A sailor washed ashore on a deserted island needs it, as does the person who's just heard the diagnosis, cancer. The mother of three kids whose husband just walked out on her is desperate for it, as is the 55-year-old man who's just been downsized and realizes his prospects for work are slim. The elderly woman who fell and broke her hip and is facing a move to the nursing home may not be able to live without it, nor can the teenager facing severe depression. They all need it, they're desperate for it, and they may not be able to live without it. What is it? It's hope. It's hope. So we're going to look at hope this morning from the book of Lamentations. Let's look at an introduction to the topic of hope. What is hope? This word is used in multiple ways, and we're going to move pretty quickly here this morning. But the first way we use this word commonly is simply a wish for positive change, a wish for positive change, for something good to happen. Hope always involves looking for things to improve, to get better from where they currently are. But this common use of hope stops there with the desire for change to happen. It's nothing more than just a wish. You know, I hope it's sunny tomorrow. I hope Tennessee makes it to the national championship game. Pastor Phil, it's just a wish. There's nothing to it. You want it to happen, but you don't have a strong belief that it will happen. It's a desire. It's something you want to happen. Common use number two is optimism. This takes it beyond just wanting things to change. It is believing that they can and will change. It's being hopeful. It's being hopeful, optimistic. Do you know someone who's always optimistic? Here's a picture of someone that you may know that's always optimistic. Some of you, anyway. A few of you. Always hopeful, always optimistic, always looks at the sunny side of life. But again, there's no real basis for that other than just an attitude or an emotion or a feeling. Now, let's get a little more technical here. Psychologists define hope a little bit more technically. It's a determined desire for positive change. OK, we've already talked about that. and a belief in someone or something that will bring it about. A determined desire for positive change and a belief in someone or something that will bring it about. So this is more than just optimism, it's an understanding of how things might change. For example, if you go for a hike in a dense forest and you get lost, Hope involves believing you can find your way, but also an understanding of how that's going to happen. Maybe you regain cell service on your phone so you can get directions. Maybe you come across a stream and you think, well, I could follow this stream, or maybe you walk to a road. So you regain hope because you understand that there's a way that you're going to be found or rescued, or you'll find your way back. You lose hope when you can't figure out a way for the change to happen. In Acts chapter 27, Paul was on a ship and the ship was in a storm and it says, now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. They couldn't think of a way that they would be rescued and so they gave up hope. This tells us hope is not just an emotion, it's not just a feeling, it's related to our thinking. Even secular psychologists say that emotions follow thinking, not the other way around. And the important thing to note here also is that there is an object of your hope. Your hope is placed in someone or something. Now, we're going to put politics aside for just a second, but I'm going to show you a picture. Do you remember this famous campaign poster back from 2008? And think about what this is representing here. Hope. Okay, so the person pictured in the poster was going to give hope to people who didn't like the way things were and wanted them to change. And what was the other part of the phrase? Hope and change, right? So, the object of hope was going to bring about, in their minds, positive change. Biblically, though, what's a biblical definition? We're actually going to come back to this, so this is going to be hard for some of you. We're going to skip a place in your notes, it's going to be blank for a while, we're going to come back to it, so just don't let that stress you out. There's hope, you know, we'll come back to that, all right? So, yes. Now, The Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote, hope is the pillar that upholds the world. Well, why is hope important? Let's talk about that. Why is hope so important? Psychologists have developed tests to measure and evaluate a person's sense of hope. And what they found is that whether they measure it as just a trait in their lives, a personality trait, hopefulness, or a state of being at any given time, hope is related to positive outcomes. Greater hope can lead to higher success, greater happiness, and less distress. So higher success at achieving goals. Studies have shown higher success in college, even more so than necessarily your academic prowess or intellectual capability. In athletics. greater happiness, less distress, less burnout at work, better recovery from injury and surgery, increased cancer survival rates, all due to higher hope. Diminished hope can lead to loss of motivation and also to depression. Diminished hope can lead to loss of motivation and even depression, although it can work the other way around. Sometimes depression can lead to diminished hope. But some go so far as to equate loss of hope and depression or despair, although they're not actually technically the same thing, but they are certainly closely related. And loss of hope can lead to suicide. Diagnosing hopelessness in a person has been found to successfully predict more than 90% of cases where the patient later committed suicide. Think about that. Now, if we stop for just a second and think about suicide, actually, suicide is regaining hope. Because you put your hope in something else, haven't you? What have you put your hope in? Death. You can't find any hope in this life. Life is hopeless. So you find new hope in death, in ending your life, which will solve your problems, which of course it won't. But it shows us even then that there's always an object of hope. You might say, well, Pastor Greg, I get it. Hope is important. You don't know my situation. My husband's passed away. I'm all alone. I face hope-destroying loneliness every day. Everyone I thought loved me has betrayed me and abandoned me. I feel like Job sometimes, the way I've been afflicted. These are different things that might be said by different people. I'm going through such bitter suffering. There are times I wonder if I can make it through another day. There are people out to get me. They always seem to get the best of me. I used to be young and energetic. I've lost all my vigor and strength. It's all I can do to get out of bed in the morning. Someone else says, I'm being bullied and mocked. People are so cruel. Someone says, my past is shameful. I feel sexually broken. Someone says, everything that's precious to me has been taken away from me. Someone says, I'm fighting right now just to put food on the table for me and my family. So, you know, it's easy for you to stand up there and talk about hope, but if you were in my shoes, you'd realize it's much more difficult to find hope at all. Well, first of all, you don't know me and everything about me and what I've gone through, but second, you're probably right. You know, if we were to compare situations, it's possible that you might just beat me out in the sorrow and trouble scale, in the sorrow and trouble contest. But having said that, let's turn to the book of Lamentations. Now, it might take you a little while to find it. If you're not familiar with the Old Testament, it's in the Old Testament. It's after Isaiah, which is a large book, then Jeremiah, then Lamentations. And it was written, in fact, by the prophet Jeremiah, who ministered in the kingdom of Judah, which was the southern of the two kingdoms when they split apart, the kingdom of Judah. He started ministering and prophesying in 627 BC, so about 600 plus years before the life of Jesus Christ. To find the setting for this book, we only need to turn back a couple of pages in our Bibles to the end of the book of Jeremiah, chapter 52. So just take a glance at that, and I'm not going to take the time to read this to you. But the book, Jeremiah 52, describes the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his army. in 586 BC they laid siege to the city and it was destroyed in 586 BC so and it was terrible it was a terrible time horrific things happened and the city and the people were affected and destroyed. So Lamentations was written by the prophet Jeremiah to lament or mourn the destruction of Jerusalem. God had rejected his people for that time. He'd set them aside and allowed a godless pagan empire to invade their nation, defeat their army, lay waste to their beloved city, kill many citizens and soldiers, execute most of the political and spiritual leaders, destroy the temple, rape many of the women, lead the king off in chains, and carry away 4,600 people. So, the deep mourning and despair that's expressed in Lamentations is based on what had happened. So to get a taste of lamentations, just a taste, I'm going to read verses 1 through 12, but I'm going to put them in the context of some of the things I just said a moment ago that some people here might be thinking or might be true in their lives. Someone who says, my husband has passed away, so I'm all alone and face hope-destroying loneliness every day. Look at chapter 1, verse 1, how lonely sits the city that was full of people. This is Lamentations 1.1, how like a widow she has become. She who was great among the nations, she who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. Someone says, everyone who I thought loved me has betrayed and abandoned me. Verse 2, she weeps bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks. Among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. Someone says, I feel like Job sometimes the way I've been afflicted. Look at verse three. Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude. She dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place. Her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. I'm just going to continue reading up through verse 12 here. From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture. They fled without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembers in the day of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old when her people fell into the hand of the foe. and there was none to help her. Her foes gloated over her. They mocked at her downfall. Jerusalem sinned grievously. Therefore, she became filthy. All who honored her despised her, for they have seen her nakedness. She herself groans and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts. She took no thought of her future. Therefore, her fall is terrible. She has no comforter. Oh, Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed. The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things, for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread. They trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. Oh, Lord, look and see, for I am despised. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger." I could go on, but you get the point. The point is whatever suffering you're going through, it's not any worse than what Jeremiah and the people of Judah had faced. So the theme of the book is lamenting the suffering and sorrow the people of Judah were experiencing. Lamentations is a very interesting book. I could talk for a lot longer about it, but I want to share just a few things. It's a book of poetry, like the book of Psalms, but these poems are funeral dirges mourning the death of the people, the city, and the nation. If it were music, it would be in a minor key. There are five chapters in the book, and I'm going to have you participate here for just a minute, all right? How many verses are there in chapter one? All right, how many verses are there in chapter two? Okay, now skip chapter three, go to chapter four. How many verses are there in chapter four? Hey, you're getting good at this. Look at chapter five, how many verses are there in chapter, wow, he jumped the gun, I didn't even get the question out. Okay, now chapter three, how many verses are there? 66, this is a question for all you math whizzes out there. What is the relationship between 22 and 66? It's a multiple of three, yes. So, 22 is a significant number, but what's significant about the number 22? There just happened to be 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. So each of the first four chapters is an acrostic poem, where in chapters one, two, and four, The first line of each stanza begins with the first letter of the alphabet, the first stanza, the second stanza with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and so on. Do you know any other passages in the Bible that are similar? Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem, eight verses in each stanza, and each of those eight verses begins with the first letter and second verse. Actually, Psalm 9, Psalm 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 145 are all acrostic poems, and the Proverbs 31 woman passage is an acrostic poem. So why was this done? It was done to help with memory and memorization, but there's actually another reason that I'll get to in just a moment, so hold that thought. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are structured in this way, again with one stanza for each of the 22 letters of the alphabet. Chapter 5 has 22 verses but is not an acrostic poem. Why not? It's not entirely clear, but it's almost like Jeremiah kind of just limped to the finish line. His grief just overtook him and he couldn't even bring himself to think of an acrostic at the end. He was just tired and expressing his grief. So what about chapter 3? The difference in chapter 3 is that each line of each stanza begins with the letter of the alphabet. So not just the first line of the stanza, but the first letter of each line. And in our English Bibles, they're numbered individually. That's why there are three times the number of verses. There were no numbers in the original text of Scripture as Jeremiah wrote it. So, Jeremiah 3, verse, excuse me, Lamentations 3, verse 1 begins with the letter in English would be A, the aleph, verse 2, aleph, verse 3, aleph, and 4, bet, bet, and so on for the 22 letters of the Hebrew aleph, bet, alphabet. So why emphasize the middle chapter? in this way. It's drawing attention to it. But why not the last chapter? We usually think of stories in terms of, you know, gradually building to a climax at the end. This is a literary technique called a chiasm that was used to focus the attention on the middle of the poem or story, like a mountain peak or stair step. on which the whole story turns in the middle. You might also think of it like a circle, where everything comes full circle, we use that term, full circle. Instead of beginning, middle, end, like we are accustomed to, it is beginning, middle, beginning. So here's the point, the focus is in the middle. The structure of Lamentations is designed to emphasize and highlight chapter three so that we would turn our attention to it. If anyone was in a hopeless situation, it was the people of Israel. How could they possibly find any hope? Here's the most important thing to notice about chapter three. Just as Jeremiah begins to get to the middle section of chapter three, which is again the middle chapter of the book, things turn. Let's stand together and read Lamentations chapter three, verses 19 through 27. Stand and read together with me. The words are up on the screen. And we'll read these verses together. Here we go. 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's pray. Father, we ask that you would help us to understand this passage of scripture today and apply it to our hearts and give us hope. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. So how to have hope? Jeremiah tells us how to have hope. Six ways to have hope. First, letter A, be honest about your suffering. We're going to look at the middle section of the book, the middle chapter, which gives hope, but the fact is the vast majority of the book recalls and details the extreme suffering of the Jewish people brought on by God's punishment for their sin. The acrostic structure is helpful for memorization, but it's also designed to describe the suffering from A to Z. It's basically saying, and we use that term, everything from A to Z and everything in between. And so the structure is designed to bring to mind that we have suffered everything from A to Z. I do want to point something else out to you. Look at chapter one, verse one. How lonely sits the city that was full of people. Okay, so chapter one's about the city. Look at chapter two, verse one. How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud. So chapter two's about the Lord's anger. And by the way, there's a parallel on the other end. Chapter one and chapter five, chapter two and chapter four. But look at chapter three, verse one. I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. Jeremiah gets very personal now in chapter three. The pronouns are first person pronouns, I, me, my. A pastor and author named Eugene Peterson, who just recently passed away, said this, one of the commonest ways to deal with suffering is to make light of it, to gloss over it, to attempt shortcuts through it. Because it is so painful, we try to get to the other side quickly. Lamentations provides a structure to guarantee against that happening. It is important to pay attention to everything that God says. But it is also important to pay attention to everything that we feel, especially when that feeling is as full of pain and puzzlement as suffering. We tend to want to be positive and upbeat. You know, I love Christian radio, I really do, but you notice that they really promote this, right? Positive, uplifting, encouraging. We need that. But what about the Psalms where there's a cry to the Lord? What about lamentations? What about the times when we're struggling? Lamentations in and of itself is instructive. Sometimes it's okay to be honest about our suffering. It might even help to write it down. If you're into poetry, do that. I'm not really, but write it down. Describe it. God knows, but pour out your heart to Him and be honest about your suffering. Letter B, repent of your sin. repent of your sin. We actually need to look at verses 40 through 42 for this, so look at those verses in chapter 3. Let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled And you have not forgotten. The suffering the people of Judah experienced was not like the suffering of Job, which God allowed Satan to bring about in order to test Job and strengthen his faith. No, this suffering was deserved. God had warned them from the very beginning when he formed a covenant with his people that if they forsook and disobeyed the covenant, there would be consequences. That is exactly what happened. They disobeyed, God kept his promises to judge them, He summarized, God summarized their sin in this way, Jeremiah 2 verse 13. My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. So I'm giving them living and eternal water for free. And they say, no thanks, we'll do our own thing. And they're trying to scrape out water out of the ground, dirty water out of a broken cistern. God offered them eternal satisfaction, but they went looking elsewhere to be satisfied by things that could never satisfy. So Lamentations is an Old Testament example of the New Testament truth of Galatians 6, 7. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. It's possible, it's possible that God is disappointing you for your sin. That's not always the reason for our suffering, but it can be. Is there known sin in your life that you need to turn from, that you need to repent of? Lamentations teaches us that. Repent of your sin. Letter C, shift your thinking. Shift your thinking. Look at verse 21 again of chapter 3. He's talking about All his thoughts have been consumed with the destruction of his city, his nation, and his people. But look what he does in verse 21. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The word call is the word turn. It's a word used of repentance. In other words, Jeremiah forces himself to turn his thinking a different direction. Folks, when despairing and hopeless thoughts consume our minds, we sometimes think we are helpless to stop them because they come unbidden and they're so overwhelming. This was true of Jeremiah. All his soul, verse 20, could remember was the affliction, verse 19, and the bitterness, and his soul was bowed down. In other words, he was depressed. We don't have to make a decision to think these negative thoughts. They just come, and when we allow them to consume our minds, we give up hope and get depressed. What we have to do is make a conscious decision to turn our minds a different direction. Jeremiah said to himself, I need hope right now, and in order to get hope, I need to focus my mind, I need to force my mind to think about something else. So what did he force his mind to think about? Letter D, we need to remember who God is. He forced himself, he directed his mental focus to God and his attributes to give him hope in verses 22 and 23. Now there may be some variations among our Bible translations in verse 22 due to a variation in one letter in the original text of scripture, but even if your translation differs from mine, the sense is the same. So he reminds himself of the nature of God's attributes He talks about first his steadfast love in verse 22. His steadfast love. This translates a very significant Old Testament word. It's the word chesed. It's even fun to say because you've got to use your throat. Chesed. Say that with me. Chesed. All right? You've got to really get the throat going there. Okay? Your translation may say great love, it may even say mercies. This important Old Testament word refers to the faithful, loyal, constant goodness and love that God shows his people, not just the world, but his people. It is the kind of love reflected in a marriage when a person loves his or her spouse, even when they don't deserve it, because they pledge themselves to one another. At that moment, all the evidence pointed to God abandoning His people, but Jeremiah reminds himself that because of His covenant promises, God will always love them. The suffering they were experiencing was evidence of God's love, not evidence of His abandonment. So he reminds himself of His steadfast love. He also reminds himself, Jeremiah does, of God's mercy, His mercy, or more precisely, mercies, your translation may say compassions. This refers to the pity and compassion for those who are in mercy and distress, the pity and compassion that we might feel. It's the kind of love a mother has for her helpless baby who fully depends on her. In fact, the word is closely related to the word for womb. Do you remember in 1 Kings when two women were fighting over a child as to whose it was and they brought it before Solomon and Solomon said, well, let's just cut it in half and give half to each woman, that'll be fair. And the one woman whose child it actually was, it says this, was filled with compassion for her son and told Solomon, no, no, no, don't kill it, give it to the other woman. That word filled with compassion, that's exactly the same word here as mercies. mercies. We might use the expression, my heart goes out to that person. Now, lest men think that this is only a woman thing, let's look at Psalm 103, 13. As a father shows compassion to his children, same word, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. So it's pity, but it's acting on the pity. It's not just an emotion and you walk away. It's acted upon. And the good news is that God, 2 Corinthians 1, 3, God is the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. So Jeremiah reminds himself of God's mercies and then of his faithfulness. Verse 23, great is your faithfulness. Faithfulness is related to the concepts of firmness, steadfastness, steadiness, certainty, fidelity, truth, veracity. When referring to God's character, it means God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has promised. He keeps his word, he keeps his promises. You can trust him because he'll never let you down. He's faithful. He's faithful. So Jeremiah talks about these attributes and names them, but what does he say about them, the qualities of God's attributes? Look back at verse 22 again. They are unending, right? They never cease. They never come to an end. Maybe you've put your hope in the love of someone else, but they stop loving you. Well, God never stops loving his people. He will never stop loving you. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Go to Romans 8 and study that. Nothing can separate you from God's love. It's unending. Also, they're fresh, they're new every morning, just like the manna God provided in the wilderness. Why is it important to know that God's mercies are new every morning? Because we need them every morning. We need a fresh batch of them every morning. Pastor Sean reminded us that we need the gospel every day, and that's true. They're fresh every morning. They're great. They're great, it also says. Great is your faithfulness. Exodus 34.6 says, God abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. Do you think God has enough mercy for you? The Puritan Thomas Manton said, that which fills an ocean will fill a bucket. Think about that for a second. If God's love, his mercy, his faithfulness is like an ocean, do you think he can fill the bucket of your life with his mercy, love, and faithfulness? Does he have enough for you? Yes, he does. He does. They're great. Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe was on the radio and one of his radio listeners sent him this little ditty, okay? Look at yourself and you'll be depressed. You say, yeah, that's true. Look at circumstances and you'll be distressed. Look at the Lord and you'll be blessed. So Jeremiah is saying, you know, I need to stop looking around for a moment. I need to start looking up. I need to start looking up. And he reminds himself of who God is. Letter E, be satisfied in God. Verse 24, the Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. In verse 24, Jeremiah is talking to himself. Do you ever talk to yourself? You know, I don't recommend doing it in public, but sometimes you need to. You need to talk to yourself. David did that in Psalm 42, 11. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God. I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. Sometimes you need to tell yourself, what's your problem? Put your hope in God. Sometimes you need to give yourself a verbal slap upside the head. You need to remind yourself of who God is and how he's blessed you. Psalm 103, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. And then he starts naming them. That's a psalm I've memorized. I say it almost every day. Recite it. What was Jeremiah saying to himself? He reminds himself the Lord is his portion. We think of food, right, when we think of portions. You know, you go to a fancy restaurant and you pay fifty bucks and you get three bites worth of steak or something, you know, and you're not satisfied, but portion or allotment or share or partition was the amount assigned to you, Israelites thought of this word in terms of land. Land. When God parceled out the promised land to the 12 tribes, the tribe of Levi did not get any land. The priests, and God told Aaron, head of the tribe of Levi, Numbers 18, 20, he told him, you shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel. The Israelites had just lost their land, but Jeremiah reminds himself, the Lord is their portion, their territory. Jeremiah says, I've lost everything else, but I still have the Lord. The obvious implication is that God is just the right portion. He's just the right amount to satisfy. Even if I have nothing else, I have the Lord, and that is enough. He's all I need. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. We sang it this morning. Your grace is enough. Your grace is enough. Is God enough for you or do you need something else? Now, we need air, water, food, shelter, but God promises to provide all our needs. The problem is we keep expanding our list of needs to the point that when we don't get what we want, we give up hope. Jim Berg says, if God is enough for you, you don't need anything else. If God is not enough for you, then nothing else will be enough for you. So think about this, if I have infinity amount of dollars, okay? Infinity, that's a lot. If I have infinity amount of dollars and you give me $1,000 and then you take that $1,000 away from me, am I okay? I still got infinity amount of dollars. It's good, I got everything I need. So if you have the Lord, even if other things are taken away, you still have everything you need. Be satisfied in God. And letter F, wait for God. Wait for God. Verse 25, 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. Do you like to wait? Like at the DOT, in line at the grocery store, waiting for the frozen pizza to cook in the microwave. No, we don't like to wait because we think we have better things to do with our time. And because while we're waiting, things are out of our control. We're not doing anything, we're not accomplishing anything, we're just waiting. And this reveals why it's hard for us to wait on the Lord, because his timing is not always our timing. We think something should be changed now, God says, wait. We think something should happen now, God says, wait. To wait is to look for with eager expectation. It is very closely related to the biblical concept of hope. As I dug into this, there were so many. It just kept growing and growing and growing. There are verses I could show you where wait and hope are exactly parallel. For the Hebrew, waiting was not just a matter of passing time, twiddling your thumbs, laying on the couch. No, it's an attitude of trust and expectation. When we wait on the Lord, we submit to Him. We submit to His timing, His wisdom, His plan. There's a calm resignation. But this doesn't mean we don't do anything, that we just sit back. Notice the parallel thought in verse 25, to the soul who seeks Him. Wait and seek are exactly parallel. While we wait for God, we must seek God. We must seek to draw closer to Him through Bible reading, prayer, worship, community with other Christians. We carry on the responsibilities God has given us. We seek God and we trust God to take care of it. Verse 26 says we should wait quietly on the Lord. What does that mean? Well, think of the opposite. impatience, anger, you're demanding, you're arguing. We do need to cry out to God, but we also need to be willing to listen and wait quietly. Psalm 131, one of the shortest psalms in the book of Psalms. Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high, meaning in pride. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. I don't try to put my nose in business that's really not mine. I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. So what happens when we wait on the Lord? Verse 26, he will save us. Eventually, he will rescue us. He will strengthen us. That's why it's good to wait quietly for him. I have some concluding thoughts on hope here. And again, the Bible has a lot to say on hope. Who or what gives us hope? God's word gives us hope. Just a few verses up on the screen, I'm not gonna show you all of them. Psalm 119.81, my soul faints for your salvation, but I hope in your word. Psalm 15.4, for whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. You need to be in God's Word if you want hope. The gospel gives us hope. You know, we have sung the gospel, we've heard the gospel during the announcements, we've participated in a gospel picture, taking communion. The gospel's been a part of the service from the very beginning. But it says in Colossians, Do you know Jesus Christ? Have you trusted in him? The gospel gives us hope. And Jesus Christ himself gives us hope. That's the next one. Hebrews chapter 6 says, we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Well, who entered into the inner place behind the curtain? Jesus did. Jesus is our sure and steadfast anchor for the soul. He's our hope. And the Holy Spirit gives us hope. Galatians 5 5 for through the spirit by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness Another one I didn't have you can add it to your sheet Jesus return gives us hope pastor Sean shared Titus 2 11 through 13 looking for that blessed hope All right. What is the result of hope? Well courage and strength Yes, you're scribbling furiously here. Courage and strength, Psalm 31, 24, be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. And rejoicing in suffering is a result of hope. I'm not going to have us read through these verses, but look at Psalm, excuse me, look at Romans 5 at a later time. Rejoicing in suffering is the result of hope. All right, now we can go back to the spot under point number one and give you the biblical definition of hope. You've been waiting patiently. It is a confident expectation of a good outcome based on God and His promises. All right? A confident expectation of a good outcome based on God and His promises. A confident expectation. Let's not put this verse up there, Ryan, but Job 31, 24 shows us the parallel, shows us that hope and confidence are the same. It's not just blind optimism, it's not just wishing and wanting something, it's confidence in a good outcome. But the good outcome may or may not be in this life. The good outcome are based on the promises of God. God never promises to deliver us from all suffering in this life, and if that is where our hope rests, it is still misplaced hope, which is the big problem with the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. Our ultimate hope is in eternity. The story is told of a ship sailing across the Pacific. It had an experienced crew that had made this voyage many times before. Halfway across, though, a fire broke out on ship. They tried to put it out, but they couldn't. They finally realized they needed to abandon ship, so they quickly threw some food and water in the lifeboat, they dropped it, and they got in it as the ship was consumed in flames. You might think those men would be filled with apprehension. They had no mast, they had no sail to carry them across the ocean, only the oars, but they exhibited no apprehension. You see, they knew their voyage would be very dangerous and difficult, but they knew one other crucial fact. They were in the midst of an ocean current that they knew would slowly but surely carry them to land and safety. So folks, this life might be difficult and dangerous, but we can rest in the fact that God is carrying us to the intended destination, and we will most certainly arrive there. So hope is based on God and his promises. The object of hope is crucial. My question for you today is, what is the object of your hope? Where is your hope placed? Is your hope in your intelligence, your plans, your strategies? That's where secular psychologists say you build your hope. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says, It's your hope in relationships, marriage, and children. These are all good things. Ruth 1.12, Naomi had lost her hope. Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, she didn't have hope, she was bitter. Is your hope in money and wealth? 1 Timothy 6.17, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Is your hope in national security or personal protection? Psalm 33. The king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Is your hope in your health today? Psalm 73, 26. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Is your hope in this life and this life only? 1 Thessalonians 4, 13. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are dead, asleep, that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope. What else do people put their hope in? Love, success, pleasure, politics, government, achievement, comfort, approval, possessions, health. All of these are misplaced objects of hope. They'll let you down. How do you know where your hope is placed. You know when the object of your hope is taken away from you. Then you find out where your hope is placed. But Jeremiah says, therefore, I will hope in him. Is your hope in God? I'd like you to stand together with me, please stand. And I would like to pray a prayer from scripture over all of us, from Romans 15, 13. Romans 15 13. I'm going to pray this as a prayer directly from the scriptures for all of us. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me pray that again for us. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Matt, please come and close the service for us.