Bumps Are What You Climb On:
“Living With Disappointment”
Jeremiah 10:17-21
Coming Destruction
17 Gather up your belongings to leave the land,
you who live under siege.
18 For this is what the Lord says:
“At this time I will hurl out
those who live in this land;
I will bring distress on them
so that they may be captured.”
19 Woe to me because of my injury!
My wound is incurable!
Yet I said to myself,
“This is my sickness, and I must endure it.”
20 My tent is destroyed;
all its ropes are snapped.
My children are gone from me and are no more;
no one is left now to pitch my tent
or to set up my shelter.
21 The shepherds are senseless
and do not inquire of the Lord;
so they do not prosper
and all their flock is scattered.
There once was a fella named Jeremiah. He was no bullfrog, but he was a good friend of mine!
The Israelites had gone through a series of kings, some really good – like Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah – and some really bad – like Rehoboam, Manasseh, and Amon. In 721 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah pulled itself together for a while, but eventually it fell to the Babylonian empire in 586 BC. The walls of Jerusalem were breached. The Temple was destroyed. And the city walls crumbled.
Before Judah’s ultimate fall, God raised a prophet named Jeremiah. If ever there were a man who experienced disappointments and tragedy, it was Jeremiah. He was called to serve God at this most difficult time in history. And he was given a difficult message to proclaim, for God told him to warn the nation that judgment was coming, and they had better repent.
Most of what we know about Jeremiah comes from the book of the Bible that bears his name. He was born to a priestly family about three miles from Jerusalem. He was called as a prophet in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Josiah in the southern kingdom of Judah. Though Jeremiah’s birth date isn’t exactly clear, it’s evident he received God’s call at a young age, probably as a teenager.
Jeremiah served the Lord faithfully for forty years. He never compromised in his message or his loyalty. His family abandoned him, even plotted to kill him, and ultimately the entire nation turned against him. Over the years, he was whipped and put in the stocks, attacked by a mob, threatened by the king, and ridiculed. Some of Zedekiah’s princes had Jeremiah arrested, beaten, accused of treason, thrown in jail, and even tossed into a deep, empty well. (Sound anything like last week’s sermon?!)
Perhaps worst of all, Jeremiah was forced to live life alone. He was not allowed to marry, and he was alone with the knowledge of the horrors coming for Judah.
His early messages focused on condemning false worship and social injustice, with calls to repentance. He proclaimed a coming foe, and he urged the Israelites to focus on their inward, personal relationships with God rather than external religious and idolatrous practice.
His later messages included dramatic object lessons. For example, when delegations from surrounding nations came to Judah asking the nation to join a rebellion against Babylon, Jeremiah put a yoke, a wooden harness around his neck, and went about urging the nations to submit to the yoke of Babylon.
Jeremiah lived to see his beloved nation overrun by the enemy, and his beloved city and temple completely destroyed. If ever a man had a broken heart, it was Jeremiah. No wonder he was known as the Weeping Prophet. While the book with his name holds his prophecies and bears witness to his burden, his book of Lamentations holds his tear stains. He was disappointed in the people of Israel, and at times he was disappointed in God. But he always remained faithful, knowing God had a perfect plan.
***
Well, good morning, friends. Nothing like a depressing story to start off the sermon this morning. But I promise it’s going to get better! Welcome back to our sermon series, “The Bumps are What We Climb On.” Steven explained to us two weeks ago that these bumps are the hard places in life that eventually become the places where we stand. As we go through difficult seasons, we climb up on these bumps, which become the foundations for us moving forward. We learn how to weather the seasons; we learn to lean into Jesus for the strength to withstand.
This week’s focus, or this week’s bump, is “Living with Disappointments.” Disappointment is a universally horrible feeling we experience when reality doesn’t match expectations. Have any of you ever been disappointed?
Perhaps one time or another, you’ve thought one of these things:
- God, I always expected that I would be able to have kids. Isn't that something you want for me? Isn't that a good desire you placed in my heart? Why is this so hard? And to rub it in, we get these people asking ridiculously hurtful questions like, "Why haven’t you had kids yet? You aren’t getting any younger!” This isn't what I expected.
- God, I want to have a great marriage and yet my wife is so passive. It's like she doesn't even care. She never engages me. She's off in her own world, always on her cell phone. I expected to have a better marriage than this. Don't you want me to have a good marriage? This isn't what I expected.
- God, I always expected that by the time I was 30, I'd have the perfect job and the perfect mate. Well, I'm in a job I hate, and I have no prospects for marriage. I'm struggling with disappointment with how my life is turning out. This isn't what I expected.
- God, I always expected to live a healthy life. I assumed I'd have normal health struggles, but I never expected it would be this dominating and this debilitating. My body has let me down. Don't you want me to be healthy? This is not what I expected.
- God, when I was younger, I wanted to do great things for you. I had visions of being a missionary and traveling the world, and now I'm just a dad stuck in a suburban neighborhood endlessly changing diapers, cooking, and driving my kids around. This is not what I expected.
You know what I'm talking about. Woe is me! Why is my life this way? Why won't God answer my prayer? Why won't God intercede in this situation? Why won't God change this other person's heart?
So, what is the cure for disappointment?
Well, let’s venture back to that bullfrog…errr, weeping prophet, Jeremiah. What truths did he teach us?
The first truth he taught us is this: expect disappointments.
Henri Nouwen wrote:
Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood swings: from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly, we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us, rather than being created by us.
Thus, it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift, we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain God’s beloved children.
And that’s what Henri Nouwen and Jeremiah teach us. Despite the disappointments, Jeremiah never forgot WHOSE he was. He rose above the broken dreams to live in victory.
Imagine serving God so faithfully for a lifetime, and in the end, seeing everything fall apart. Jeremiah could have died a bitter and broken man, but he didn’t. In the strength of the Lord, he was able to face his disappointments and accept them, knowing he was faithful to his calling and knowing God loved him.
Some people have the idea that faithful Christians can escape disappointments, but that’s is simply not true. God does not guarantee that we will never have a broken heart. God does not promise to take away our tears this side of heaven. What He does promise us is that He will be present with us on the peaks and in the valleys! Just as with Jeremiah, God will not leave us alone, for we are His beloved children.
Which leads us to a second truth the prophet Jeremiah taught us: our disappointments are in the hands of God.
There were many times when Jeremiah thought he had been forsaken by God. Why wasn't God answering his prayers? Why wasn't the Word he was preaching bearing fruit and changing the nation? Was it really worth it all, staying there and ministering to such hard-hearted people? (I ask myself this all the time!)
The first lie the enemy whispers to us when disappointment comes is… God has failed.
What we need to hear is… God is in control. We need to hear that life’s mishaps and tragedies are not a reason to bail out. We need to hear it’s not over until He says so.
Corrie ten Boom used to say, “When the train goes through a tunnel, and the world gets dark, do you jump out? Of course not! You sit still and trust the engineer to get you through.”
It takes faith to believe that and rest upon it. But know in the deepest corners of your heart that this is true - God is still on the throne, and He is going to accomplish His wonderful purposes in our lives, if we will let Him. If we fight circumstances and become bitter, then God cannot accomplish in us and through us all that He has in mind. If we yield and trust Him to do what is best, then all things will work together for good.
Jeremiah reminds us that God said, “I am the Lord, the God of every person on the earth. Nothing is impossible for me.”
The way to walk through your times of discouragement? Go back and read the story of God. Remember He promised to never leave us, nor forsake us. Remember nothing is impossible for Him. Read it again and again. Be reminded that you aren’t the first person to weep. Remember the weeping prophet.
Once we have learned to expect the disappointments, and believe nothing is impossible for God, we can know this third truth: yield to God's will and let Him heal our broken hearts and fulfill His desires.
I read somewhere there is a basic law in this universe that says, "Fight the will of God, and it will break you; accept the will of God and it will make you." I’ve been there. Many of you have heard this story before…
Like Jeremiah, I had felt the call to ministry pretty early in life. It was clear. But somewhere along the way, I thought I knew better than God. My plans were better than His. In 2001, I graduated from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina with a Political Science degree. I had spent four years studying politics and loving state government. I worked for the Majority Leader of the North Carolina House of Representatives, writing press releases, strategizing with the party, and I loved it. I applied to law schools my senior year, and the lawyers in my family had all gone to Wake Forest… And me? I got wait listed.
Instead of wallowing, I decided to follow that call I once had, and spent the next year doing mission work in Honduras and Mexico. Now, one would think this would have been enough to re-route my plans and align my will with God’s will. Instead, I applied to graduate schools to study political science. For seven miserable days, I was a student at the University of Georgia, until finally one night, I fell to my knees in my brokenness.
Unlike me, Jeremiah did not fight God. As Steven read earlier, there were times when he questioned God's will, when he thought God was crazy, when he cried out, WOE IS ME!!! But Jeremiah didn’t try to get his own way. Instead, he yielded to the will of God and let God work out His perfect plan.
What was the result? Well, the nation was taken captive and carried to Babylon. And Jeremiah was kidnapped and taken to Egypt by some fanatics. And there, according to tradition, he was stoned to death for preaching the truth. But but but! What looked like a failure to the world was not a failure to our God, who judges righteously on the basis of what is eternal.
What did God accomplish in this tragic history?
For one thing, God made a man who was very much like the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus was here on earth, He asked His disciples what people were saying about Him; and one of the answers was, "You are the prophet, Jeremiah."
Jeremiah suffered just as the Suffering Servant Jesus did. The very disappointments of life were the tools that carved Jeremiah and polished him and made him like Jesus Christ.
Isn't that what disappointments are all about? In Romans chapter 8, verse 29, we see God is working all things together for good, and part of that good is that we might be conformed to the image of His Son - made more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Max Lucado would say it this way: “God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.”
So, if you and I are suffering, perhaps God is polishing us and making us like His own Son. Those are not easy words to hear. No one wants to suffer, but I’d love to be polished and sparkle for everyone, for as the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 & 4, “We glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope.”
Just as God builds character in the disappointments of life, He also gives us a witness. In the midst of his disappointments, Jeremiah bore witness to the Lord and gave His message to the people. By his preaching and his living, Jeremiah pointed others to God. Disappointments are not only opportunities for maturity, they are also opportunities for ministry. Perhaps that is why we have the writings of Jeremiah for our own learning and living – to inspire us to be faithful to God.
Before we began this sermon, if I had asked any of you today to say one thing about Jeremiah, other than singing the bull frog song, I would be willing to bet over half of you would have immediately quoted this verse:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
Friends, this is the legacy of Jeremiah. Through disappointment, he inspired generations to quote these words of God, to stand firm on the foundation of Jeremiah 29:11, to know without a doubt that God is God and He is faithful. In the midst of his disappointments, in the midst of seeing his beloved city destroyed, Jeremiah found hope in the promises of God. In the midst of our disappointments, may our words, too, be filled with hope and thanksgiving for the Lord our God. For He is with us in the present, He is with us in the future, and He is with us always.
Let us pray:
O Good and Gracious God,
All too often, we find ourselves struggling with disappointment.
We focus inward instead of focusing on who You are and whose we are.
Turn our gaze toward You and enable to us to see You working in the midst of the disappointments. Show us Your plans and remind us Your words are faithful and true. Wipe away our tears of weeping and bring to our joy in the morning.
Amen, and amen.
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