Expository Sermon on Lamentations 3
by Maylan Schurch
9/6/2025 ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
To watch this entire worship service, click the link just below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlLd_4-xjDU&t=4041s
Please open your Bibles to Lamentations chapter 3.
Just a quick note to let you know that I haven’t been preaching from our chronological Bible reading plan for the past couple of weeks, because Shelley and I have been telling the story of Elijah.
But this week we’re back with the plan – with a difference. It was actually a couple of weeks ago that Lamentations was in the reading plan. But I have been very curious about that book for a long time.
And the reason is that even though Lamentations is pretty solidly gloomy, there is this great burst of hope which shows up partway through chapter 3. I’ve always wondered why that happened, apparently out of the blue, with no warning that I could see.
So this week I studied chapter 3 pretty closely, and I have called this sermon “The ‘How’ of Hope.” As you will see, Jeremiah – he was the author of Lamentations – seems to be reaching the absolute depths of his despair in the first part of this chapter. But that’s before the “hope” part comes along.
But as I looked at these verses, I think I’ve discovered some answers to the question, “In the midst of frightening uncertainty, how can we find hope?”
I find these fairly chilling times, and maybe you do too. As we wait in the shadow of Jesus’ prophesied “wars and rumors of wars,” we now suddenly have – instead of a Department of Defense, a Department of War. That just happened this week.
Of course, if you have kept in touch with Jeremiah in our chronological Bible reading plan, you know that the days we are living in now – at least in North America – are nowhere like the conditions in the nation of Judah just before the Babylonian captivity.
And Jeremiah has been right in the center of this trauma, because he has been the prophet which God assigned to rebuke the nation’s idolatry, and try to turn their hearts toward God again.
And sure enough, Lamentations is just what its name says it is – a lament. By the way, Lamentations is made up of five poems. And all of these poems in one way or another use the structure of the Hebrew alphabet. For example, as far as I could tell, in chapter 1, the first word of the first verse starts with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second verse starts with the second letter of the alphabet, and so on. That’s one of the ways they did poetry back in those days. You might remember that Psalm 119 uses the Hebrew alphabet as well.
And when it comes to Lamentations chapter 3, if you have a certain printing of the Bible, you will see that Lamentations 3 is printed in a little batches of three verses apiece. That’s because the first batch – verses 1-3 – all start with the Hebrew letter aleph, which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The second batch of verses starts with the next letter, which is sort of like our ‘B.”
That’s why Lamentations 3 has 66 verses – is 22 multiplied by three. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Anyway, we’d better back out of the weeds at this point and dive into what the chapter says. If you read Jeremiah at all, you know that he is a very powerful lamenter. He gets really emotional. And he does this in Lamentations as well.
But something really interesting happens in the chapter 3. Up to this point, Jeremiah has pretty much been lamenting about the nation from the position of an observer. But in Lamentations 3, he laments about himself. He personally is going through a terrible time, and he talks about.
And that’s one reason why this glorious burst of hope is so surprising to me when it shows up where it does. Let’s just start at verse one, and read through the lament he’s making in the first part of the chapter.
Lamentations 3:1 – 6 [NKJV]: I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. He 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 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.
Isn’t that interesting? Also, very chilling. What makes it chilling is that Jeremiah is speaking as though God is personally harassing him, the prophet. And he doesn’t stop, he keeps going.
Verses 7 – 20: He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked. He has been to me a bear lying in wait, Like a lion in ambush. He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces; He has made me desolate. He has bent His bow And set me up as a target for the arrow. He has caused the arrows of His quiver To pierce my loins. I have become the ridicule of all my people— Their taunting song all the day. He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood. He has also 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 and roaming, The wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers And sinks within me.
This sounds like a man in great depression. And maybe even worse. It’s one thing to be depressed over events that happen to you, but it seems to me that it’s another thing to be depressed over what seem to be the direct actions of the Lord against you.
But amazingly, this is the exact point when Jeremiah suddenly pivots, and launches out into those delightful verses which have made this book famous. It seems that at his absolute lowest point, this is where he feels a surge of courage.
And here’s where we need to start watching very carefully. Because I asked myself this week, “Are there any clues as to how Jeremiah suddenly gathered this hope?” What is the “how” of hope?
Let’s see if we can find out.
Verse 21: This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.
So suddenly, hope shows up. And it seems to have shown up because of something that Jeremiah has recalled to his mind.
But what was this memory? Was it something he just said in the previous verses? I don’t think so, because nothing in those verses seems even remotely hopeful. So as far as I’m concerned, the “this” refers to something that he is about to tell us, something he hasn’t mentioned yet, but will be the reason for his hope.
Before we find out what it is, let’s get ready to lay down what you could call Sermon Point One.
Here goes:
Verses 21 – 23: This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
So, what has happened here? As Jeremiah is wallowing in the depths of gloom, mournfully saying that God is persecuting him, he suddenly recalls to his mind things he must’ve temporarily forgotten, truths like that God has many mercies and compassions (both those words are plural in the Hebrew), and that those mercies and compassions are fresh and new every morning. And because of that, great is God’s faithfulness.
So how do we put this to work? If you like to take down sermon points, here comes Sermon Point One. In the midst of frightening uncertainty, or depression, how can we find hope?
Here’s Jeremiah’s first way:
Remember responsibly.
Why do I call that the first way? Because all through Lamentations, and all through the various chapters of Jeremiah’ is longer book, Jeremiah has been remembering certain things, but they didn’t seem to have caused this glorious flash of hope.
But right here, in verse 21, he recalls to his memory some truths he probably knew already but had let them slip from his mind.
Let me just slip a humorous comment in right here. This week I was looking at these verses on my laptop. I was looking at verse 21, which says, “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.”
And somehow, my mouse highlighted the “therefore I have hope.” And somehow, AI – artificial intelligence – was lurking in the background, and suddenly it decided that I wanted it to change these words. And a little box popped up, and I discovered that AI was offering to change “therefore I have hope” to “Consequently, I remain optimistic.”
Somehow, that doesn’t quite do it. Good try, A-I.
By the way, I do not use AI to help write my sermons. Never have, never will. I suppose that when I look up info on Google, AI helps gather it, but I never ask AI to write or enhance my words.
Back when Shelley and I were leading out in the Breathe-free Plan to Stop Smoking when we were at the Shoreline church, there was a technique in the materials called “thought-switching.” The idea was, that one of the ways you could battle a momentary urge for a cigarette would be to switch your thoughts to something else.
That’s what Jeremiah has done here. He has recalled something to his mind which wasn’t there a moment ago. He is suddenly remembering responsibly.
And to get to the next sermon point, we need to find out what it is that he has suddenly remembered.
Verses 22 – 23: Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
Do you see how Jeremiah is remembering responsibly? He’s showing us how. If I’m going through tough times, I need to remember not just the current crisis, but I need to remember beyond the present to God’s past promises, and to God’s past actions. I need to remember how the Bible gives a lot of evidence that God has worked powerfully when He knows the time is right.
So here is Sermon Point Two. What’s another step to finding hope in frightening uncertainty?
Jeremiah’s first step is remembering responsibly. His next step is to treat God as trustworthy.
When I read the words “new every morning,” I remembered back to my childhood on the South Dakota prairies. As sunset starts to happen, the sky starts to get a little spooky. Remember, this is absolutely flat land, and where we lived, there were no mountains of any kind, and no real forests except for the little bunches of trees that farmers had planted around their farms back in the 1930s.
So as you stood there at sunset, you had nothing to block the view of what was happening in the sky, especially if it was a clear summer evening. You looked to the west, and you saw the glorious orange sunset, with the glowing sun getting larger and larger lower it sank.
But as the sun started sinking below the horizon, if you glanced east, you would see a black layer coming up the eastern sky. It was almost like the sky’s lower eyelid was gradually closing, rising up. And finally, the sun went down, and the sky got darker and darker.
But when I woke up in my room the next morning, the sky was bright again. My room faced the east, and there was the sun blazing in the sky. The air smelled fresh, and it was a new day. Whatever gloom I felt the night before was gone.
Remember responsibly, and treat God as trustworthy. How do I do this?
Every Wednesday night at 7:30, we have a phone prayer call. We may have 10, sometimes 12, sometimes 15 people on that call. Most of them are regulars, and have been with that call for years. Anyone, of course, is welcome to join our call. You can find the directions in our bulletin, and you can join anonymously. You don’t have to say anything, because we don’t take roll. The meeting lasts about an hour.
One of the precious results of that telephone prayer-meeting is that it gives us a lot of chances to remember responsibly, and to treat God as trustworthy.
Some of the things we pray about are long-drawn-out, chronic situations, which we’ve been praying about for years. Other dilemmas are solved more quickly. During that call, we have two devotional times, where we listen to encouraging passages from the writings of Ellen White and other Christian authors. These readings help us to remember responsibly, and remember those times when God proved trustworthy.
In between those devotional readings, we first of all thank the Lord for encouraging answers we have seen, and then later in the hour we bring our prayer requests to everyone’s attention, and we pray about them.
And whether or not you decide to join our prayer call, remembering responsibly and treating God as trustworthy need to happen so that you won’t be devastated by things you hadn’t expected.
That’s one benefit of reading through the Bible, as we’re doing this year. We need to keep reminding ourselves or God’s tremendous power. And not only God’s tremendous power, but the fact that God is concerned with whether or not we discover that He is the one who can truly care for us and keep us safe.
Just recently I have had to sign up for some sessions with a physical therapist. I could’ve gone online, and watched some cheerful PT people guide me through some exercises. But the woman who is my real life physical therapist could study me in person, and because of her 24 years’ experience doing this, she could cut right to the chase and prescribe just the kind of exercises I need.
And I’m doing those exercises, or most of them, if I remember. Because I know that in a couple of weeks I’ll go back to her, and she will ask me whether I’ve been doing them. I have more accountability to her than I would to a YouTube clip.
Let’s find what I think is one more way to keep hope alive in uncertain times. Let’s start with verse 24.
Verses 24 – 26: “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the LORD.
So what’s Sermon Point Three? We can get a clue about what I think it is by looking back at the first few words of verse 24: “’The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul.”
What does this mean? If you have your Andrews Study Bible with you, you’ll notice the footnote at verse 24 explains this: “portion. The prophet confesses that God is his portion, his part. The tribes of Levi did not have an inheritance among the tribes of Israel; of them it was said that the Lord is their “portion,” their inheritance (Deut. 10:9; Josh. 13:14). The Lord said this to Aaron as well (Num. 18:20), and David acknowledged the Lord as his portion (Ps. 16:5).” Dybdahl, J. L., ed. (2010). Andrews Study Bible Notes (p. 1035). Andrews University Press.
Here comes Sermon Point Three:
Jeremiah’s first step to finding hope in crisis is remembering responsibly. His next step is to treat God as trustworthy. The third step is to live Levitically.
What do I mean by “living Levitically? That’s what Jeremiah seems to be saying that he is doing. When he says “the Lord is my portion,” he is echoing what God said to the Levite priests back in Deuteronomy 18.
But does that really apply to you and me? The Bible certainly says that it does. Not only did God tell the entire nation of Israel in Exodus 19:6, “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’” Not only that, but in the first chapter of Revelation, John insists that his readers are under the same command:
Revelation 1:6: . . . To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
So that’s us – we are kings and queens and priests and priestesses for God. Which means that we are supposed to live Levitically. And what does that mean? Well, think back to what the priests were supposed to do in their duties. They were intercessors between the average person and God. They could not forgive sins, but they could point people to the God who could. Day to day, they demo’d God’s kindness.
The Levites assisted in the worship of the tabernacle. The Levites had their various duties. Some of them taught the people the word of God. Actually, our whole congregation this morning is filled with Levites, in a way. And even though you might not be a deacon or deaconess, or an elder, or a Sabbath school teacher, you are someone who moves through the week being an influence on other people. People can pick up, mostly instinctively, that there is something different about you, because you are a follower of God. You are someone who has chosen to live God’s way rather than some other way.
So, does knowing this make life a little more hopeful for you? None of us knows what the week ahead might bring. But if we remember responsibly, treat God as trustworthy, and live Levitically, we can gain that hope and reflect it to others.
Because as our closing song says, we do have a God who is our strong salvation.
Let’s stand and sing it together. It’s number 339 in your hymnal.
God is My Strong Salvation – #339
God is my strong salvation,
What foe have I to fear?
In darkness and temptation,
My Light, my Help, is near:
Though hosts encamp around me,
Firm in the fight I stand;
What terror can confound me,
With God at my right hand?
Place on the Lord reliance;
My soul with courage wait;
His truth be thine affiance,
When faint and desolate.
His might thy heart shall strengthen,
His love thy joy increase;
Mercy thy days shall lengthen;
The Lord will give thee peace.