Worship Service (Lament Service) | June 28, 2020

WELCOME

ANNOUNCEMENTS

CALL TO WORSHIP

READING

To all who are weary and need rest,
To all who mourn and long for comfort,
To all who feel worthless and wonder if God cares,
To all who fail and desire strength,
To all who sin and need a Savior,

This church opens wide her doors
with a welcome from Jesus Christ,
the Ally of his enemies,
the Defender of the guilty,
the Justifier of the inexcusable,
the Friend of sinners!

ADORATION

HOLY HOLY HOLY

PROCLAMATION

LEARNING TO LAMENT

PRAYER

TURN

RESPONSIVE READING FROM PSALM 77:1-4

LEADER:
I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.

TOGETHER:
In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord.

LEADER:
In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.

TOGETHER:
When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah

LEADER:
You hold my eyelids open.

TOGETHER:
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

PRAYER OF TURNING

Father, we come to you in grief. But we come to you. We come to you weak. But we come to you. Sorrow and sadness fill our hearts. But we come to you.

We are surrounded by brokenness. We are immersed in disappointments. We are besieged by out of control circumstances. But we come to you.

Spirit of the Living God, give us the faith needed to lament. Make us not afraid to lament. Remove the fear of being too honest, or too open, or too vulnerable.

Help us reject the despair that says you don't care, that you don't hear, that you're not good, or that nothing is ever going to change.

Speak to us right now, Spirit. Identify in us anything that prevents us from turning to you.

---

God, in our frustrations and in our discouragements and pain, we are tempted to stop talking to you. Tempted to pull away, in anger or disillusionment.

But in this moment, we refuse to refuse to turn to you in our pain.

Help us in our unbelief. Help us believe you are present and believe you are good. Re-orient our hearts to what is true.

Jesus, we draw near to you now, we turn to you now, our great high priest. Let us hold fast our confession. You are not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Would we, with confidence draw near to your throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Amen.

IT IS WELL

COMPLAIN

SCRIPTURE READING

LAMENTATIONS 3:1–18

PRAYER OF COMPLAINT

Father, we come humbly before you now in complaint.

With the psalmists, we cry out, "Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"

And, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?"

Jesus, life under the sun is hard. We struggle, not just with our pain, but with you.

Holy Spirit, help us humbly bring our complaints before you now. Help us name specific situations and specific circumstances that are painful, wrong, or unjust.

---

Father, we lay our pain before you.
We lay our honest, pain-filled questions before you.
Our frustrations with you.

We know that you’re not only able to hear, but able to handle our pain, our self-pity, our blame, and our fears.

We know that you’re able to intervene, yet we do not understand why you have not.

God we complain that you feel distant. Remote. We fear that you’re no longer helping, that you’ve for some reason hidden yourself in this time of trouble.

Where are you, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

SATISFIED IN YOU

ASK

RESPONSIVE READING FROM PSALM 22:1-5, 11, 19-21

LEADER
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

TOGETHER
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.

LEADER
But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

PASTORAL PRAYER OF GUIDED ASKING

OH GOD

TRUST

SCRIPTURE READING

PSALM 13:5-6

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

LORD’S SUPPER

INVITATION, INSTITUTION, & CONSECRATION
INSTRUCTIONS & DISTRIBUTION
PARTAKING & POST-COMMUNION PRAYER

IN TENDERNESS

COMMISSIONING

PASTORAL EXHORTATION

Learning to Lament

First it was the coronavirus. Wrecking our economy, killing the vulnerable, driving us out of fellowship with one another an into our homes. Then came the restlessness, the yearning to “get back to normal,” which began stirring up debates among friends that spilled over into protests and yelling matches online. Then came the news of a black man, gunned down while on a run by two vigilantes for a crime he didn’t commit. Then came the news of another black man, senselessly killed under the knee of a man who had sworn to serve and protect, which felt to many of us like deja vu.

I, as well as many of you, I’m sure, have heard a lot about what we as Christians ought to “keep in mind” over the last few months. We ought to remember that the Lord is sovereign, and that neither the coronavirus nor the murder of the innocent falls outside of the bounds of His will. We ought to remember that the Lord has many potential purposes for the coronavirus and for these recent events. In light of that, we ought to remember that whatever those purposes, that they are good because He is good, and that “all things work together for good,” for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). We ought to remember that vengeance is the Lord’s. We ought to remember that the Lord grieves the loss of innocent life. We ought to remember that regardless of the trials that come upon us during this season, whether it be sickness, unemployment, depression, loneliness, oppression, or anything else, that the Lord sees the pain of the sufferers, and hears the cries of the mourning, and He will provide for us in our time of need.

We really ought to remember these things, to treasure them in our heart and meditate upon them. But what about those of us who do not solely need to find comfort and encouragement? What about those of us who behold the carnage and the destruction being wrought upon the world by this microscopic murderer and feel something more than fear? What about those of us who watch yet another unarmed, black man be senselessly killed and want to do nothing but scream? What about those of us who, in our most honest moments, respond in our hearts to this season with anger? Not just any anger, but anger fueled by sorrow.

What does the coronavirus and racism reveal about the world? That it is broken. That things are not the way that they ought to be. These things are a product of the “breaking of the world” (to borrow a phrase from Robert Jordan) which we read about in Genesis 3. Just like death, violence, corruption, and famine. And “sorrowful anger” is a perfectly reasonable response to that.

I have felt this anger. It’s born in sorrow, produced in a context where we behold injustice and brokenness and find ourselves overwhelmed by our own powerlessness against it. 

It cannot be anger at God Himself, lest we accuse him of injustice on His part. Rather, it is an anger at sin. At the ways that it has sunk it’s teeth into this world that God created and corrupted it.

How dare it. How dare it take that which was supposed to be good, and turn it into a twisted version of what it was intended to be. How dare it drive us into our homes, apart from friends and family. How dare it stir up hate and prejudice in the hearts of men. How dare it kill our family and friends. How dare it run our medical providers ragged.

So what do we do with righteous anger in this season? We lament.

Lament is a uniquely Christian response to injustice and brokenness. I say it is uniquely Christian because it is saturated in a true and lasting hope. It is the expression of a groaning that, if expressed in the context of this hope, should cause us to drop to our knees, look upward, spread our hands, and cry out for God to work to correct all that is wrong. Outside of the context of hope, it produces cynicism and bitterness, causing us not to lament, but to lash out irrationally and cast stones of blame towards anyone we think may be responsible, including God.

What is our hope? That God Himself is as moved to anger and sorrow by the brokenness of the world as we are. More so, even. Not only that, but that He has actually taken action to correct it by coming into the world Himself, being subjected to this brokenness and injustice, and giving up His own life in order to break the power of sin and usher in His Kingdom.

God was even so gracious as to give us language of lament in His word. The Psalms are full of prayers of lament (13, 74, 102, 130 are a few examples). Jesus expresses lament on the cross (Mark 15:34). The Lord even gave us an entire book of lament (The Book of Lamentations)!

The gracious thing about lament, is that it is a place where God meets us where we’re at. We don’t need to posture ourselves or pretend to be okay. We can be honest with Him, and He is faithful to draw near to us and whisper “I understand.” He does not turn away our lament, nor is he disappointed and condemn us for unbelief. He invites us to draw near and be vulnerable in the safest place we can be.

For those of us like me, who feel that sorrowful anger during this season, may we not be as those who do not have any hope. Yes, we ought to remember the glorious truths found in Scripture, but may we also learn to lament. To go before the Lord in our sorrow and anger and cry out. May we be vulnerable before the Lord, and let the Spirit work in us to remind us who He is. May we not hide. May we find in that lament the strength in knowing that our prayers are heard and that the Lord is working to correct all that is wrong. Including viruses and racism.