I'm going through this series of what it means for every Christian to be a counselor. Every Christian a counselor. I believe we've talked about, we've looked at how the Bible commands us to give wise and godly counsel to others. We've talked about how to speak the truth in love. So now I want to talk about what it is to give hope as we offer biblical and godly wisdom to the people in our lives around us. We want to give hope, and so we're going to cover a few scriptures tonight, but we'll begin in the book of Lamentations. The book of Lamentations in chapter 3. As we look at this, you see, look, here's the reality. Many people who whether it's in a formal setting or whether it's just a friend or a family member, the ones who seek counsel, they're often discouraged, they're weary, they're overwhelmed, they're dealing with a crisis. They feel trapped by circumstances, they feel crushed by emotions. In those moments, in those times, the thing they need most is hope. That's what they need. They don't need sugary sweet optimism that's not rooted in reality. They don't need sentimentality. They don't need Christian cliche. They need hope that rests on the character of God, on the promises of God's Word, and on the presence of Christ in their lives. When we talk about hope, we have to realize what we're talking about is that we're not talking about having hope in our own personal strength, our own ideas, our own wisdom. We're not talking about hope in the cultural sense and the way that we use the language, which is basically a wish. I hope this happens or I hope that happens. We're talking about offering hope that has a confidence in God's faithfulness. It takes the believer's eyes off the immediate struggle and fixes them on the unchanging realities of the nature of God. Counsel that does not give real hope will not sustain a soul that's suffering. Council that doesn't give real hope, that does give real hope, will anchor a life in the midst of the storm. So that's why, and as we've gone through this, I've tried to reiterate to you, Most of us in our daily interactions, we have many, sometimes dozens of opportunities to offer godly biblical wisdom just in conversation. How many times a week does you talk to somebody and they share a situation, a problem, a difficulty? They're seeking advice. They've got a decision to make, whatever the case may be. We all have these opportunities and we have them regularly, and I think we need to be prepared to offer godly counsel rooted in the Word of God, and as I talk about today, that which points them in the direction of hope. So I want to look first at this passage from Lamentations 3, beginning in verse 21. The Bible says there, This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in Him. The Bible here comes telling us, Jeremiah speaking here, comes telling us that... And remember, guys, remember who we're talking about. We're talking about Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Not even in the book of Jeremiah. In the book that the best name they could come up with for is Lamentations. It's not a happy book. He is lamenting, crying out to God. He's in deep suffering. He's witnessed the devastation of his own people, the judgment of his nation. And yet, what Jeremiah has to say is that when he recalls these things to mind about who God is, about God's character, he has hope. The seed of hope in any situation of life is just very simply this. Remember who God is. That sounds oversimplistic, but it's true. The believer has to remember that truth, and out of the truth of who our God is flows everything else. And so when our heart's troubled, we simply have to be reminded again and again and again, this is who my God is. He is the God who's promised these things. He's the God who's done these things. He's the God who's done this and done that in my life in particular. What Jeremiah doesn't do is act like everything's all peaches and cream. That's not what he does. Actually, Jeremiah doesn't do that almost anywhere, either in the book of Jeremiah or the book of Lamentations. He's real about the hardship that he's going through. And we need to be real about the hardship in our own lives and we need to be real about the hardship in the lives of those around us who we may have opportunity to speak truth to. Because one of the worst things we can do is when someone... And look, I know sometimes people come and they act like the sky has fallen and you're sitting there going, that didn't sound like a big deal to me. Right? I mean, we've all been there. But, most often, people got real stuff. They got real stuff that they're dealing with. that one of the worst things we can do is to be dismissive and just kind of say, oh yeah, it'll be alright. Well, okay, but what's better? What's better is to point them to the reality of who God is. Jeremiah doesn't deny hardship, he instead interprets his hardship through the lens of the goodness of God. If God is who He promises that He is, who He states over and over that He is, if God is good, if God loves His people, if God has promised His presence, if all of these things are true, then what can I infer about the situation that I'm going through? That God, in a way that I don't understand, that's above my pay grade, that God is present, and God is working, and God is ultimately going to bring this process around for His purposes. The believer must learn to call these truths to mind when our heart trembles in situations and storms of life. I invite you to look as well to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1. I'm going to have to turn there because I didn't put all the verses in my notes. We'll start in verse 3. 2 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 3, the Bible says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any way, who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ." Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the suffering, so also you will partake of the consolation." The text here Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, he describes God as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. I love this passage because it's one of the clearest teachings in all of the Bible about how we should view difficulty in life. What could we even possibly begin to think when we're suffering greatly, when there's trials and tragedies going on in our midst? Paul tells us that He's the God of all comfort, and He comforts us in tribulation for the purpose that when there's an opportunity, we might be able to comfort others with the comfort with which we've been comforted. There's a purpose there. Comfort, I think, is sometimes because the way that we predominantly use that word in the English language, We think of comfort. I want the big fluffy chair. I want the best food. I want to live in comfort. We think about it almost on par with the word like luxury. But here, this is a verb, right? That we're to comfort other people or we're being comforted by God. This is an action of compassion and love and strengthening of the soul. That's what it means, really, that the soul is being strengthened by the presence of God. God comforts us in all our tribulations so that we might be equipped to comfort others. You say, well, shouldn't God comfort them too? Yes, He should. But you know how He might comfort them? Through you. Through me. God uses us to bring comfort to other people. If you have suffered, and everyone has, You are an instrument in the hand of God to bring comfort to other people, to brothers and sisters in Christ. What Paul doesn't, again, do is act like that comfort, this comfort that is spoken of in that passage we read, he doesn't act like that that is somehow the removal of pain or suffering or the trial or tribulation. Instead, the way that Paul shapes this whole concept of comfort is that it is God inserting Himself with us in the midst of the tribulation. Is there times when God brings tribulation to an end? Sure there is, but here, the way Paul talks about it, it's not that God just snaps His fingers and says, OK, that's all over, I took care of it, don't worry about it. It's no, you're walking through this and I'm walking with you. That's how Paul frames it. He doesn't take you out of the storm. He walks through the storm with you. The presence of God in the midst of pain, that's the right view of Christian suffering. That's the way that we should view any sort of trial or tribulation, because that's where hope rests, trusting that God is with us. look through the scope of history and you looked at the great sufferings that have taken place for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you would say, how in the world is it possible that they could endure such a thing? It's because they had hope. When we speak godly counsel to other people, we can speak to them and say, we can say honestly, I can't promise you that God's going to make this better today or tomorrow, but what I can promise you is that if you know Christ, that God has promised that He will be with you. And they may say, well, I don't know Christ. And then you can say, do you want to? Right? You say, is that predatory or something? I worked with Disaster Relief one time and we were doing chaplaincy training and somebody had the audacity to say, well, I don't think we should be out sharing the gospel with these people that have just gone through this disaster. He said, that's just taking advantage of people in a vulnerable position. I said, no, it's offering the only source of hope that somebody could have in the midst of the darkest time of their lives. I mean, what else do you have to offer them? Not much. Y'all ever been somewhere a hurricane blew through? Tornado cut a wide path through? It's not pretty. Not very hopeful. Looks like a wasteland. The hope that we have to offer is Christ in Christ alone. The hope that we have to offer is the presence of God in the midst of the struggle. And we can look at so many lives, lives of people that you have known, that have suffered well, and you say, what did they have? And I want that. And you say, they had the hope of the gospel and it was present with them in their time of need and trouble. The comfort of God came. Not the removal necessarily of the pain or the struggle, but the presence and the power of God in their midst. Turn one more place with me, if you will, in Hebrews chapter 4, in verses 14 through 16. We've studied this in our Hebrew study, but I want to bring it to light here in this context. There the Bible says, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace." The statement is simple. Christ is the believer's high priest. He's the high priest who has endured temptation. He understands temptation. He knows sorrow. In fact, He's called one place the man of sorrows. Jesus endured suffering without sin. When we offer the message of hope to someone who is struggling, who's a fellow believer, one of the things that we can encourage them with is, it is possible to live through difficulty without resorting to sinfulness. Right? We don't have to... Sometimes we get, especially in emotional times, times of struggle, it's really easy for us to drift into sin, to bring us comfort, or to numb our pain, or whatever the case may be. But we can encourage them in the example of Christ, who knew much sorrow in His life, and yet, He was without sin. because we do have a great high priest, one of the comforts that we have, one of the practical aspects or practices that we can point others to when they're going through those things is that they can in fact, thank you very much the book of Hebrews, boldly approach the throne of grace. What does it look like to boldly approach the throne of grace? It looks like the psalmist crying out saying, God where in the world were you at this day? You say, should we talk to God like that? You're already thinking it, you might as well talk to Him plain. I truly believe that. We must speak authentically to God. That's where God begins to deal with our heart. That's where God begins to put back together the broken pieces, is when we lay it out. If we try to get all formal with God, do you think that it's not doing you any good and it's definitely not doing God any good? I'm not saying being irreverent. I'm saying being honest. God, I don't know what's going on. Matter of fact, I'm not sure you were within ten miles of me yesterday. What in the world is happening? Please, help me. Cry out to God. Someone says, I don't know what to do. Say, when's the last time you talked to God about it? A preacher I used to know said, you shouldn't talk to other people about any problem or difficulty that you have that you hadn't already talked to God about. Because God may give you the answer before you ever talk to someone else, and then let alone, God may give you godly wisdom through somebody else, but why don't you just talk to God direct first? I think that's a pretty good policy. But isn't that a hopeful reality that we can bring that to bear in our own lives and in the lives of others around us and say, hey look, you can talk to God about this thing. He will give you direction. He will give you guidance. He's promised wisdom to those who seek it out. Look to His words. Speak to Him in prayer. Hope grows when the believer looks at Jesus and remembers two things about Him. Number one, that He is all-powerful and sovereign and all of those types of things. He's sovereign, He's powerful, but also He's compassionate. He's both of those things. And because that's true, guess what? That's an even greater point of hope because we have a Savior who loves us, we have a Savior who's compassionate toward His people, and yet guess what? He's also the one that made the whole world and holds it all in His hands, so who else in the world should we be talking to? You say, that sounds like Christian cliche. It can be, if we frame it that way, or we can tell somebody, look, I can't do nothing about this, but God can. You might ought to talk to Him. I'll talk to Him for you, too. I'll pray. Let's pray right now. You know, sometimes the best thing we can do when somebody comes looking for us for advice, looking, saying, I don't know what to do, and I say, I want to offer them godly counsel, but I don't really know where to begin. is to be honest and say, I don't really know where to begin with your situation, but why don't we sit down right here a minute and just pray. And just ask God to help us. Ask God to help you. Ask God to give us wisdom. And maybe God will talk to me. Maybe God will talk to you. And you let me know, and I'll let you know. You say, that sounds a little bit cartoonish, the way you're phrasing that up. Folks, I'm just telling you. I try to hit it down the middle and be as simple as I know how to be. Sometimes it's just that simple. It just really is. You say, well, I prayed to God about this thing and He didn't answer me. Well, keep on praying. God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Sometimes the way that God heals our wounds, sometimes the way that God brings comfort into our lives is that when we have to continually seek Him and we're drawn near to Him and what we don't know is that just being in His presence over and over again that's driven by the difficulty or the pain that we're experiencing, it's that drawing near that actually does the work of bringing that comfort and peace into our lives. Sometimes it's just the problems in our life that draw us nearer to God, and God says, that's what I was after. We may not like that all the time, but it doesn't keep it from being true. We have to remember that biblical hope rests on the character of God. His mercies don't fail. His compassion is constant. His faithfulness does not change. And so that's where we direct people. Look, I'm not saying there's not a time for practical wisdom. Somebody comes to you and says, my kids are doing this, this or that. Sometimes there's the practical that comes through the comfort of lived experience. I've lived through that. Here's what I did right. Here's what I did wrong. Here's what God taught me through that. It can be practical. But don't be the expert that you're not. Point them to the one who knows all things. Biblical hope rests on the character God. Biblical hope interprets suffering through God's purpose. Biblical hope fixes its eyes on Christ. And the last piece there from the book of Hebrews, biblical hope draws near to the throne of grace. Whenever you have the opportunity, hey, let me just tell you this. Do you know sometimes we need to offer godly advice and wisdom to our own selves? You say, well, what does that look like? I mean, it looks like preaching the truth to yourself. You say, well, how does that manifest? Well, that means when you're in a situation and you're about to do this or do that, and you say, wait, I know God doesn't want me to do this. God, help me do that, and go in that direction. Sometimes we have to offer ourself godly counsel. As we turn that outward, though, What can we encourage those around us to do to really seek to point them in a hopeful direction? Well, I think practically we teach people to recall the truths they already know. You know, 90% of the people I counsel that are believers, most of the time when I end up meeting with them a few times, you know what I end up doing? Reminding them of a bunch of stuff they already knew. And maybe offering a little bit of guidance on how they put it into practice in a biblical sense. A lot of times we know these things. In fact, we'd share them with other people, but sometimes we miss it in our own lives, and just to have to hear it, whether we're reading it in the Word of God, we're hearing it preached, or a faithful brother or sister in Christ is speaking that truth into our lives. Maybe God will use you to be that voice in the life of someone. Teach them to recall the truth they already know. Make sure that the comfort you offer is the comfort that's rooted in Scripture, that's rooted in Christ. And encourage people to pray boldly. I'll be honest with you, sometimes I think my praying is just weak. I've known some people that absolutely knew how to pray. Y'all ever been around somebody that prayed and you're like, oh, I thought I knew what praying was. I mean, somebody that actually just knew how to get a hold of God. I've had seasons like that in my life where I felt like it was better than others, but, man, I've been in some places and had people pray with me and for me and just prayed nearby and been in those types of situations with folks, and you say, man, what's the difference? The difference is, is that I think... I used to say this, and look, if y'all like a bunch of modern Christian contemporary music, this is just an illustration, so just don't get too mad, okay? But I'm not a big fan of the most modern Christian contemporary music. I'm just not. I'd rather listen to old honky-tonk hillbilly country singers sing gospel tunes. I would. Why? Well, I just believe them. Even though they're probably heathens and those other people might be good people, just the way they sing, I believe them. I like old gravelly bluesy gospel music. Why? Because when they sing, I believe them. There's something in that. There's a boldness there. There's a grit there. I've been around people, and I'll be praying, and then I hear somebody like that praying, and I'm like, man, I believe him. I believe that he believes that he's talking to the God of heaven, and that the God of heaven's going to do something about this thing. That's how we need to pray. We don't have to clean it up. God will clean it up. Encourage people to pray boldly. Pray bold prayers yourself. People who are in need of godly counsel and wisdom, sometimes they feel forgotten by God and people, sometimes they feel condemned, abandoned, and what they need to hear is to be reminded that their Savior sees them, their Savior knows them, and their Savior cares. Maybe you can just remind them of that. If we learn to be those kind of voices, look, that's been the whole point of this series. I got one or two more I want to do in this series, but that's been the whole point of this series on Sunday nights, is that maybe it causes us to think about some things and we grow in this, if nothing else, within the life of our own church where we can speak this kind of hope and truth into each other's lives. When that happens more and more and more, the church becomes more and more a refuge for the hurting and a shelter for the weak. We become a place where suffering believers don't walk alone. They walk with Christ and with the people of God. Hope becomes the anchor again that holds them fast. So, what is this message about? It's about hope. Not just the realities of the hope of salvation and eternal home in heaven, but the everyday power of hope in our own lives as we see it in the Word of God and we understand it, as He ministers it in comfort in our own lives, and the power of offering hope to others. Friends, look, you don't have to go very far down the street to run into somebody that just has no hope. Man, it is a sad thing to see. We live in a hopeless age. Why do we live in a hopeless age? Everybody's seeking hope everywhere but in Christ. We've got the only true source of hope. The only one. The rest of them, they're fleeting. They won't last. And so I encourage you to think about that every opportunity you have to speak, to think about that there may be a piece of this conversation, even if it's just a small encouragement, a small little arrow that points somebody towards the hope of Christ, take advantage of it. Because we have great opportunity and there is a great need for hope in our day. So if we're going to offer godly and biblical counsel, it needs to be rooted in the hope of Christ, the hope of His gospel, power of His Word, and the promises that He's made to be with us now and to the end of the age. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for the day You've given us. I thank You for Your Word. I pray You'd use it in my life and the life of those who are here. And I ask God that we would be a people who speak truth and hope to others. And Lord, it's not a fanciful hope and possibilities that lie ahead, but a rooted hope that's grounded in You and Your truth and Your Word and Your promises. Lord, help us to be a hopeful people, to be those that display hope in our life and our actions and our prayers, to be a bold people, to offer hope boldly to those who need it, even if they don't want to hear it. Lord, I pray that that would be the kind of person that I would be. And that would be the kind of church that we would be. That we would offer love, care, godly counsel, and hope to all that would hear. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen. And amen. Hey, I will tell you, I forgot a couple weeks ago.