God is Faithful | Ian Longtin | 03.15.26

But in the end, what will you have other than Jesus? Right. I mean, really, like in the end, when you stand before your creator, is God gonna ask you like, hey, how high did you climb the corporate ladder? Right. How many cars did you have? How big how much was the square footage of your house? How'd your four zero one k do? Is he gonna ask you any of those things? Absolutely not. Are you gonna get to bring any of that stuff with you? Absolutely not. In the end, all we're gonna have is Jesus. Because literally, he cannot be taken from you. There is no power, no force, no authority on the face of the earth that can remove God from your life. [01:08:04] (49 seconds)  #OnlyJesusMatters

I'm not faithful. I mean, maybe a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, I might be faithful for human standards, but, like, anything that I conjure up as faithfulness is just a mere reflection of God's ultimate faithfulness, and it's nothing in comparison. Like, I'm not faithful compared to God, and I'm a sinner. I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but so are you. And yet God in his faithfulness sends his son to die for us, to take our place, to resolve a problem for us that we could not resolve for ourselves. [00:52:05] (40 seconds)  #GodsFaithfulnessNotOurs

But in the midst of our mourning, Jeremiah also gives us permission and maybe even encouragement to call on God's character. And in the middle of that, what Jeremiah realizes that his own feelings of despair, his own disappointments don't overshadow the reality of God. They don't overshadow the reality of who God is or the promises that God has made. So we asked this question earlier. What exactly is God bigger than? Well, all of it. I mean, biblically and theologically, we know that's true. Like, he's bigger than all of it. He's bigger than everything. What we understand from the context of this text and from Jeremiah's life is that God is literally bigger than any circumstance that we might face. [01:01:53] (57 seconds)  #GodIsBiggerThanCircumstances

Right? Because because it's one thing to just talk about God in the abstract. It's an entirely different thing to recognize in that moment than who God is and to address him for who he is and to engage in relationship with this God who you now recognize. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what's happening here. Recognizing who God is, there there really is no other appropriate response. When you realize who God is and what he's done, there really is no other appropriate response but to worship. Yeah. Right. There is really no other appropriate response other than to just sort of bow down on your knees and give it all up and say, okay, God. I get it. I'm a sinner. I was broken. I'm a fool, but you are God and I am not, and so I give it all to you. [00:49:42] (50 seconds)  #KnowGodWorshipGod

We know something that Jeremiah didn't know. We know how the story ends. Yeah. Come on. We know that Christ came and gave his life for us. And so we know that in the same breath that we say, God is our portion, we also say Christ is our portion. Jesus is what we get out of this life. I believe God provides. You know what mean? Like, I I like, if that's a biblical concept. Right? Like, God will provide. We get to have things in this life. You know, this isn't meant to be like, hey. God's gonna strip everything away from you, and then all you have left is Jesus message. That's not what I mean. [01:07:19] (40 seconds)  #ChristIsOurPortion

There were multiple times. I mean, it was I'd I'd have to sit down with my wife and, like, work through how many times we were told by the doctor, she's gonna die this weekend. She's gonna die today. And then she wouldn't. And I'd like, take that doc. But it was it was it was just a it was a roller coaster ride that I can't even begin to explain to you. And on September 25 of of that same year, 2009, we got a phone call early in the morning, and they said this is this is it. We went to the hospital. We held her as she passed. The worst thing I've ever been through. I don't know how we get through that if it isn't for Jesus. I don't know how we get through that if it isn't for Christ. [01:13:26] (55 seconds)  #JesusInTheStorm

we know this, and it's easy to think about this when you watch somebody else go through something like that. Like, you can't be in a relationship with someone you don't know. Yeah. Right? You and you can't be in a relationship with someone you haven't met. And and that's also true about God. Like, we can't really be in a relationship with a God that we don't know. And and and that what we need to understand is that God invites us to relationship. Right? And I don't mean to sound silly when I say this. Like, the the the creator of the universe isn't catfishing anybody. [00:37:11] (31 seconds)  #RelationshipWithGod

So Jeremiah, he writes this book because his hopes have been shattered. His dreams, his goals, what he wants for himself and for his people has all been ripped away. When you're reading Lamentations, you're literally reading Jeremiah's heartbreak and reading not just his, but the heartbreak of a nation. Because everything that they had had been taken away from them, which is why verses 21 through 24 are so significant and so important. It's why they're so impactful. This this this verses 21, and it goes a little bit further than what I read. But but verses 21 to a little bit further than what we read is literally the bright spot of lamentations. [00:59:43] (44 seconds)  #HopeInLamentations