[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
It’s my habit to get up early every day and go for a run. And it’s my habit to pray Lamentations chapter 3, verses 22 and 23 on my run. I’m going to read it for you again; it’s the Old Testament reading.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I do it as a reminder that God’s love and mercy are new every morning, even while I’m out running. It’s a good habit. Well, the verse part, maybe not the running so much in the early morning, but yes, there are good habits: being punctual, being courteous, saving money, eating well, exercise, brushing your teeth, going to church, in Texas saying sir and ma’am.
And there are bad habits, pretty much just the opposite of what I just read, okay? And I’m not going to attempt to list your bad habits, but I will tell you about the bad habits of the Israelites at the time when these verses and Lamentations were written by the prophet Jeremiah about the year 586 B.C. This was a terrible time in the history of the Israelites.
They had a bad habit of abusing the poor and cheating in marketplaces, ignoring the Sabbath day, adultery, killing God’s prophets, and just an overall disobedience of God. But the worst, the worst bad habit they had was idolatry—worshiping and following other gods, false gods, idols—some serious bad habits, serious sins, sins that God didn’t tolerate and that He would punish.
Jeremiah warned them. He told them to stop their bad habits and turn to God. The churchy word for that is repent, and they didn’t. And Jeremiah laments over it. The basic definition of lament is an expression of great grief or sorrow. Jeremiah is often called the weeping prophet because of his laments, his great grief and sorrow over the sins of his people and their refusal to stop their bad sinful habits.
But it’s no different today, in 2021 A.D. All people sin. We all sin. And some of our hymns are even habits. I’ll not attempt to list yours, because I don’t have to. You already know what they are—sins that you keep doing regularly, even daily. Sins that you just can’t seem to stop. And in a way, maybe you even like them. Or you’ve got a bad habit of hanging on to the guilt and embarrassment, and shame of your sins.
So, what do you do? You know that you have these bad habits. What do you do? And I say, listen to Jeremiah. Hear him lament for you. Hear him say to stop your bad habits. Hear him calling you to turn to God and to repent. Turn from your habits; stop them, and turn to God.
You know, the best way to stop a bad habit is to stop doing it, right? Whatever bad, sinful habit you have, stop it. Or at least struggle with it. Fight it. Don’t let it win all the time. Struggle with it. Yeah, listen to Jeremiah’s lament and listen to his warnings, but also listen to his words of hope and comfort. And that’s Lamentations chapter 3, especially verses 22 and 23. One of those words in the reading is the Hebrew word for steadfast love.
In Hebrew, it’s actually one word, and that word is chesed. Everybody together, one, two, three. Yeah, you gotta clear your throat as you say it: chesed. Okay, that’s important here. It’s one of few Hebrew words that you really should know. It’s an all-purpose word that’s often translated in the New Testament as loving-kindness, endless-mercy, limitless-grace, and many other things, but here it’s steadfast love.
Chesed is all of that stuff—all of God’s loving-kindness, endless-mercy, grace, and steadfast love. It’s all of that wrapped up in one word. Pastor Wolf Mueller likes to call chesed the gospel burrito. He does, I’m serious. Because chesed is all of God’s love and mercy and grace and forgiveness all wrapped up together in one neat little burrito. And they are new every morning.
All of God’s love and mercy and grace and forgiveness are wrapped up in that word chesed, but all of them are wrapped up in Jesus. Jesus is the epitome and the fulfillment of chesed. Every time in the Old Testament it’s talking chesed in whatever translation, it’s talking about what Jesus is coming to be for us. He is the complete, steadfast love and mercy of God.
And Jesus gives chesed and brings it to us through his suffering and his death and his resurrection. Jesus paid the price for our sinful habits, replacing them with God’s steadfast love and mercy. And Jesus gives chesed to us every day and every time that we turn from those bad habits and turn to God and repent and confess, receiving the benefit of what Christ has done for us.
Chesed comes wrapped up to us in Jesus every day, every time that we confess and receive that steadfast love and mercy. Yes, stop your bad habit of sin, but also get into the good habit of receiving God’s steadfast love and mercy every day. Yeah, we have a habit of sin, but God has a habit of forgiveness. God’s habit is steadfast love and mercy new every day. He does not fail. His faithfulness is great, the text says.
He always will do it. It’s his habit to forgive you. And it doesn’t matter how bad your sin habit is. No matter what sin you’ve done or habitually do, there’s no amount of sin that God’s steadfast love and mercy can’t forgive. It never ceases, Jeremiah says. It never comes to an end. No matter how habitual your sins are, it’s not greater than God’s habit of love for you in Christ. Your habits are not greater than God’s habit. Jesus died to make that habit possible.
The habit of never ceasing to forgive you, never coming to an end. His mercies are new every morning, every day.
Now there are some Christians out there today who say that once you become a believer, once you become a Christian, a follower of Jesus and believe in His forgiveness, that confessing your sins or even lamenting over them isn’t needed once you receive the forgiveness of Jesus when you become a Christian. The problem with that is we still do sin, habitually even.
Martin Luther talks about this in his explanation of the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. The fifth petition is “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Okay, he says about that petition, we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. True. Yeah, we sin much. We sin daily. Even habitually. And so we confess much, even daily, because we sin daily.
In fact, in the Lord’s Prayer—the greatest prayer—it’s given to us by Jesus himself, saying that we should pray regularly to ask for forgiveness. And so we seek it every day, because we need it every day. It’s not just a one-time deal. Again, it’s new every morning, every day.
In fact, a good way to deal with people that have that view that you don’t need to confess your sins anymore, you don’t need to lament over your sins anymore, a great response is, well, the Lord’s Prayer, because there it is. Jesus said, pray this, pray it regularly: forgive us our sins. There it is.
But also, Jeremiah’s words here, that his mercies are new every day. Because we need them every day. This is such great news, right? This is such good news, especially in light of our habit of sin. It’s good news that God has a habit of being faithful to show up every day with new mercy and love for us.
So again, listen to Jeremiah; hear his words of warning, but you also hear his words of comfort that are fulfilled in Jesus for you. There’s a lot of adjectives that people use to describe God’s steadfast love and mercy—his chesed, right?—there’s a lot of adjectives. God’s love is amazing, it’s gracious, it’s everlasting. You go on and on.
We can add one, I think. God’s love is habitual. God’s habit of forgiving every sin of yours, every day, mercies that are new every morning. So may you know that love and that mercy every morning, whether you’re running or not, or whatever. Maybe repeat them, too. Every day, every morning, God’s mercy and love are in you. Amen.
The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the Holy Spirit be with you. Amen.
