All right, brethren, let's turn to Lamentations 3. Lamentations 3. Now this whole chapter is really prophetical. You can hear the Lord Jesus here suffering the cross. But Jeremiah, he also was put into a difficult situation and some hard things did happen to him. Preeminently, this is the Lord Jesus we're looking at here.

He begins in verse one, he says, I'm the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. This was the Lord who did this. The Lord laid down his life for his people on the cross And it was God who put our savior, his son, on that cross to justify his people. But any trial we suffer, it is the Lord that's ruling it. It's the Lord that is doing all things in it.

I want to focus our attention down here on verse 19, beginning right there, 19. He said, remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me, bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind. This I recall to my mind. Therefore, have I hope.

Our subject is a good hope, a good hope. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him. to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

It's good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth, he sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he's borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope. and giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him. He's filled full with reproach. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

For God's people, for you and me, who the Lord has called, there are some things that we can think upon and dwell upon that will cause us much trouble, cause us to be cast down further and further and further. When we start looking with the carnal eye at the things that are happening around us or to us, that's apt to make you very low.

I want you to notice here in verse 51, mine eye affecteth mine heart. because of all the daughters of my city. My enemies chase me, soar like a bird without a cause. See, when you, the eye affects the heart. The eye affects your spirit. We can think about our trials and our afflictions. We can dwell on our sins. These are things that are going to cause you to not have hope, cause you to be cast down.

Whenever the Lord sent Jeremiah, the Lord told him the people were not gonna hear him. Can you imagine the Lord sending you to preach the gospel and telling you up front that people are not gonna hear you? And he was sent, you know, the gospel's a saver of life unto life. It's a saver to God of life unto life in them that he saves. But it's a saver of death unto death in them that reject and perish because of their deceived heart.

But I want you to see here the things he thought about that strengthened him. And our Lord Jesus is speaking here, is really who is speaking here, and this is what our Savior did when he suffered the cross. This is what Jeremiah did This is what we're to do when we're in a great trial of affliction.

Verse 18, he said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord, remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me, bowed down in me. This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope.

See, he went from thinking on these other things to thinking on the things we're gonna see here. And that's what the Lord tells us to do. You remember when we went through Philippians, Paul said, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, there be any virtue. there be any praise, think on these things. That's what Paul said in Colossians. Set your affection on things above. Look to Christ where your life is, not to things on this earth. So that's what he's saying here.

He said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord, remembering my affliction and my misery. But he said, this I recall to mind, and therefore have I hope. This is what gives His people hope right here. Believers have hope given us by God. It's not just, I hope things go this way or that way. It's true hope, an expected end. God said, I know the thoughts that I think toward you to give you an expected end. And He's given us a good hope through grace, hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie promised us before the world began. The Lord's Word says all who are born of God have a good hope through grace. We have a good hope through grace. We're saved by hope. One day we won't have it. One day our hope's gonna be realized and we're gonna be with our Lord forever. But right now, we're saved by hope because hope looks to Christ. Hope is looking to our Savior who is our salvation, who shall save all his people from our sin.

God-given hope, this is what I want to show you, it's all in Christ. God-given hope is all in the Lord Jesus. All the things we see here and see below are not our hope. These things are perishing, but our hope's in Christ. And what we're gonna see right here in this passage are the reasons we have a good hope in our Lord Jesus.

First of all, our good hope is due entirely to God's mercies. It's all salvations, all of God's mercies. Every day you get through, you pass through a day, it's because of the Lord's mercies. He says in verse 22, it is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. He said, this is what I recall to mind. This is why I have hope. It's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.

Jeremiah didn't have any hope in his personal merit. Not at all. You know, our Lord Jesus was without sin. Our Lord Jesus was spotless. He was, when he walked this earth, he was righteous and holy. The devil could find no fault in him. And yet our Lord did put his confidence in his doing. All his confidence was in God the Father. When he stood as our representative and walked where we walk as the perfect believer, all his hope was in God. Not in our morality.

Our hope's not in our morality. There's people who don't know God and who never, ever have any, have ever had a heart to hear the gospel. that are moral, good folks in the neighborhood, but they're not saved because of that. Our hope's not in anything we do. It's not in our person, and it's not in our works. It's not in our family relations, not in our church denomination, not in anything here below, nothing.

In order to have hope in the Lord's mercies, that's where our hope is, in the Lord's mercies, and it's due to his mercies that we have that hope. We have to know ourselves to be a sinner if we're gonna be thankful for the Lord's mercies. A person that's not a sinner is not thankful for mercy and doesn't need mercy. We have to be made to know we're the sinner. That publican smote upon his breast asking God to be merciful to me, the sinner, and that's what we have to be made to know.

Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Christ died for sinners. He only died for sinners and he only saves sinners. Takes the spirit of God to make us know we're the sinner and that's all of God's mercy.

God commended his love toward us and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It's God's mercy that calls us to repentance from looking to things below and looking at ourselves and our works. And from trusting anything that is of us, it's his mercies that make us look to Christ and trust Christ and know he is our salvation.

He said, go learn what it means. I'll have mercy, not sacrifice. I will have mercy, not sacrifice. I didn't come to call righteous folks that are making their sacrifices and trying to give their offerings of good works and church attendance and tithing and all these things to get God to receive them. He said, I didn't come to call folks like that. He won't receive that. That's not salvation. He said, I came to call sinners to repentance, to grant them repentance from trusting any of that stuff and look to Christ only.

God's mercy is in Christ, due to Christ. God will not destroy his people because Christ has made us righteous before God and God's justice is demands we be saved. It's the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.

Who the we? Who are the we? When you hear Christ speaking this and he says it's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, It's the same ones he spoke about when he went to John the Baptist and said, I have need to be baptized of thee. And he said, thus it behooves us to fulfill all righteousness. The we and the us that our Savior is speaking about is his people. He's representing all his people. He laid down his life for all his people because God showed us mercy and chose us in him before the world was made. It's all of his mercy.

God will not destroy his people because his son came and represented us on that cross and bore all, I encourage you to read this whole chapter. Our Lord bore everything described here, the wormwood and the gall, the wrath of God that his people would have had to face.

Peter said, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundance mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. See, our hope is lively. Our hope is living. The Hebrew writer said, we have a new way that Christ has consecrated for us. It's a living way. It's the Lord Jesus. And when he rose from that grave, That's where our hope is. He has begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christ came out of that grave, the firstborn from the dead. First one that ever by himself arose from the dead. First one who justice said he demands to be risen. The covenant of God was fulfilled by him and he earned being raised from the dead. No sinner ever did that. There was men who came out of the grave, he raised Lazarus, but nobody ever came out of that grave by themselves, of themselves, nobody ever came out of the grave because they deserved to come out of the grave, and that's Christ. And all our deserving heaven, and all our right to the to glory with God and acceptance with God is the Lord Jesus. He begot us again to a living hope by the resurrection of the dead. So what you wanna do is anytime you're in trouble, always hope in his mercy. Look to the Lord. Don't look below, look to the Lord. He said in the Psalms, he said, my mercy will I keep for him forevermore and my covenant shall stand fast with him. The mercy of the Lord's from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. We have a good hope in the Lord's mercy, and it's all in Christ and due to Christ.

All right, secondly, our hopes in God's love, his compassion, his pity is all due to his love. And he said, his compassions fail not, verse 22. They're new every morning. Jeremiah's hope was not in his love to God and his compassion to sinners. His hope was in God's compassion to him, God's love toward him. Those that God loves, he always saves. We're gonna look more at this in the next hour. But those he loves, he saves. Those he loves, he gives life and creates anew in the spirit. The Lord hath appeared of old to me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. That's why he drew us, because he loved us from everlasting. And his love's unfailing. He said it here, verse 22, his compassions fail not. They never fail, they never stop, they never run out. His compassions, all his mercies toward us, his love toward us never wavers. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. God loves his people in Christ, and Christ shall not fail. He shall not fail. He shall save his people from their sin, and he shall not fail. Behold, I've graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Isn't that a good hope? That's a good hope. The Lord tells you, I've graven thee upon the palms of my hands. You're ever before me. We love him because he first loved us. And he keeps us knowing this. He keeps you knowing this. He keeps you hoping in him every day. He said there in verse 23, his mercies and his compassions are new every morning.

This book's the living word. This is the only book that you can read it and it make you as overcome with joy as it did the first time you heard the gospel. It's the only book that can do that. And this book has stood the test of time. It has stood men being against it, men trying to get rid of it, and the devil trying to discredit it. And it's stood the test, because this is the living word, because Christ is the living word. He gave this word, and this word's all concerning him, And he's the one who makes this word alive to us and makes us see his mercies and his compassions all brand new every day. That's what he does. That's what he does.

Now thirdly, thirdly, a good hope is in God's faithfulness. It's in God's faithfulness. Verse 23, he said, great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. When we, when asked about their hope, somebody gets asked about their hope, if a man is looking to himself, if he has hope in himself, he's gonna start talking about his faith. He's gonna start with himself. That's, calling a man always starts with himself in everything, but the Lord's child is gonna tell you about God's faithfulness. Because we know we're saved by his faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. God's faithful to himself. He cannot deny himself. He's holy, so everything he does is gonna be right. He can't deny himself. He's faithful to his purpose. What he purposed from the beginning, he brings to pass. He declared the end from the beginning. Things that were not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand. I will do all my pleasure. I will.

He's faithful to his covenant promise, and it's all in Christ. God's not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?

Boy, I tell you what, there's nobody in this world, no man in this world, no fallen son of Adam, that you can put confidence in and be certain that it's coming to pass, not anybody. The best of men are men at best, and they're apt to deceive and apt to disappoint, even if they don't mean to, they're apt to disappoint. But not God, not God. When God makes a promise, he brings it to pass.

And all our hope of salvation is based on God's covenant He's faithful to his Son. He promised Christ, I'll make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. And because that's so, his seed, all God's elect that belong to Christ, his seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

Because the Lord did everything to save us and make us accepted of God by His works and by who He is, and because God's covenant is with Him, and He's established our end of the covenant, the side of the covenant that had to do with all God's elect, He did it.

Do you remember when Moses came down from the mountain? And he said, you sanctify yourselves and make yourself ready for tomorrow, and the Lord's going to tell you what he commands. And just like lost, deceived carnal men, they said, everything he says, we will do it. And they washed themselves. Picture of a man trying to sanctify himself through keeping the commands of God.

And that next day, they saw that mountain burning and quaking. They saw what God demanded. They saw holy God, and they saw that mountain on fire quaking. And these people that the day before was boasting what they'd do, they ran and hid and said, Moses, you go between us and God. We're gonna be destroyed if we try to come to him.

That's what the Lord's gotta teach us. If we try to sanctify ourselves and wash ourselves and we try to come to God because we've kept his commandments, you're going to meet with a God that's on fire and that will consume you with fire. We're going to have to be made to see God as a holy God. He won't receive you because you gave the old college try. You're going to have to be perfect.

And only Christ perfected He fulfilled the whole law. He said, your law's in my heart. I came to do thy will, O God. And he fulfilled that first covenant, took it out of the way for his people, and he comes now in grace and mercy and establishes the new covenant in the new heart and makes you to see you've been perfected forever.

God remits your sins and now there's no more offering for sin. It takes him doing that before you'll ever serve God, before we'll ever stop looking to ourselves and focusing all our attention on things of the flesh and the commandments and all our activity. Before we'll stop doing that, what it will take is God making us see Christ has fulfilled the law for us and the blood of Christ through the Spirit purging your conscience so you see God will not remember your sins anymore. There's no more offering. God's pleased. He's found a ransom, and it's Christ. And he makes you know that. Then, you start serving him because you're walking by faith, and you're constraining your heart by love. And that's what he's gonna, he's gonna keep that mercy and that covenant with you forever, because he's keeping it with Christ.

Remember when he said in Galatians 3, that covenant he made with Abraham, before he made it with Abraham, he made it to his seed, which is Christ. And the law entering in didn't change it, because the promise was in Christ, and Christ fulfilled it all. He fulfilled it all.

So, you think about who's the most, talking about men now, putting your confidence in men, who is the should be and usually is the most trusted man or woman that you can trust in this world is father and mother, father and mother. But here's what scripture says, when my father and my mother forsake me, The Lord will take me up. He sticks closer than a brother. He's more to be trusted than father and mother. He is the one who will save, who's faithful. Great is thy faithfulness.

Now lastly, or fourthly, a good hope is knowing that God's your portion. That word means inheritance. He's your portion, he's your inheritance. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. You see what he's doing here? He was looking at all his suffering and all the trouble and his enemies and all these things and it affected his heart. Mine eye affected my heart. But then he said, but this I recall to my mind. I start thinking on these things and I have hope. And here it is, the Lord's my portion, he's my inheritance. He's my inheritance, saith my soul, my innermost new man. He's my portion, therefore will I hope in him.

Whatever is your treasure, the Lord said, that's where your heart's gonna be. If our treasure's in this world, if our treasure's in our works, if our treasure's in something we do to be accepted of God, that's where our heart's gonna be. It's gonna be focused on those things all the time. That's what Romans 8's talking about when it says, A carnal mind is focusing on things here below. That's what Paul was talking about Colossians. A man's focusing on things below. Because his life's in those things. He thinks that's his salvation. But when your heart, when your treasure is Christ, then your heart is set on him. And he's your treasure.

Listen to this old hymn.

Once it was the blessing,
Now it's the Lord.
Once it was the feeling,
now it is His word.
Once the gifts I wanted,
now the giver I own.
Once I sought for healing,
now I seek Him alone.
Once it was my working,
His it now shall be.
Once I tried to use Him,
now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted,
now the mighty one.
Once for self I labored,
now for him alone.

See, it's all different when he saves you. The Lord is my portion. He's my portion. He's not part of my portion. He's all my portion. He's all my inheritance. The Lord is my portion, therefore will I hope in him.

And here's the good news. Here's what makes this hope so strong in the Lord. His people are his portion. Deuteronomy 32, 9, the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob's the lot of his inheritance.

I can't pass from this point without reading Isaiah. Just one part here in Isaiah, Isaiah 54. We just looked at this not too long ago, but he goes through there and he makes all those covenant promises. And he comes to this, the end, verse 17. No weapon is formed against thee shall prosper. Every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shall condemn. This is the portion of the servants of the Lord. This is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord. This is what God promises you. Their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. He's my portion. He's my portion and I'm his. That's a good hope, brethren. That's a good hope.

One more thing, and I'm gonna be brief right here. A good hope is in the Lord's goodness. And you could put there his righteousness, his goodness. He said, verse 25, the Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. You know why he's good to them that wait for him? Because when you truly wait for him, you're looking only to him. You're trusting only him. When you're in any trial, you're waiting on him to teach you, waiting on him to save you out of it, waiting on him to work his will in it. But this whole life for a believer, since he calls us, what are we doing? We're waiting for the Lord. We're waiting for him to return. and we're waiting in hope, looking to him only.

Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. He works in his time, not ours. We have to wait on him. Those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth. Hope is in the Lord being all our salvation. A good hope is resting in the Lord. because he's your salvation. Look there at verse 26. It's good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

One time I planted a garden when I was in the seventh grade, or eighth grade. First garden I ever really planted myself. And I planted it, and it had it all looking real nice, just waiting. And I never saw anything. Seemed like to me I waited forever and never saw anything, never saw any plants coming up. So I got out there and I got to, I got to put my hand to it. I got to kind of fiddling around in the dirt and trying to look and see, and I got to see it. Oh, okay, there's some plants starting to break out of the seed, you know. But because I put my hand to it, everything I touched in that garden, I messed it up. He didn't grow. The things I didn't touch grew. The things I touched did not grow. And if you put your hand to it, rather than waiting on the Lord, you're gonna mess it up. We gonna mess it up. So we have to wait on Him.

It's good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Whether it's good, it's bad, or it's otherwise. It's the Lord working it, and He's gonna teach you, and He's gonna work His will and you're gonna give him the glory, and you're gonna see he's all your hope. So wait on him. And if you do, that's because he worked it in you to make you wait. Wait on the Lord.

Let's go to him, brethren. Lord, thank you for these words. Thank you for this scripture. Thank you for giving us this good hope in our Lord Jesus. Lord, what more could we ask that you promised us, you're faithful, You've already made your people righteous and holy. You're working your will now, calling out your lost sheep. And you've told us to just wait on you and have all our hope in you. Lord, what else could we want? We know you cannot lie. We know you're gonna work your will and save all your people. Lord, give us grace to wait and hope only in you. Forgive us for not doing it. Forgive us for being impatient. Forgive us for putting our hand to it, Lord. Thank you for mercy. Thank you for mercy. Keep us hoping only in the Lord. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.