This evening I want to call your attention to Lamentations chapter three. Lamentations chapter three. Choosing a text for baccalaureate is an agonizing task. Knowing it's the last time that these students will hear a sermon from the pulpit. of Harford Christian School and Reformation Bible Church, what do I want to leave you with? Or more importantly, what does the Lord want me to leave you with? My thoughts have been directed to one of the most familiar and cherished texts in all of the Word of God, here in the middle of Lamentations chapter three, beginning in verse number 21. Lamentations three, beginning in verse 21, this is the word of God. This I recall to mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul. Therefore will I hope in him. Amen. That little set of four verses begins and ends with the same concept, doesn't it? It begins and ends with hope. There's a lot of people out there in the world that are hopeless. There's a lot of hopelessness in this world. And a lot of people that don't know where to turn, don't know who to turn to when life doesn't meet their expectations. What they were told at high school graduations about opportunities, and success and potential and pursuing your dreams and a bunch of empty platitudes and slogans. After a while, it all begins to ring hollow when you're faced with reality and a fallen world. And you're faced with deteriorating relationships and health crises and betrayal and wayward children, and regret over bad, youthful decisions that have gotten your life seemingly in a knot. There is a lot that is capable of shaking your confidence. There are many threats to your joy, to your security, and to your peace. And forget the future, there are a lot of worrisome things going on right now. that may have you unsettled. What is the state of your soul right now? The outward appearance, you look kind of like I look. You're all dressed up. You have ties on. You look formal. Your hair is combed for the most part. Everything looks well taken care of, looks like you have everything under control. But what's it like in here? I don't know what's going on in here, but you know, and God knows. And I'm sure that there are people in the sanctuary this evening and what's going on in here is a full blown fury of a storm. It's shaking you. Our souls have a tendency to be very reactionary to all the noise that is around us. There are always fresh assaults and pressures that produce anxieties and frustrations and unanswered questions and perplexities. There are temptations, there are falls into temptations, there are distractions, there are competing assurances. And my question this evening is, do you have the ability to steady your soul. Do you know how to quiet your noisy soul?" That's the lesson that I want to teach you from God's Word in this passage this evening. I want you to know how to turn your soul to what will give you hope in the most hopeless of circumstances. Because I'm sure that you're going to need to do that at some point. In fact, you probably need to be doing it right now. This Old Testament book called Lamentations, a lament is a funeral song. And Lamentations is a poem, it's a funeral song for the city of Jerusalem when it was under siege by Nebuchadnezzar. The book is gut-wrenching as it describes the physical suffering that was inflicted upon the people of God because of their idolatry and faithlessness. But at the center of the book, and the book is a very highly structured poem, it's an alphabet acrostic, so it has an exact middle, and you can find it pretty easily. At the very center of the book, you have this precious example of what to do so that you can say with that hymn writer, when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay. What do you do in order to get that kind of composure? What do you do to get that kind of peace and kind of hope? Here in these precious verses of Lamentations 3, 21 to 24, the prophet is turning from all of the suffering that he's seeing in Jerusalem, all the carnage, all the bloodshed, all the hunger, all the famine, he's turning from all of that and he's setting his mind on certainties, certainties about what God has said. He says in verse number 21, this I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. Several weeks ago, I noticed the alternate translations supplied by the translators at this text. I'd never seen it before. I don't think the Bibles that we gave you a little while ago have alternate translations in the margin, do they? They don't have marginal references. Well, if you have one at home that has marginal references, you can look this up. I can see it right here in my edition. I have a little Z next to the word recall, and I look down at the bottom of the page, and the translators give an alternate translation. And the alternate translation is, this I make to return my heart. I thought, that's an interesting way of putting it. So I looked it up. Sure enough, the word The word mind there in verse 21 is the normal word for the word heart. The normal Hebrew word for heart. I'm not sure why they went with mind there. It's the word for heart. It's a heart everywhere else. And then that word recall, it's just the normal Old Testament word for turning. It's actually the word for repentance in the Old Testament. To turn, to do an about face. For the congregation of our church, we've been studying Isaiah 55 and that great invitation to forsake your ways and turn, return unto the Lord. That's the word here. So this, I turn my mind. And the tense of the verb, recall, has to do with actively doing something, not passive, but actively doing it. And so he is making his heart turn. There's all of this chaos and all of this hopelessness. And there's the nagging realization that it's not just happenstance, they only have themselves to blame for this. This is chastening. It is a worst case scenario. And even in that, the prophet is making his heart turn. And that's what you're gonna have to do. You're gonna have to do that every day of your life. you're gonna have to make your heart turn. There are times when you need to talk to yourself rather than listen to yourself. There are times when you need to be able to take your soul, take your heart as it were with hands on its shoulders and say, look at me. I'm gonna tell you what God says now. And to preach to yourself. My soul is not rock solid. Is yours? It's up and down. It's wavering. Sometimes I feel like a little bob, in the ocean, just going up and down in the waves. Just ready to capsize any moment with a big wave. I'm so easily dislodged from my own steadfastness. I'm shaken. It is a real urgency that I learn to counsel myself, to make my heart turn. There is a big difference between sitting passively and letting your circumstances dictate your posture, or taking charge and talking to yourself about this, and giving your soul commands from the word of God, and stabilizing your soul with steady, heavy truths, like a ballast at the bottom of your boat that keeps it from being rocked by the waves. It's so scriptural, talking to yourself. I mean, we read Psalm 103 earlier. How'd it start? Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name, bless the Lord, O my soul. He's talking to himself. Forget not all his benefits, soul. Remember how Psalm 42 puts it? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope in God. See what he's doing? He's talking to himself, telling himself what to do, giving his soul God's commands. And that's what you and I need to learn to do, to speak to ourselves, to order our souls. Now what does the world do? and all of the seemingly hopelessness, all the adverse circumstances they're faced, what do they do? Well, they tell itself in the midst of tragedy, well, I'm a survivor. I'll get through. Buck up. Lots of other people have it worse than I do, so I'll just keep on going. What the prophet's doing here is so much the opposite of that. See, all the world can do is look at itself. All the world can do is look in a mirror and try to compose itself with itself. But Jeremiah's reasoning here in Lamentations has nothing to do with himself. He's not looking inward here. He's looking outward. It doesn't concern his troubles either. The way that he's going to stabilize his soul, the way he's going to turn his heart is by reasoning with himself about the Lord. That's the subject of our passage. It's all about the Lord. It's not about the troubles. It's not about self. It's not about how I've proven something in the past and I'll get through it again. It's not about that at all. the Lord. You see, the Lord is the gold standard for weighty arguments. The weightiest facts that you know are facts about God. That's what you have to give yourself. When you're tempted, when all around your soul gives way, when darkness hides his lovely face, when peace like a river attends your way, or when sorrows like sea billows roll. You have to be taught by the word of God to take your heart back to the weighty truths that you know about God, who he is, what he has said, what he has always done for people like you who are needy and come to him honestly. The fact that he can't deny himself and he can't fail you if you're his child. Jeremiah says, in the most bitter and devastating of circumstances, even circumstances of Israel's own making, that he is going to turn his heart away from all that and unto the Lord, and that's how he has hope. So what exactly does he turn his heart to? And that's what these verses are about. This I recall to mind. Now, what is it exactly that he's gonna turn his heart to? What is it about God that he's gonna focus on now for hope? It's the Lord's mercies and the Lord's compassions and the Lord's faithfulness. three truths to steady your heart when all around your soul gives way. He then is all your hope and stay because of these three truths. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Mercies. That's a beautiful word, mercy. It's a word that is sometimes translated loving-kindness or steadfast love. It speaks of a person, in this case God, who has voluntarily obligated himself to look after and to care for someone else. And the loyalty and the steadfastness of his love that he will never abandon that commitment and that person, that he will be zealous about protecting and defending this one that he's made covenant with. The word has to do with God's passion to keep his covenant. You see, the Lord's not like us, who gets himself into agreements that he later regrets, and then he has to begrudgingly fulfill them because it's the right thing to do. God's not like that at all. He loves to show mercy. He is passionate to be steadfast in his love. And so Psalm 23 uses the word in a real memorable way. Psalm 23 says, surely goodness and mercy, that's the word, shall follow me all the days of my life. And the word follow is the normal word for a pursuing army. Like it's a word used most of the time in the Old Testament for battles and how you pursue the enemy. And you chase them over the Jordan into Moab or whatever. Here's God's mercy pursuing you all the days of your life. You can't escape his mercy. He will track you down. His mercy follows you all the days of your life so that you'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And that's why he hasn't given up on you yet. It's why he didn't give up on you a long time ago when he had so many opportunities to do so. This is why he keeps defending you. Why he keeps opening his hand to give you what you do not deserve. You thought you had forfeited his blessing long ago. Well, because of Christ, he has bound himself in covenant to you. You see, the real issue isn't you, it's him. It's his steadfast loyalty. It is his glory to make conspicuous that loyalty every time you fall down. It glorifies Him and it glorifies His steadfast love to raise you up and to heal you and to restore you when you fall. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. It is the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Mercies, don't forget God's mercies, His steadfast love. Turn your heart to that. And then there's this word, compassions. Because his compassions fail not. That's another beautiful word. I had the opportunity of studying out this word several months ago when we were in Isaiah 54 as a church and we saw the word three times in four verses. It was like the theme of those four verses. So this word, compassion, If I gave you a multiple choice quiz on what the root word of this word is, you would never get it. The root word of the word compassion is the word womb, a mother's womb. It speaks of the tenderness that a mother always has for her child, no matter what. No matter how much that child might grieve her, there is always that soft spot, there is always that compassion, there is always that empathy and sympathy because you are her child. You're from her womb. And that is a key attribute of God to give you hope. When your circumstances are seemingly hopeless, when it's a day of trouble for your family, when you, like Israel in this book, find yourself backsliding and under the chastening hand of God, you think of his compassion. You think how he has unfailingly moved over his children. And it's amazing to see this attribute in the life of our Savior, the various times that he's moved with compassion. You know, he was so sympathetic and moved by people that he even uses, the writer of the Gospels even uses this word to describe the way he felt when people had gone a few hours without eating. When the 5,000 were gathered on the hill at the Sea of Galilee and they hadn't eaten all day, it says he was moved with compassion. It hadn't been that long since they ate. They probably had breakfast before they came out. It couldn't have been more than six or eight hours, but that's how tender he is. Moved unfailingly, even over the simplest things in our lives. And it's the word he chose to describe that father who was looking for his son when he was a long way off and when he saw his son returning in his rags. He didn't just stand there like a fence post waiting for his son to get there. He ran out to meet him and he swept him up in his arms and he fell upon his neck and he kissed him. Compassion. And God says those compassions are new every morning. Every morning they're new and they're fresh. When you and I woke up this morning, it was like God gave us a big bag and the bag said, compassions. And you can all day long just dip your hand into that bag and get new mercies and compassions all day long. Here's another one. Here's another one. And then tomorrow morning, you get a fresh bag. New every morning. This is what you turn your heart to. His mercy, his compassion, and third, Great is thy faithfulness. The word faithfulness has to do with rock-like, steadfast, steady, firm, someone who's worthy of trust. He is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment, a God of truth, that's the word, a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. And that fact, that fact that God is true, that God is true, that is like the bottom rung of the ladder of biblical facts about God. And there are going to be times when you are so shaken that you're having trouble getting your footing anywhere. Here is a place of firm footing. My God is true. He's faithful. You see, there's a subtle deception out there. that you and I are constantly confronted with, and you'll be confronted with this more and more and more as you experience life. It's the idea that your struggles, that your struggles are unique, and that victory will only occur in your life when you find something new. And Christian bookstores, if there are such things anymore, are full of books on shelves promising new ways of finding victory, new things to try, secrets and keys to success and help. And it's a subtle lie of the devil. You don't need something new. You need something old. You need something you've known since you were four. My God is true. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. You don't always have to be on a quest for something new. You go back to those bedrock truths that you've known about God for a long time. This is how you turn your heart in hopelessness so that you have hope. You talk to yourself about God, and specifically His mercy, His compassion, and His great faithfulness. But I'll tell you something, this will only work if verse 24 is true of you. Look at verse 24. It is only when you can repeat verse 24 with a clear conscience that this will work. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. See, the key there is this is not just the God. This is not just a God. This is not just the Almighty. The key here is this God is my God. And if your conscience will not allow you to say that with a straight face, then this turning your heart to him and attributes about him, it won't work. This only works when you can be confident that he is yours. And the reason why so many professing Christian people who sit in church get very little comfort out of the promises of God, get very little assurance about the attributes of God, is because they cannot, with any clear conscience, use the word my. They can't use my. Their conscience holds them back from that. Have you heard the story, the account of when God first pricked John Wesley's heart? John Wesley, famous preacher in the 1700s, he was born and raised in a pastor's home. He had a very conscientious, prayerful mother. He went to Oxford, studied for the ministry. He led a very narrow kind of self-righteous life, avoiding all kinds of things. He went to be a missionary in the state of Georgia, of course, before it was the state of Georgia. And while he was in Savannah, he met a German pastor. And that German pastor asked him if he was a child of God. And Wesley was surprised that he didn't know how to answer him. I mean, he has a theological degree. He has a master's degree. He's an Oxford Don. But he didn't know how to answer this guy. He seemed so sincere, and his conscience wouldn't let him give a straight answer. Are you a child of God? He kind of balked. The German pastor insisted, do you know Jesus Christ? Wesley finally answered, I know that Jesus is the savior of the world. And the pastor said, yes, but do you know that he is your savior? And there's all the difference in the world between those two things. Jesus the savior of the world, Jesus my savior. God not being just the content that fills the pages of a systematic theology book, but God being your God. When you are born again, and have received forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ, when you've come to that place where, regardless of your struggle with remaining sinfulness and failure and disappointment, regardless of whether you know yourself under the chastening hand of God or not, that you still have confidence to turn back to the Lord, knowing that He is my Father, and that he will be faithful to me, and he will show me compassion, and he will be loyal to me, because I'm a child, and I might be a disobedient child, but I'm a child nonetheless. I belong to him, and he's my God, and he's my father in heaven, and he has saved me by his son. If you have that kind of confidence, then you can turn your heart in any circumstance. And you can say, it is of my God's mercies that I am not consumed. Because my God's compassions, they fail not. My God's mercies and compassion, they are new every morning. Great is my God's faithfulness. And that is how you turn your heart so that you have hope. I pray that you'll do that. The Lord will teach you that he'll turn your heart so that you turn your heart to him. Let's pray. Lord, our gracious God and heavenly Father, we bless your name as the faithful God with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. We thank thee for thy compassions and thy mercies. And Lord, I pray for these young people as they go out into the world. I pray that they would learn early to talk to themselves more than they listen to themselves. to steady themselves with the bedrock truths of your faithfulness. And may they taste and see that the Lord is good. Give them confidence and a well-grounded assurance, oh Father, that they belong to you. And awaken any who has yet to really submit to your ways. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.