life that God just left me, you know.

And he wasn't faithful to me at that time. Not at all. God is faithful in all of his dealings, past, present, and future. There is no shadows due to his turning. And he is sweeping everything. He's sweeping everything, even the moments of threshing, into his unfolding drama of his purpose. He is faithful in all things, and all things are working together for good, for good. Do you believe that? Do you believe in that?

Faithful God. This is the God we meet in the Bible. And again, you could go through this topically. You could go to a thousand scriptures. What I thought it would be helpful for us is to perhaps anchor ourselves in a passage of scripture to help us believe deeper in the faithfulness of God. And I thought we'd anchor ourselves, no surprise, in the classic passage of the faithfulness of God back in Lamentations 3. So if you kept your marker there, you will be helped. Let's turn back there. Lamentations 3. Classic, of course. We've been brought up in the hymn of this wonderful phrase, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

It really is, of course, the foundation of verses 1 through 23, which we read. We could say that this phrase is known by so many people, even those who don't consider themselves followers of the Bible. And if you go into the book store, the Christian bookstore, even Barnes and Noble, those kind of places, you will find, if you look in the gift section, I have no doubt, Great is Thy Faithfulness is probably in the top three to five phrases that you will find on coffee cups and such.

But I will tell you, even with its familiarity, I think many have no notion of the place in which that phrase is found. And I think we're going to do well to remind ourselves of the context in which that phrase, the faithfulness of God, is found. And it's quite startling. I hope you were, I know you were startled by us reading the context here just a minute ago. Because that phrase is at the end of a phenomenally dark and horrible and bleak place of lament, a lament, a lamentation, a passionate expression of grief and sorrow.

And Jeremiah, as we read, says, I'm in the pit. I find myself in darkness, the bleakest of all bleakness. And if you place yourself back at this context, we can confidently say this takes place around 586 BC. 586 BC. This is when Nebuchadnezzar came and did his evil work. Nebuchadnezzar's cruel oppression took the lives in so many ways of God's people, took over God's people, and it was devastating. Devastating. Go back one chapter to chapter two. We're just going to do a flyover here of some of these descriptions.

Look at chapter two, one chapter back, verse eight. If you thought chapter three was full of bleak expressions, chapter two, verse eight, the Lord has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He, the Lord, has stretched out a line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying. Therefore, he has caused the rampart and the wall to lament. They languish together. So the Lord has purposed to destroy here, stretched out a measuring line. He did not constrain his hand. Even the wall and the rampart languished together, that imagery. Who's responsible for all this? Well, Jeremiah says the Lord has done this. God has done this.

This is what God has done in the context of his people.

But you may say, I thought Nebuchadnezzar did it. Yes, Nebuchadnezzar did do it. Yes, but God allowed it. Was Nebuchadnezzar a pawn? A pawn? You know? Well, no. I mean, Nebuchadnezzar did what he wanted to do in all of his evilness. And in it all, Nebuchadnezzar actually fulfilled the eternal purposes of God. That's amazing and mysterious to think about. Nebuchadnezzar was responsible, but ultimately God was sovereign over it all. He ultimately allowed it.

And if I fail to say this later on, I just want to make this clear. It's what we know. God absolutely allows his called ones to go through periods of threshing.

Ultimately, with the imagery of the winnowing, you know, the throwing up in the air, and you might give you imagery of that first resurrection and the day of the Lord, and Christ's return when we'll meet him in the air.

And all that we went through in preparation will be blown away, and we will be there in our usable, pure usable existence for God, in our purity. I'm staying here in chapter 2, the next verse. This is what the prophet Jeremiah is reconciling in his mind. He didn't get to that declaration all at once. It was a process. So don't be hard on yourself if you're not to that declaration. It's a process. Staying here in chapter 2, look at verse 9, the next verse. Verse 24 See this nation born to be and statute it as a true! He who dedicated himself to the grace of his Son of HY If you think that's bad, go down to verse 20. The community was reduced to cannibalism. Let's just receive the full weight of this moment. Verse 20, "'See, O Lord, and consider,' Jeremiah says, to whom have you done this? Should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? Should the priests and the prophets be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?" And then, if you go back another chapter in how this book begins, this lament, go back to chapter 1 verse 1. Jeremiah opens this lament. Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 1. Here's how he begins. He says, "'How lonely, how lonely, sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow is she who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces has become a slave." And then verse 2 there, the city, she the city, weeps bitterly in the night and tears on her cheeks. So this is the personification of the city here. It's a dramatic personification. Verse 12 of chapter 1, "'Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?' Verse 12, "'Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought on me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of his fierce anger.'" Let's stop there. So Jeremiah suffering. And if you look at the language here, he's suffering individually, but he's also suffering as a representative of the nation. And he says, "'It is my sorrow, and I am every man.'" You know, he's representing every one of God's people here. I'm representative of those who are called, who are enduring this, the rod of God's affliction. And then, so going back to chapter 3, chapter 3, you look at verses 1, 2, and 3, we're just going to scan them again.

Jeremiah provides to the readers these bold complaints. Again, I am a man who's seen affliction in the rod of the path, chapter 3, verse 1. He has led me to make, you know, he has led me in the darkness, not in the light. He's turned his hand against me all throughout the day. Verse 4, he's aged my flesh and my skin, broken my bones. Verse 5, he's besieged me, surrounded me with bitterness, and whoa! Surrounded me with bitterness, and whoa! Verse 6 and 7, God has set me in a dark place. Verse 7, he's hedged me, so I can't get out. He's made my chain heavy. You know, this might seem like just kind of generic, overarching imagery, but there was a real, there was a real, there was real teeth behind this imagery. You know, when it says here about the hedging, you know, if you look at the historical records, the Syrians, who were responsible for this devastation of the people here, they had a way of torturing people where they would put them in the ground in kind of just a cylinder, and it was only big enough to where the individual was hedged in and couldn't move. Sometimes they even hung up, put them upside down in that way, you know, couldn't go forward, back, and really suffocated at that point. And then verse 10, you know, the metaphor changes. Verse 10, suddenly the speech is about a bear lying in wait. God has been like a bear, like a lion in ambush, and then it changes again. In verse 12, He bent my bow and set me up as a target for the arrow. Verse 14, the people ridicule me. They taunt me in song all the day. I'm filled, verse 15, filled with bitterness and drink wormwood, eating gravel, covered with ashes, you know, just goes on and on there. And so in verse 18, my strength and my hope have perished from the Lord. My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord. This is where He is at verse 18.

And do the people who purchase that coffee cup that says, Great is Thy Faithful, do they know this? Do they know that that phrase emerged from this context? I wonder. The faithfulness of God is set within this context of wasting away. You know, this is the lament, and the way it's positioned here, it's almost as if then at this point someone says, would anyone like to sing a song to combat these torment songs that are coming from the opposition? And someone says, why don't we sing Great is Thy Faithfulness? And the people would have said, Great is Thy Faithfulness? Are you kidding?

Well, in fact, we could. We could sing Great is Thy Faithfulness. Oh God, my Father. And in fact, we should sing that in this very context, because that's exactly what Jeremiah does. He stands and he proclaims out of the ashes, Great is Thy Faithfulness. How does Jeremiah move from verse 18 all the way to confidence and hope of verse 22 and 23? You know, verse 18, my endurance has perished, I have no hope. Three verses later, but this I call to mind, therefore I have hope here. And which is it we could say to Jeremiah? Which is it? Is it threshing with no hope and all hope gone? Or is it now that you have hope?

Which is it? Well, I propose, like Jeremiah, and in our experience today, it's both. It's both. It's both. We are, in many ways, in our lives and in the past at some current, going through a lament. And we are in the ebb and flow of our confidence that God is faithful. Right? And we have periods of time in which we are in the valley, and we are in this lament. But like Jeremiah, Jeremiah, my prayer and my hope for you and myself is that we can find our hope revive and to be our hope to be reborn, even out of the grief and the sorrow that we experience in this lifetime.

Because you'll notice he gets to this point of great-as-I-faithfulness, but it's the same predicament. The circumstances haven't changed. Right? Nothing was seemingly worthwhile. But, he says, but this I call to mind. I'm starting to think about something here, God. This is what I call to mind.

I know this is life, but I'm also reminding myself that you are faithful. And so, the writer, Jeremiah, begins to deliberately reflect upon what he knows of God. This is a great technique. If you're in this emotional state, if your nerves are just so raw and you're at that point, stop and start to remind yourself. Start to bring to mind what you know about God. In aeronautical terms, we would refer to this as flying by the instruments.

All right? Every so often, you have those great stories which are told where the pilot is engulfed by tremendous clouds. You can't see anything. And so, if you try to look to the left or right, you're going to be so disoriented. Often, they say they don't know if they're even flying upright sometimes in those kind of circumstances.

And the only way to navigate is for the pilot not to rely on looking out his circumstances. At the physical circumstances, we could say, but the answer is to fly by the instruments. And the Christian life is actually about flying by the instruments. It's not necessarily about, I'm going to start pumping myself up, and I'm going to pull my bootstraps up, and I'm going to get my feelings and my emotions straight. And everything is going to be great. That's an endeavor to work toward. But ultimately, it's about reminding ourselves who God is.

Because sometimes, there are circumstances you can't pull your bootstraps up. There's nothing you can do to change the circumstances. It is what it is. So, what can you do? What can you do? Well, you can do S.G.A.R. on my end. But this I'm going to recall.

I'm going to bring forth to my mind, he says. God's faithfulness. God's faithfulness. It reaches the clouds, he says, you know, the psalmist says. I don't know if I'm upside down, right side up. I don't know if I can get past these feelings. But what's absolutely essential for the post-Pentecost, first fruit harvest individuals, which are here today, what's absolutely essential is to bring your feelings under the objective facts in which you know. Bring your feelings under the objective facts, which you know.

This is exactly what Jeremiah does when he calls this to mind. Where is his hope? It's in the steadfast faithfulness of God. God has reached out to you as for a covenant. You have received his Holy Spirit. That's an unbreakable bond. I know God has shown himself in this devastating circumstances. Regardless, I'm going to call to mind the steadfast love and faithfulness of God, and it never ceases.

And although everything I've already written, Jeremiah would say, although everything I've written in this lament is true, yes, it's also true that God is faithful.

And he said, I just want you to know how striking this is. I mean, verse 22 again, back to the text, through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because his compassion fell not. I've got to tell you that's a very important phrase as we look at the circumstances around us as we're in this threshing period, this prolonged summer, awaiting Christ's return. This phrase here, we are not consumed, is very important. Very important. We are not consumed. We will never be consumed. What is the promise? Well, Jesus Christ came, and he said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. For your notes, that's John 11 25. John 11 25. So that's the ultimate. If you want to really break it down, if you just want to get it down to the nuts and bolts of it all, the ultimate proof, the ultimate evidence that God is faithful to his people is seen in the fact that we will not be consumed. All right? The ultimate evidence, the ultimate proof that God is faithful is seen in the fact that we are not consumed. We are not consumed. Now, are our bodies, our physical bodies, consumed? Yes, they're destroyed. Do we go through a process by which our emotions and go through and are consumed in this lifetime in many ways? And there is a threshing in that way? Yes, yes, our flesh and our heart may fail, but we know God is in the strength of our heart. Therefore, we have hope. And ultimately, through his mercies, his love is evidenced by the giving of his son. Again, his son says, I am the resurrection and the life, and he who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. So therefore, I have hope. We face these things. We are consumed in so many ways in this physical life. But ultimately, and one day eternally, we will not be consumed. That's the promise, and that's the faithful God. And that's where we place our hope, quite honestly. God is faithful. Through his mercies, his mercies never come to an end. And through his mercies, one day, we will be given the gift to never come to an end. You see, eternal life. So when we go through these threshing aspects of this physical life, it is in those moments we'll call to mind. And it's ultimately a cognitive thing. If you're laying on a bed and the recipient of some news from a blood test, for example, if you're looking at a loved one who's suffering and going through trials, you know, ultimately it's not going to be a feeling thing that gets you through. It's going to be a cognitive thing. What do I know? And that's how when I'm standing bedside and seeing someone who obviously should have not only a consumed body, but they should have a consumed heart, what I find is that their heart is going strong. Their heart for God, their faith. It's stronger than ever when all these things around them have consumed them. That's what's being expressed here. This is what we're seeing.

So, this is what we call to mind. He says, I'm going to have to bring all this under what I know about God. Nothing seems worthwhile. Nothing seems fixable, but this I call to mind. His love never ceases. He is faithful, and therefore I have faith and hope in Him. And ultimately, in Him, I will never be consumed.

Well, as we begin to draw this to conclusion, I want you, and my prayer for you is for you to put all your hope and faithfulness in God. His faithfulness is ultimately revealed in His Son. His Son was faithful on the cross. His Son faithfully took upon Himself death in order that you may live, in order that you may not be consumed, because He was faithful to the point of death, and He was faithful through death. Through that mercies, we are not consumed, because His compassion fails not. They are new every morning, and may we all sing today, Great is His Faithfulness.