Let's be turning to Lamentations
chapter 3. That is the little book following
Jeremiah and just before Ezekiel. So, this is written by the prophet
Jeremiah. Lamentations chapter 3 and I
want to begin in verse 18. And I said, my strength and my
hope is perished from the Lord. Now this is the initial conclusion
of Jeremiah because of the Lord's chastening of Jeremiah and of
his people. He says, remembering mine affliction
and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath them still
in remembrance and is humbled in me. And this is what the Lord's
chastening produces in his children. We're humbled. When the Lord
chastens us, it does humble us. It brings to our mind our foolish
ways, our sins, our iniquities, and we're humbled because God
takes notice of us and loves us the way a parent loves their
children and chastens and instructs their children whom they love. It's humbling to us. And what
our Lord does is just and holy. He's always right in what He
does. And we see this here, this gracious
work of the Lord now begins, it begins to be revealed to Jeremiah. He says in verse 21, and this
is really the beginning of our text. This I recall to my mind,
therefore have I hope. And whatever the prophet was
trusting in before that gave him hope, whatever that was,
that's perished before the Lord. And it was removed by God's work. And put in its place is this
hope of God that is now brought to the mind of the prophet. 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. So
Jeremiah, in this book, is describing the sorrows of the church. And this is a lamentation. He's lamenting these things. But when we see the mercy of
God toward us in his chastening hand, when we see this, we see
that our God is very faithful to us in Christ, that he's not
let us go, though we think all is lost, that we think we've
spurned God's grace, and despite the spirit of grace, and sometimes
we think, we feel as though we're cut off. that God has done with
us and that He's refused us and pushed us out, but the Lord is,
what He does is for our good and He draws us near to Himself
so that we see His faithfulness in instructing us, in chastening
us, and in keeping us. And so we see actually that the
Lord, rather than shutting us up forever in darkness to put
us away, to cast us out, to be rid of us, he's actually preserving
us. And we see his forgiveness for
us in Christ. We see how he keeps us. And we understand more and more
His grace and His eternal life for us in Christ. And so then
all the sorrows and the difficulties and the trials that we go through,
they're all put into perspective in light of Christ. And He's
made our light. And we see that He's our life
and that He's our all once again. And so because of the mercies
of God toward us in Christ, the believer has hope. has a true
living hope in God that shall one day be made sight. We're
gonna have those things one day. We're gonna possess those things,
not in hope or in faith, but as we see things as they are
in Christ, what already is in Christ. So the prophet says in verse
21, this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. And he's recalling what we're
going to consider now this morning here. He had a hope, but that
hope, whatever it was, is now replaced by the gracious hope. influence of God revealing to
him what he has done and provided for him in Christ Jesus. He recalls the mercies of God. So I want to begin first, I have
two points, and I want to first begin with four things about
the mercy of God's covenant promises. So four things we're going to
look at that are the mercies of God established for us in
His covenant with us, made with us, the covenant of grace established
for us in Christ. So first, God's covenant promises
are eternal. They're eternal. surpass the
minute, minuscule life of you and me. Our days are but a vapor,
and it seems like this is it. Everything's just weighing on
us, and all these things have such impact on us, but the reality
is we're but a vapor, and God's promises are eternal. They far outshine anything that
you or I do. These promises are established
by God the Father. They're met in Christ the Son
and revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. And this was done before
the foundation of the world. Paul, opening his letter to Titus
in Titus 1 verses 1 and 2, he says, Paul, a servant of God
and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's
elect. Just think of that. to be part
of the faith of God's elect, to be in that body of God's saints
that we are children of faith, children of promise in Him. And
the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness, that
is a true godliness, a true righteousness, which is the righteousness of
God. And he says, verse two, in hope of eternal life, which
God that cannot lie promised before the world began." These
mercies that are given unto us are eternal. They were promised
to us before the world began so that our hope is eternal. It's an eternal hope. It's an
eternal life by God according to His promise given to us in
eternity past. And that's just the way we speak
about it. God's not constrained by time,
we are. So we say eternity past, but
it's in eternity. These are eternal things. This
mercy was established for us when God chose us in Christ back
in eternity. And what that means is Christ
is all. He gave us into the hand of His
Son Jesus Christ. Christ is all. Ephesians 1-4
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. That's when you were chosen.
That's when God chose you in Christ before the foundation
of the world. That's when our life was secured
because we were given to Christ. We're here and we know and worship
the Son because we've been made sure and certain, our salvation,
our life is made sure and certain in Christ. Before the children
of God did any good or evil, we were made sure in Christ. And that's a picture of what
we see in Jacob and in Esau. It's how Paul words it in Romans
9-11 when he said, The children, Jacob and Esau, being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. And so God chose a people to
be the bride of Christ before we did any good or evil. These
things are beyond us. They exceed us. They are eternal
promises, which God fulfills. And so it cannot be derailed
by temporal, earthly things. That's the beauty of it. They
cannot be altered or derailed by temporary, fleshly, earthly
things. Second. God has accomplished
all these promises for us in Christ. So they were made in eternity,
and now they're already accomplished in Christ. And he's now making
this known of what Christ has done. He's making it known to
us. He's unfolding the mystery of God in Christ through the
preaching of the cross. This is how we know the will
and the mind of God which was kept from us, which was which
we could not see, but now we see. God's made it known to us
in Christ. John the Baptist's father. declared
in his day that the promises of God, the promised salvation
of God, was now coming to pass. He saw it unfolding right before
his eyes when the harbinger of Christ, that is the one who foreshadowed,
who went just before Christ's coming, when the harbinger came,
John the Baptist's son was born. He knew this is the fulfillment
of the promise of God to save his people, which he told us,
and the way he said it, by the mouth of his holy prophets, which
have been since the world began. And what we see, the more that
I study this word and the more I look at this, simply what I
see is that the scriptures are showing us how that God promised
salvation to us And everything he promises, he just brings it
to pass. And he keeps bringing it to your
mind. He keeps bringing it to your attention. I said I would
do this, and I did it. And I said I would do this, and
I did it. You think about people in your
lives. If you know somebody who always
speaks a good game, they tell you good things, positive things,
but they never come through with those things, you begin to think,
I don't believe anything they say. Sounds great, but I don't
believe them. But that person who says what
they're going to do and then does it, you know you can depend
on them. And you have a high regard for
them. Well, the Lord does that. The Lord does that for us over
and over again. He tells us what he's going to
do, and he does it. And he brings it to our attention.
Through all the things, the troubles and things that we see and hear,
one thing that comes through is this line that just says,
God brings to pass what he says he's going to do and you can
trust his word and that's exactly what he's doing. These are promises
which began all the way back in the garden when the Lord said
in the hearing of Adam and Eve to the serpent, He said, I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. And Christ came. And he did that
very thing on the cross when he crushed the head of the serpent,
though his heel was bruised by the serpent when he died, but
he crushed the head of the serpent and God did exactly what he said.
He put enmity. He put a division. He made a
gracious distinction in the people of God as opposed to the people
of the devil. And he brings us out of that
darkness and out of that slavery and bondage to sin. And so when
the fullness of time was come, God fulfilled his word to us
by sending his son, born of a woman, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons. All right, so, so far we've seen
that these mercies, these covenant promises, they're eternal, they
are accomplished in Christ, so they're eternal and accomplished,
now third, They never run dry. They never run dry toward us
in Christ Jesus. His mercies never fail. His mercies
never expire. And they never run out. They're
never used up. Jeremiah wrote it this way in
verse 22 and 23. the Lord's mercies, it's of the
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions
fail not. Aren't you thankful that it says,
that it doesn't say that we're not consumed because we keep
the law, we've done everything right, we keep doing the right
things and never doing the wrong? No, it doesn't even include us. It puts it all on your God. It all rests on Him. His mercies
are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. I'm
a failure. I fail. I don't always do what
I should do. I don't always keep my word,
though I want to and I try to. But I fail. But God doesn't fail. He doesn't come short. He doesn't
run dry on anything. I'm gonna quote some scriptures
here, several scriptures, and I want you to notice this phrase,
according to his riches. According to his riches. Ephesians
1, 7, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace. It's according
to. And what that's saying is, it's
not out of, like the amount of God's grace is now decreasing
because he's giving you a little grace. And then, oh, he gave
someone else some grace, and now it's decreasing. No, it's
according to the riches of his grace. It never is consumed. It never runs dry. It never decreases. It never goes down. It's never
going to run out for you, brethren. It's always there, because it's
according to his grace, according to his grace. Ephesians 3 verse
16 that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to
be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man it
cannot fail because it's according to his abundance according to
his riches and he's rich he's God He has all things. He can bring forth all things.
He never fails. He never reduces at all, brethren. One more, Philippians 419. But
my God shall supply all your need according to his riches
in glory by Jesus Christ. And so if he shows mercy to her,
he can still show mercy to you because he hasn't run dry. He
hasn't run out. It's according to, brethren,
according to. Turn over to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40. Let's go towards
the end of that chapter in verse 28. We'll pick up there. Isaiah 40, verse 28. Hast thou
not known? Hast thou not heard that the
everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his
understanding. He giveth power to the faint,
and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even
the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary,
and they shall walk and not faint. Doubt him no longer. He is willing
and able to save you to the uttermost, and he will not come short of
it. His promises are eternal. His promises have already been
accomplished and fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and His promises
never expire. They never run out, they never
run dry, they never come short of that which is our expectation
now in Christ, the hope that is given to us. And fourth, these
covenant promises are revealed unto us, and He reveals them
to you through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is faithful to give you His
people His Word, to teach you, to instruct you, to encourage
you, to strengthen you in the inner man, to bless you and fill
your heart with all this joy of what He has done for you in
Christ. If I go back to Titus 1.3, Paul says now, adding to
what we saw before, that God hath in due times manifested
His Word. Through preaching. Through preaching. He's manifested his word through
preaching. What that means is he's making
it visible to you. He's tangibly showing you, declaring
to you, bringing to your minds, evidently setting it forth before
you what he's accomplished for you in Christ. That's what the
preaching is. It's manifesting to you what
he's done for you. That's why we gather. This is
how it pleases God to make you to know what He's done for you. And I'm thankful for it because
I'm a forgetful person and my eyes go on to things of this
world. And then in the preaching of
the gospel, I'm reminded again what God has done for me graciously,
sovereignly, mercifully, wonderfully in Christ Jesus. and it blesses
my heart through the preaching of the gospel. So that's what
we're doing. We're setting forth who he is, what he's done, and
for whom he's done it. And if you wonder, well, who
has he done it for? He reveals faith in them that he's done
it. who hear him and believe him and rejoice in him, who thank
God for what he's done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, who
thank God for saving me from my sin. for showing me and telling
me what he's done to put away my sin. And we see this when
Paul would preach to the people, he revealed God's word. He revealed to them Christ and
what Christ accomplished. That's what he went around telling
the people. what Christ did, how he fulfilled
the Word of God. When he was writing to the Galatians,
he described his preaching. He said to them, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you. That's what he's saying. It's
the same thing. When he says manifest, it means evidently
we set Christ forth, crucified among you. How did he do that?
through the preaching. Through preaching, God manifests
to you what He's done for you by Christ and for whom He did
it, that is, by revealing faith in your heart that looks to Christ
and believes Him and rests in Him. That's what the Lord does
there. So these mercies are eternal,
they are accomplished by Christ, they never run out, and they're
revealed. That's a mercy, brethren. Those
are mercies of God's covenant promises. Now our next point. I want to come to a few of the
specific mercies that God has given to us in Christ. I want to look at just a few
of these specifics. So four mercies we'll look at
that are given to us or accomplished by Christ for us. One, believers
are redeemed by Jesus Christ. We've been redeemed and that
means we've been purchased. If you have a Cash, for example,
if you have the currency of the land, you can go to a store and
redeem something with that. You can make a purchase, you
can buy an outfit, and it's yours. You can walk out of that store
because you redeemed it, and that's what redemption by Christ
means. It means He purchased us. We are His possession. He owns us. He speaks for us. He provides for us. If you buy
an item and you bring it out of the store and you set it on
your car as you're opening the door and someone comes and puts
their hand on it and starts to take it, you speak up and say,
excuse me, that's mine. That's mine. And that's what
Christ does for us. We're His purchased possession. So no one else can take possession
of us. No one else can take us. We're His. And no one's going
to take us out of His hands. not going to happen. We are his
purchased possession. We were sold under sin in Adam. We were made slaves to unrighteousness,
slaves to sin and iniquity, but we are now delivered from that,
purchased out of that death, purchased out of that darkness,
purchased out of that bondage by the blood of Christ who sacrificed
himself for his people. who put away our sins and obtained
forgiveness for our sins and obtained life for us and gives
us that life, blesses us in himself. He delivers us from that and
gives us life in himself. Paul said in Romans 3, 24-26
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, through the purchase of Christ of us,
whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith
in His blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Because your faith
in Jesus was given to you by God, who chose you and put you
in Christ and is pleased to reveal this life and salvation in you
which looks and trusts Christ. 2. Believers have been given
the gift of the Holy Spirit And the Holy Spirit regenerates us. That is, He gives us life, a
new birth. We were birthed in Adam, in sin,
and death, and darkness, and we are now born again by the
Spirit of God, born of the seed of Christ, the incorruptible
seed of Christ, so that now we live. We live, and all the things
relevant to salvation and life, he works in us. We are new creatures,
brethren. We have a new heart. He makes
his word effectual in our hearts so that we hear it and believe
that word. And we're moved in faith, being
led of the Spirit, to act upon that hope and that love and that
faith which he gives to us, bearing fruits of the Spirit by his grace. We're transformed into the image
of Christ. Being turned from the image of
this world and Adam in sin and stamped in its place is the image
of Christ Jesus our Lord. And he continues to dwell in
us and reveals Christ more and more unto us. In John 16 verses
13 and 14, Howbeit, our Lord said, when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall
not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he
speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me,
for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. I was thinking this morning about
what the Holy Spirit does in us and it's like the functions
of a body. And our body has many systems.
We have the muscle system, and the skeletal system, and the
nervous system, and the cardiovascular system, and the endocrine system,
and all these different systems that just work, and they just
function, and it just grows and does what it's supposed to do.
That's what life in Christ is, by the Holy Spirit. He just makes
it all function and work. And He teaches and instructs
us and keeps us and provides for us and grows us in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All the
systems that are relevant to the life of a believer are given
to us and worked in us by the gift of the Holy Spirit because
of the redemption of Jesus Christ. All these blessings, brethren.
3. Believers have eternal life in Christ right now, and what
He started, He shall complete. It's not going to come short. being confident of this very
thing that he which hath begun a good work in you shall or will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. What he begins, he finishes. He completes. He doesn't leave
projects undone and unfinished. He finishes what he started. Four, we see Jesus glorified
in us. Matthew 13. 16 and 17, but blessed
are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Verily I say unto you, that many
prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which
ye see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which
ye hear and have not heard them. These men, he's talking about
good men, men that were saved. And they labored in a time where
things were not as plain and not as revealed as they are unto
us in this day of grace now that Christ has come. And the church's
sorrows are detailed here by the prophet in this book of Lamentations. But we are called to see and
behold him who overcame this world. who overcame that bondage
and that slavery and the death that we were born into. He overcame it. He destroyed
the works of the devil and in that he reconciled us to God
so that we now are the children of God and have fellowship with
God and have knowledge and understanding of God and have a knowledge and
understanding of His salvation. and life. And that's why you
have such rest and peace in your souls because you see how God
himself has provided everything perfectly for you, having made
full provision for you already before you were ever born in
Christ. It's all done. It's all good,
glorious news. And so we see him who overcame. For example, in Lamentations
in chapter three, the very first verse, that speaks of Christ. That is of Christ our Redeemer.
It says, I, this is our Lord speaking, I am the man that hath
seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. Your Savior willingly
bore the wrath of God for you. You that are his people, you
that believe him, you that are sinners who cannot save yourselves,
he bore that wrath of God in your place as your surety, brethren,
to give us life in himself. And the power of his life now
turns our eyes from dead things that cannot save to him who saves
us. And it opens our ear, which was
once deaf and could not hear, our ears now open to hear the
voice of Christ, and to hear Him sing, and to hear Him speak
to us, and to receive these words, and believe His word, and believe
Christ of whom it testifies. As it says in Hebrews 12, 2,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God. He tells us, our Lord tells us,
be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. I've done it, he says. It's done. It's done, brethren. Whatever
sorrows we as believers are called of God to endure, we shall endure
them in Christ unto our eternal prophet in joy. All things are
for our good. All the sorrows, all the difficulties,
all the things we suffer loss of in this world, they are for
our good and our profit. you will not be destroyed eternally
by them. I'm not saying you won't have
pain. I'm not saying that you won't shed tears or that you
won't suffer. We do suffer in this world. We are called to suffer and endure
hardships and to feel pain and to feel sorrow and empathy for
others and to go through those things and minister to one another
in love and care and kindness and gentleness. but they will
not destroy you eternally, whose hope rests in Christ. It's an eternal work that what
you do cannot shake or alter. It doesn't change it. God has
secured you and established you and anchored you. in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he says in 1 John 5, 4, and
5, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. You shall overcome. You have
already overcome. You already sit in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus right now. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. That's how God reveals
to you that you're his. He gives you faith in Christ.
Who is he that overcometh the world? But he that believeth
that Jesus is the Son of God. And so believers, we are redeemed
by Christ. Believers are given the gift
of the Holy Spirit who works all these systems of living souls. All the things that living souls
do, the Spirit works in you. And you live and breathe and
feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And this work, it's a forever
work. It's an eternal work that does
not end. Shall not end brethren. It's
yours in Christ and we see Christ glorified We see Christ. He's our hope. He's our all and
in him we overcome These things he's destroyed the works of the
devil and we in Christ overcome those works That others shall
not overcome because they do not believe and have no life
in him, but you have life in him I have a better hope for
you, brethren, a more sure hope because it's in Christ. That's
our hope. That's our confidence. And so
in this new year, brethren, as we begin 2025, know that we're
new creatures in Christ. We're born of his grace and of
his power, of his spirit, of his seed. And so think on these
things. These are profitable things.
These are comforting things. Think on the Lord. Jesus Christ
and what he's done for you. Look to him, be encouraged. Be encouraged in him, what he's
endured for you, what he's accomplished for you, and what he's working
in you. So in closing, Lamentations 3,
21 through 23, this, he says, this, this is what Jeremiah was
speaking of, this, these things, these mercies, 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. Amen.