Please open your Bibles to the Book of Lamentations. Stand with me for the reading of God's word. Lamentations, chapter three. Perhaps no more fitting piece of music to be played than. piece that was just played by Bach as we come to this very powerful text amidst a lot of devastation, but also with that glorious hope of God's faithfulness. I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape. He has made my chains heavy. Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones. He has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding. He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces. He has made me desolate. He bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver. I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness. He has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. So I say, my endurance has perished. So has my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is late on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust. There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes and let him be filled with insults, for the Lord will not cast off forever. But though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love, or he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Let us pray. Our Father. Here in this text, we have a great low and a great high. Pray that you would help us to recognize both the depth of our own sin and the greatness of your sovereign grace and faithfulness in Jesus Christ. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. There is no, what, shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not thy compassions, they fail not. As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me." The author of this dearly loved hymn was Thomas Obadiah Chisholm. Thomas Obadiah Chisholm. He was converted in 1893 at the age of 27. And although a very sickly man, he loved to write poetry and hymnody based on scripture. One of the poems that he wrote was derived from our text for this morning, Lamentations chapter three and verses 22 and 23. A friend of his who was a musician was so moved by the poem that he wrote based on this text that he put a musical score with it. The result was the hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness. Though first published in 1923, it wasn't until many years later that the hymn gained some recognition. A professor at the Moody Bible Institute discovered the hymn and requested it so much at the chapel services in that school that it became a kind of favorite in that college. Then in 1945, Beverly Shea began singing Great is Thy Faithfulness at the Billy Graham Crusades. And of course, it became a favorite the world over. What many do not realize about this wonderful hymn, however, is that it is based on scripture taken from the book of Lamentations. Lamentations, some of you will know, is a collection of five lament poems. Written by the prophet Jeremiah, sometime after 586 B.C., in the wake of the destruction of Judah, the southern kingdom by the nation and armies of Babylon. Therefore, lamentations is written in what is by far one of the darkest moments in redemptive history. Perhaps you're thinking, Pastor John, this is not a good text for celebration weekend. Well, I think you'll see that it is. There's much to teach us and much to remind us of this morning, because even In this darkest moments of redemptive history, even in the aftermath of God's just judgment. And in the aftermath of the Babylonian war machine, even amidst the carnage and devastation all around him, there is reason for hope. What reason could that be? We are told in our text, the same text that inspired Shisholm's beloved hymn. Look at verses 22 and 23 with me. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, friend. I have no idea what's been going on in your life. Perhaps you're here visiting today. Perhaps you've been a member. And there's something going on, some. Some great trouble, some trial, Perhaps you've come here this morning and you are not following the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to these words. Great is his steadfast love and faithfulness. They are new every morning. We pray that God will move powerfully in all of our lives and remind us of these truths. This weekend, we are celebrating our church's 10 year anniversary. By doing so, we are celebrating first and foremost The faithfulness and covenant mercies of our great God. It's only because of God's covenant faithfulness that we are able to celebrate 10 years of ministry and growth here at Grace Presbyterian Church, for as the psalmist says in Psalm 127, one, and you know it, unless the Lord builds a house, those who build its labor in vain. Unless he does it, we labor in vain. For apart from God's sovereign grace, apart from his covenant faithfulness, we would still be in our rebellion and sin, which is where we all deserve to be. Today's passage, therefore, is a powerful reminder not only of humanity's depraved and sinful condition, but also of the undeserved grace of God that's found in Jesus Christ. The Book of Lamentations gloriously underscores the fact that the only reason we love God, we were saying it earlier, The only reason we love God is because he first loved us and is faithful to keep his promises in Christ. Thus, I believe this is a fitting passage for us this morning as we reflect upon our 10th anniversary here at Grace and God's faithfulness to us every step of the way throughout those 10 years. You'll notice from this morning's bulletin that there are three headings to our outline. The first one is looking at the historical context of Lamentations, the second one, the awful consequences of our sin, and the third one, the covenant love and mercy of God. Let's begin with the first, a wicked and rebellious nation, the historical context of Lamentations. I mentioned earlier that Lamentations is a collection of five lament poems written by the prophet Jeremiah. just after that terrible destruction of Judah in 586 BC. Though written anonymously, most believe it was penned by the prophet Jeremiah. This explains the placement of Lamentations in the canon. The book of Jeremiah foretells the imminent fall of Jerusalem to foreign invaders and immediately after the book of Lamentations expresses the profound grief and sorrow in the wake of that fall. So we have Jeremiah giving the prophecy Lamentations experiencing the fulfillment of that prophecy. The Book of Lamentations opens with these words in chapter one. What sad words they are. How lonely sits the city that was full of people. How like a widow has she become? She who is great among the nations, she who was a princess among the provinces, has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks. Among all her lovers, or if you want to replace their idols, she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. They have become her enemies. Isn't this a picture of life, friends? So many trusting in other lovers. that promise so much, but really at the end give so little, give nothing. Those who are our supposed friends in the world, whatever it is we are seeking after, whatever it is our hearts are longing for outside of God and over and above God, they are lovers, they are friends, but they are in truth idols. They're distracting us from our true friend. The true lover of our souls, he wants to give us blessings beyond measure. But here they are sitting in this city that was full of people. Now is a place of devastation. There are two things we must understand about the fall and destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah. Number one is this. Over time, God's covenant people have become an exceedingly wicked and idolatrous people. They were covenant breakers. They ignored God's clear instructions and warnings about how they were to live in the land that God had given them. Those instructions and warnings were given through Moses just prior to their entry into the land of Canaan under the military leadership of Joshua. And these words are recorded for us in Deuteronomy chapter 28, aren't they? Turn there for a moment with me. Turn to Deuteronomy 28. This is a very important chapter in redemptive history. In verses one through 14, Moses enumerates the blessings for living obediently in the land that God would give them. In verse one and two, verses one and two, it says this. And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today. The Lord your God will set you high above the nations of the earth and all the blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Listen to that. Do you want to be overtaken by the blessings of God? Overwhelmed with the blessings of God? Here we have this glorious statement, this command. Obey the Lord and you will be blessed. He goes on to say that if they live obediently before the Lord, they will be blessed in the city and in the field. The fruit of their wombs, the fruit of the ground, the fruit of their livestock will all be blessed. Moreover, the Lord will cause their enemies to be defeated before them. They would know blessing after blessing, after blessing, if they would worship God, if they would live in grateful obedience to his commands and turn away from idols. And I do not believe that the prescription here is perfect obedience. But a measure of obedience that allows them to walk with God in the land, to bring glory to him. But verses 15 through 68 go on to clearly communicate what will happen if Israel does not obey God. And let us remember that all of this, all of this is in the context of God's grace. God saved them out of the land of Egypt. He brought them out by his powerful hand into the desert because he loved his people. He set them free from bondage. All of this is couched in grace. He's not giving them a formula to earn God's favor and His love. He's saying, I love you. I've brought you out. Now obey me in the land. But then we come to verses 15 through 68, and here he clearly communicates what will happen if Israel does not obey the Lord. They will forfeit covenant blessings and receive covenant what? Curses. Curses. Look at verse 15 and following. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. And here we have a litany of statements that are exactly the opposite of the blessings they would receive. Notice cursed you shall be in the city. Cursed you shall be in the field. Cursed shall you be in your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out. Go down to verse 25, the Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. Verse 49, the Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. They shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, which the Lord your God has given you. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples from one end of the earth to the other. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Beloved, like Adam and Eve, the people of Israel were given a clear choice. Respond to God's love and commandments with grateful obedience and be profoundly blessed. Respond to God's love and commands with rebellion, disobedience and idolatry. be cursed. Live according to God's word and flourish in the land that God has given to them or live in rebellion. Come and go under God's wrath and be expelled from the land. You see how this is a kind of republication of what was said to Adam and Eve in the garden. Many here will know that Israel followed the path of Adam and Eve and chose disobedience and rebellion. For generations, God was exceedingly patient with Israel. We see that all throughout the Old Testament. He was patient with Israel, sending them prophet after prophet to lead them to repentance and renewed faith in God's covenant promises. But they persisted in their rebellion. God finally brought upon them what they had deserved for a long time. He brought upon them exactly what he said he would bring upon them in Deuteronomy chapter 28. God raised up Babylon in order to bring judgment upon his wicked, coven breaking people. One can only imagine what the idolatrous people of Jerusalem must have been thinking when they heard the marching boots and clanging weapons of the oncoming Babylonian war machine. as it approached Zion's holy hill. Remember, just like many today, they laughed and mocked and even persecuted the prophets for the things that they were saying about the the oncoming judgment of God. We learn about this event in Second Kings 25. Where it says that and in the ninth year of his reign in the 10th month, on the 10th day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siege works all around it. We learn in that same chapter that the temple was burned down. The king's house was burned to the ground. Every great house in the city, we learn, was razed to the ground. Moreover, the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed and all of the temple valuables were taken, desecrated, broken apart. and brought to Babylon. They captured and exiled the leading families of the city and left the poorest of the land to be vine dressers and plowmen. Dear ones, the city was in ruins. Many were brutally killed. Others were starving to death. I cannot help but think of scenes from from right here in Atlanta, right after the Civil War, where there were bodies strewn in the streets, people walking around hungry, buildings on fire. People who once sat down for three wonderful full meals a day in a beautiful home were looking for scraps of food near garbage cans. This was the situation. King Zedekiah's sons were slaughtered in his sight. And just to make sure that was the last thing he ever saw, they gouged out his eyes and took him to Babylon to make him a laughingstock. This is what Jeremiah was lamenting in our passage for this morning. He was lamenting the awful consequences of sin, which brings us to our second heading and verses 1-21 of our own text. The awful consequences of sin. Beloved, Jeremiah is witnessing with his own eyes the devastating effects of sin and the manifestation of God's just wrath. Look at verse 1 with me. Jeremiah writes, I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. In other words, wave after wave after wave of God's judgment is coming upon them. It's heaped upon them. The light of his sweet presence is gone. There is only darkness, only devastation. He goes on to write in verse four. He has made my flesh and skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. And beloved, Jeremiah's willful description only gets worse. And the verses through verse 20, he expresses that his prayers are shut out by God and unheard. This is the way he feels. He feels that God is like a bear lying in wait for him, ready to pounce on him and to tear him to pieces. Jeremiah is full of despair. In verse 17, he states, My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. My endurance has perished. So has my hope. from the Lord. Perhaps some of you feel like that this morning. Perhaps you've lost a loved one. Perhaps you've just received some difficult news from the doctor. Perhaps you have been running from the Lord and his hand of discipline is upon you. This is the way you feel. Jeremiah. Prophet Jeremiah was at the end of his rope. God's covenant, people in Judah chose to live like the idolatrous nations that surrounded them, and so they were experiencing God's unspeakable judgment. His eyes were like fountains of tears. He was laid in the dust, death all around him. All he saw were darkness and anguish and misery. Dear friends, before we go on, there are a couple of lessons we must learn here. Number one is this. And it's a message that is not heard today. And that is that God takes sin seriously. God takes sin seriously. He is holy and just. And so he does not and cannot let sin slide. and go unaccounted for. He is not like us. He is not like the TV networks that are always making light of sin. He's not like Hollywood. Sin is not a part of God's nature. He is never, ever comfortable with sin. He never becomes immune to it. He always hates it. And while he is immensely patient with humanity in our sin, he never excuses it. It is always a stench in his nostrils, always. English Puritan Ralph Venning, in his classic 1669 work entitled The Sinfulness of Sin, don't you love that? The Sinfulness of Sin. He writes that, quote, as God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy and always holy, so sin is sinful, all sinful. only sinful, altogether sinful, and always sinful. In my flesh, that is, in my sinful, corrupt nature, there dwelleth no good thing, Romans 7, as in God there is no evil, so in sin there is no good. God is the chiefest of goods, and sin is the chiefest of evils." Judah was full of idolatry and sin. God raised up Babylon, the rod of His wrath, to bring judgment upon them. Beloved, let us not think that God's hatred of sin has weakened or diminished in any way since these days. Our culture may be ignoring God and redefining morality, but it doesn't change the fact that God takes sin seriously and that his standard is exactly the same as it always has been. His holiness is the standard. His law, his righteous law is the standard. This leads to our second point under Heading 2. Let us be mindful that God's judgment will come. Dear friends, the people of Jerusalem ignored the prophet's calls to repentance and faith, and they continued in their covenant breaking. Their own minimizing of God's warnings, however, didn't change the fact that those warnings were serious and valid and true. How must the words of the prophets echoed in the ears of the people when the devastation of God's judgment was all around them? How they must have remembered God's word in Deuteronomy 28 concerning the consequences of unyielding wickedness. Beloved, we are shown here a picture of what is coming. It's a picture of what is coming. God's judgment is coming. And it will be more devastating than what we are considering here. Like the mighty army of Babylon laying siege to Jerusalem. It will be unstoppable. In Revelation 20, we are told that on the final day, each each person, every single person will be judged and those that are still living in their sin and unbelief will go. to what is called an everlasting second death. A horrific place described as the eternal lake of fire, but those who are united to Christ by faith will be acquitted for Christ's pay for their sins on the cross. Friends, the bad news is we are sinners, guilty in the sight of a holy God. The good news is that God has made provision for us to be saved from our sins through Jesus Christ. More on that in a few minutes. Beloved, in Lamentations 3, verses 1 through 20, we see God's prophet despairing. He is overcome with grief at the devastation all around him. But then he calls to mind something glorious in verse 21. Do you see that in verse 21? And what he calls to mind is pure gospel. It is gospel. What he calls to mind is a bright and glorious light that is piercing through the darkness. What he calls to mind revives his hope because he calls to mind the steadfast covenant keeping love and faithfulness of God. All is not lost. All is not lost. Look with me now at verse 21 in our third heading, the covenant love. And mercy of God. The lamenting prophet writes in verse 21. But this I call to mind. And therefore, I have hope. Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is. Your faithfulness. All is not lost. Friends, I've said it before from this pulpit. But you can have all things, but not know the Lord and you have nothing. You can have nothing, but have the Lord and have all things. We'll see later that Jeremiah calls the Lord his portion, everything. Notice, beloved, that Jeremiah's hope is not revived by a self-improvement plan. He's not going to the local Christian bookstore to buy up Joel Osteen's latest work. Hey, Jeremiah, just make every day like Friday. You'll be all right. No, neither is he revived by a decision to live with greater purpose or a more upbeat and positive attitude. No, his hope is revived by the remembrance of something more precious and more powerful than anything within ourselves. or anything in this world for that matter. Now, his hope is revived by the remembrance of the covenant keeping, unceasing, steadfast love and mercy of God. It's God's great faithfulness that raises drooping hands and lifts his hanging head. In his greatest moment of weakness, Jeremiah and presumably other members of the faithful remnant, they remember God's gracious promise covenants. Promises like the one he made in Genesis 3, 15 to crush the head of Satan and his entire evil empire through the seed of the woman. Who is that seed? It is the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Promises like the one he made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 15 and 17 to make his offspring a great nation as numerous as the stars in the sky. We learned from Paul that that's a spiritual nation ultimately. Promises to Abraham to give him and his offspring a promised land to dwell in forever and to bless all the families of the earth through his seed. Capital S, that seed being Christ. And promises like the one he made to David to place one of David's descendants on the throne forever. And again, that descendant is Christ. Jeremiah thought on God's covenant faithfulness and it revived hope in his broken heart. Now, beloved, there are at least four things we must take away from these verses. And here they are. And they're right from the text. Number one, God's steadfast love and mercy are unceasing. They are unceasing. They are never ending. The key Hebrew word here, as some of you will know, is the word chesed. Now, I have a cold this morning, so I'm not going to say that with too much gusto. Chesed, it's a pivotal theological term in the Old Testament that is hard to translate into English, for it holds numerous ideas. It's pregnant with glorious ideas. We don't have an English word that really tells the whole story. We translate it into all kinds of words like steadfast love, loving kindness, mercy, goodness, faithfulness, loyalty, and other words in addition. In fact, the word chesed means all of these things at once. When Jeremiah writes that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, he is saying that God's loyal, covenant-keeping, always faithful love and mercy never, ever, ever, ever fail. They never fail. This is the love that we can count on when all other loves fail. It's a love, friends, that is so loyal, so deep, so amazing that it compelled God to deliver over his only son into the hands of wicked men to be crucified on the cross at Calvary. Do you have loyalty like that towards anyone else in the world? That you would give your son to die for them? I think not. Is God loyal to us? Is he loyal to sinners? He sent his son to die for us. He sent his son to be crucified, to bear the very wrath of God that we deserve, that we might go free, that we might be acquitted by grace through faith. All to save us from the power and the penalty of our sins. What an amazing love. It's a love that we can never be separated from. It's never ending, it's unceasing, steadfast. It follows us all the days of our lives, Psalm 23. Goodness and chesed will follow us all the days of our lives and into eternity. Paul describes this kind of love in Romans 8, 38 and 39, where he says that he is sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That's the Chesed love of God. God's steadfast love and mercy are never ceasing. They are new, notice, every morning. That's the second thing we must see here. And as I thought about that, I thought, what does that mean? I've been singing that for years. What does that mean? It's new every morning. Well, Matthew Henry puts it this way. Every morning, we have fresh instances of God's compassion towards us. He visits us with them every morning. Beloved, every morning when the sun rises, we should experience afresh God's love for us in Christ, that he sent his only son to die for us. And that through faith in him, we are forgiven. And granted eternal life. Forgiven, full pardon. Full pardon for all of our sins. God's love and mercy are new every morning because in the words of one commentator, every day, God's mercies and compassions are ready to be proved and known again. Whatever is going on in our lives, whatever trials that you may be going through, remember these glorious words, the steadfast love of the Lord is new every morning. Calvin thinks that Jeremiah is alluding to that great verse in Psalm 30, verse five, which says, For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor for a what? Lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Haven't you experienced that? This leads to the fourth point, God's faithfulness is a great faithfulness. Isn't that true, beloved? Isn't God's faithfulness great? What a faithfulness. It's great because it's not a faithfulness contingent upon something outside of himself. Rather, it's a faithfulness that springs forth from the very character and being of God himself, a faithfulness which has proven itself through the ages and especially in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Are you ready to say with Jeremiah, no matter what is going on in your life, great is thy faithfulness. I'll never forget that dark night. Twenty one years ago. After I'd been in a drunk driving car accident. Girl went to the hospital. And I went to jail. So sitting in that place, it was the worst moment of my life. I had just been told that I would probably spend the next 15 years of my life in prison for what I had done. That night, with my entire life seemingly in pieces before me, the Lord saved me. He saved me. He showed me his love and mercy through Jesus Christ. I had just committed the worst crime and sin of my entire life. And that's when he met me. I'd been told about this love and mercy my entire life, but I had not listened, really. I'd listened, boys and girls, I had listened with my ears, but I didn't listen with my heart. And so I went on craving the world, craving all the things that would ultimately hurt me and others. and ignoring the love and mercy of God. But he came to me that night. He showed me that while I've been unfaithful. He is faithful. And I must put my trust in him, I must make him my portion. My everything. Dear friend, do you know Christ? Do you know him? To your portion? Or are you still wandering aimlessly? trusting in the things of this world to deliver what they cannot deliver. The fourth thing I want to mention from this passage is that it is God's great covenant faithfulness that we must always call to mind in good times and in bad. For it stirs up our hearts to trust and to pray and to worship and to live in grateful obedience. It's this great faithfulness that causes us, this chesed love that causes us and motivates us and inspires us to godly living. Beloved, call God's faithfulness to mind on a daily basis and especially in those times of trial. Did you notice that Jeremiah calls God's faithfulness to mind in verse 21? It reminds us of those words in Psalm 42 when the psalmist says, Why are you cast down on my soul and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I will again praise him, my salvation and my God. So in the aftermath of destruction and of Jerusalem and the ruin of the southern kingdom of Judah, Jeremiah recalls God's love and faithfulness and his hope is restored. But what does he do next? Very quickly, he does four things. Number one. He declares that God is his portion. Look at verse 24 with me. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. In other words, the Lord is all I've really got. He recognizes that the Lord is all I've really got. He is my only treasure. He is my only real inheritance. Thus, I will put my trust and my hope in him. You know, just after my dad died in October, you know, dad had one of those top drawers in his desk that, you know, you're never supposed to go into, kids. I think we all have, I have one now. My kids start rummaging around in there, I'm like, get out of there. There's all kinds of great goodies and treasures in there. Something's valuable, you just throw it in the top drawer. Of course, the thieves know the same thing, so I don't know why we do that. But I was in, just after my dad died, I was in, My dad's top drawer with my brother, Brady. We were looking around in there, trying to figure out what to do with this stuff. And I could almost hear my dad behind me saying, get out of there. What are you doing in my drawer? But I was reminded that my dad couldn't take his top drawer with him. Couldn't take his 401Ks with him. Couldn't take his home with him. Couldn't take his family with him. The Lord is my portion. It's all I've got, really. We recognize that. Secondly, he will wait upon the Lord and seek his face. Notice that Jeremiah waits upon the Lord and seeks his face. Verse 25 says, The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Here we learn, friends, that Christianity is not passive. Christianity is not passive. Even waiting is not passive. It's an active waiting. It's a prayerful waiting. Waiting on God is praying. It's seeking God. Beloved, wait upon God in prayer and seek his face with sincerity, for the promise is that God is good to those who do so. The Geneva reformer, John Calvin, writes that, quote, The prophet reminds us here that God's blessings flow to us from his favor, as from a fountain, as though he had said, quote, As a perennial fountain sends forth water. So also also God's goodness manifests and extends itself. Next time you see a fountain, think about God's love. Always coming out. Always. Thirdly, we are to trust in God and wait quietly for his salvation. You have something difficult going on in your life right now? Wait patiently for the Lord. He will deliver you. Fourthly, be wise in your youth and patient in affliction. Here, Jeremiah is teaching the young I think this is applicable, especially to teenagers. He's encouraging the young to gladly accept the yoke of God. And thus, to relinquish their own rights and wisdom in order to gladly accept and submit to the will and wisdom of God, this is especially true in time of affliction. These words are for all the young people who survived this horrible catastrophe of God's judgment. He's saying. Wear the yoke of God, accept what has happened and serve him. Trust him. Trust him. Verse 32 states, Though God cause grief. He will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. Dear friend, are you calling to mind God's steadfast love this morning? God is a loyal, loving God. covenant-keeping God. He has kept his promises by sending his son Jesus to purchase our redemption with his blood. Let us declare, therefore, with Jeremiah that he is our portion. Let us wait upon him. Let us seek his face. Let us trust him. Let us live quorum Deo before the face of God. Let us be patient in affliction, for great is his faithfulness. His love is never ceasing. As I have reflected upon this passage this past week, I thought a lot about the last 10 years here at Grace Church. Many thoughts came to mind about how God has shown his grace and his faithfulness to us, we who are the least to deserve it. He's done so, first of all, by being faithful in his provisions for a place to worship. First, in a home, a living room. Then in a room at the First United Methodist Church, then in an old grocery store slash Christian bookstore, where the back room was a meat locker. And it was cold. It was cold back there. The kids, after that, we just put them back there. They'd freeze. And then he gave us, by his grace, this beautiful 17,000 square foot facility. What a blessing. What a blessing. You know, a week hardly goes by where I don't meet somebody that says, oh, that church, that is so beautiful. God is faithful. Secondly, he has been faithful through times of affliction, hasn't he? Beloved, think about all the trials, all the suffering that has taken place in this flock in the last 10 years. And yet the songs of praise are still heard. We've gone through a lot, sickness, cancer. The loss of loved ones. A home that burned down. The various church discipline cases. And on we could go, but through it all, God has shown himself to be faithful. And we can say with the prophet that God's mercies are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. And what a prospect I have from up here. When I know certain people are going through hard times, but they come and like Jeremiah, they declare the mercies of God, even in the midst of trial, sing his praise in the Lord's Day, sometimes having to stop because tears are flowing. But here, what a blessing. Thirdly, God has been faithful to feed, nourish, comfort and grow his church through the ordained means of grace. Through every season of life, week after week, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, God's God has worked mightily Through the reading and preaching of his word, the sacraments and prayer, our good shepherd has promised to lead us into green pastures and to restore our souls. And he has done just that for 10 years. And we praise him for that. And lastly, he has been faithful to use this church to reach many for Christ and to make disciples. Not only here, but all over the world. Think of all the ministry that has gone on in and through this body over the past 10 years. through public worship, through Sunday school lessons, through the Christianity explored courses, through personal evangelism, through small groups, through men's and women's Bible studies during the week, through the numerous missions trips to Peru and Germany and elsewhere, through the support of numerous church plants and other overseas ministries, through hospitality, through elder shepherding visits in the homes, through hospital visits and on and on and on we can go. The Lord has been faithful to use our congregation to bless West Atlanta and many around the world. Christ has truly been with us, as he's promised to be in Matthew 28, as we've gone forth to minister in his name. Anything good that has happened is the result of God's steadfast love and faithfulness. Let it be said. He gets all the glory, for apart from him, we can do nothing. Apart from his grace, not one of us will be sitting here right now wanting to hear his word and to praise his name. He has done it on our own. We are undone. But in Christ and in his strength, we've been able to be a blessing to many and praise God for that. Beloved Grace Presbyterian Church, as we conclude this morning, let us conclude as we began. thinking upon that great 1923 hymn by Thomas Obadiah Chisholm, and especially that final verse. As we celebrate the Lord's faithfulness to us over these past 10 years, let us especially rejoice in the truth that there is pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, that we have God's own presence to cheer us and to guide us, that he gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with ten thousand besides. Grace is. His faithfulness. He has given us all that we need. For his glory and for our eternal good, let us pray. Father, we do.