Lamentations, Chapter 3, verses 17 through 26 is found on page 688 of the Chair Bible there in front of you if you need that. Follow along as we ask God to speak to our hearts today through his word. And as I felt led this week to continue the sermon from last week on how to live by faith, not anxiety. Lamentations is where we need to be this morning. Lamentations chapter 3, beginning in verse 17. My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. So I say, my endurance has perished and 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 seethes. 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. Let's pray together. O God, may we wait on You today. God, may we see what You mean from Your Word here. That we are to hope in You. in the next hour, in the next day, the next month, and the next year, and for the rest of our lives, our hope is in you. We trust in you when our hearts fail us. So God, meet each person today at their point of need. Through the power of your Spirit and the truth and beauty of your Word, speak, O Lord. You increase now in our affections. May we decrease. And may you receive the praise that we just sang to you. It's all for your glory. And our joy in knowing you and following Christ. It's in His name that I pray. Amen. Amen. I changed the title of the sermon this week. It was going to be Living by Faith, Not Impatience, Nor Anxiety. And as God led me away from Matthew 6, as I studied the book of Lamentations this week, the five chapters, my heart was riveted by the book of Lamentations. And I said, well, I'm going to just do Living by Faith, Not Anxiety, Part 2 today. So that's where we're going to camp out. But I do encourage you to remind ourselves, we should all remind ourselves, We heard from Jesus Christ himself last week that we are not to be anxious about anything. We are to trust him. He says being anxious won't do anything good for you. And the exposition of those verses, a short exposition of those verses is found right on the table. You can pick it up. It's posted on our website under resources and sermon notes as well. But I really felt a strong leading of the spirit of God to to go to limitations. So, be patient with me. We'll get to impatience another day. But time and time again, we do see in God's Word that the key to a joyful, fulfilled, meaningful life is to live by faith in God's promises that He has throughout His Word. That's what it means to live by faith in God's future grace. Why? Because we know that God is faithful and those who believe in God, who do indeed trust in his promises, who trust Christ as their Lord and Savior and obey him. We, in fact, follow him by living Christ, honoring God, glorifying lies. And we as Christians, We do this not because we have to, not because the pastor says, oh, you got to do this or you got to do that or you must do this or you can't do that. It's because the heart that is transformed, has been transformed and is being transformed by God, desires to please God and to see what his word says and to trust in his word. He really honors those who are faithful. We are indeed a church full of Christ's followers. We follow Him. Right, youth? That was the theme of their D-Now this weekend. Following Him. Following Christ. They had this Disciple Now weekend with our church and another Baptist church here in Colorado Springs. And they heard over and over again that those who really believe, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Those who believe, follow Him with their lives. And youth, I would encourage you to get this little book called Follow Me by David Platt or his longer book, Follow Platt, kind of as a resource to follow up on what you just heard this weekend, what it means to follow Him. You think these words are applicable, youth and leaders? Jesus calls us to follow Him. But if we examine how the Bible defines born again Christ followers, we see that full attention, self-denial and transformation of our desires are what is required. Are you truly born again? The call to follow Christ is not about praying a prayer, but about losing your life. I love that. It's a good book. So let us always remember that saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a call to follow him. To follow Christ is to believe in Christ. And to believe in Christ is to follow Christ. So you say, well, Pastor, we're going to the book of Lamentations. Why? After last week, when we were encouraged from God's Word in Matthew 6, where Christ himself tells us not to be anxious, why are we going back to the Old Testament book of Lament? And lament is, this is a passionate expression in the book of Lamentation of grief and sorrow over what has happened. And we see in Lamentations why the devastated people of God in 587, when Jerusalem was ransacked and overcome by the Chaldeans or the Babylonians, why they are in such great lament. And chapters one and two will rip your heart out. They know they are ruined, and they are very anxious. And their only hope, though, that we see is hoping in God and trusting in His promises. The hope that He is a God of forgiveness, and He can renew them. So, every sinner, our hope is in God. And we see in the book of Lamentations and throughout the Bible that God hates sin, He judges it, and there are harsh consequences for those who do not follow Him and have a lack of faith in God, those who are unbelievers. I mean, the writer of the book of Lamentations, which in the Hebrew, interestingly enough, in Hebrew, the book of Lamentations is called, How? That's it. How? Why? No, not how. It's how. In the Hebrew Bible, it says this because it emphasizes how much the people of God, how much Jerusalem suffered for what? Their lack of faithfulness. I recall, if we think back to our exposition And looking at the book of Habakkuk, remember his prophecy? Well, this is the results of what happened when he prophesied the people of God were going to be overwhelmed by the Babylonians. It happened in 587, and the writer experienced it. You can tell when you read through chapters 1, 2, 3, and then halfway through 3, we get the hope that we read earlier. Wow, these are your people, God, and this really happened. And it's some horrible things here. And there is great lament. There is great pain. There is great anxiety here. Because they refused to walk by faith and live by faith and follow the joyful commands of God to trust in Him. And they paid the price for that. They rebelled and they worshipped idols, you'll remember. And everyone everywhere should hear There is great judgment for those who worship idols, just like many today who do so and seeker-sensitive, people-pleasing, prosperity-driven churches across our land. And God says to all of us, I am God, and there is no other to worship. So, God is God. We are not. And God calls His people then and He calls His people now to follow Him. Just follow him and trust him. Don't follow yourself. So lamentation describes that result of the destruction that happened. And it also goes into how we defeat anxious thoughts and anxious living by trusting in the whole counsel of God's word. So this book is a very personal book. And we see as we arrive after some tough chapters in 1 and 2, we get to chapter 3 and we see God's mercy and God's faithfulness is going to be key. Faith in God is the key to a restored relationship with Him. It was then and it is now. So I want to ask you this morning as we dive in, Anxious? Are you still anxious about something in your life? You say, Pastor, I'm learning more how to walk by faith in God's future grace. I took your advice and I'm writing down some verses on 3x5 cards. My verse this week for you to let you know that I'm doing this as well is Lamentations 3.24. as much known as Lamentations 22 and 23, which are awesome. Verse 24, the Lord is my portion. When you have an anxious thought, feast on the word of God and say, God, you are my portion, my soul. I'm a believer. I have the Holy Spirit within me. My soul says, my soul says, Lord, you are my portion right now. So therefore, you're my portion. I will hope. in you at this moment in my life. Trust in the promises of God. So if you're anxious this morning, I think this is a very practical sermon because I believe the Bible is in theology is practical, how we work out and live the Christian faith day by day. So you You claim the promises of God by living out the promises of God. When I am afraid, not if I'll be afraid, when I am afraid, I will trust in you, Psalm 56. So we Christ followers are called to be people who do what? We fight for joy in God and in his promises every day. Because I believe hope, not despair, is the real message here of the book of Lamentations. clear throughout this book. A couple more words about this book. It's really a very interesting book. It contains five poems, five intricately interconnected poems, which describe this horrendous, horrible loss, personal shame for sin, unbelief to a restored hope and a renewal of faith. Prayer. I believe this book is neglected too much. by believers, especially by anxious believers. And there's a lot of great hope and joy in this book. But the writer found himself in verse 17, look at verse 17, my soul is bereft of peace. And if this is anything like a typical congregation, as I read and study and I pastor and I shepherd, there are people Most likely here that are not living in complete peace right now with the circumstances that they're in. I want to see here the word of God today. He is your peace. Listen, if you're a follower of the Prince of Peace, my soul is bereft of peace. I've forgotten what happiness is. So my endurance is perished, God. My hope is about gone, he's saying here. It's gone. So I'm remembering my affliction and my wanderings and the bitterness, the wormwood and the gauze, this bitterness of what I've experienced. And your mind, your mind goes back to it. My soul continually remembers it. And so it brings anxiety and your soul is bowed down within you. And when this happens to you, Christian, when this happens to you, look to God's Word. Look at verse 21. He's fighting right here. But This I call to mind. What are you going to call to your mind? Call to mind the promises of the Word of God. Call them right now when you're anxious. There's hope in God. And therefore, I have hope. Call to mind and you will have hope. And listen. But call this to mind. What are you calling to mind? The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never Come to an end. So, God, in this trial, I'm resting on the promises of Your Word that Your mercies are new every morning. So, I need them new to my heart right now. Help me to be satisfied in You right now, God, despite this valley that I'm walking through right now. And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. He is with us. So, we claim the promises of that. in the midst of the trial. So His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. The Lord, you remind yourself, the Lord is your portion that you need right now. Your soul cries out, God, you are my portion. And therefore, I have hope right now in the midst of this. I have hope because you're my portion. I'll hope in Him. I trust in Him. He goes further and says, Verse 25, the Lord is good. The Lord is good to those who wait on him. Wait for him. What is that? The Lord is good for those who wait for him. When is that going to happen in your life? In the future. This is future grace right here in the Book of Lamentations. The Lord is good to those who wait for him. That's belief. You're waiting on him. You're waiting on Him to answer you, to provide the peace in the midst of the storm. You're waiting on Him to get you through the trial. You're believing that He will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. To the soul who seeks Him. You don't seek Him in the past. You seek Him in the next five minutes. You seek Him in the future. This is all about future grace. It is good, verse 26. that the one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Is His grace sufficient? The Word of God says that God says, My grace is sufficient. For whose power? His power is made perfect in weakness. And Paul goes on to say, well then, therefore, I'm going to boast in my weakness. For when I'm weak, He is strong. So, in your weakness, in your anxious days, in your anxious moments, claim the promises of God. That almost sounds, Pastor, like a name it, claim it kind of thing. Well, wait a minute. When you claim the promises of God, you're saying God You increase at this moment, not me. I need you at this moment, not me. I'm not going to boast in my power and in my strength. I'm going to boast in yours. It's all about you. It's not about us. He may choose to prosper you on this earth for a little while. You give him the glory for that, and you use anything he's blessed you with for the furtherance of his kingdom, because it's all about him. But I've found more often than not, in my reading and my life experience around the world, that Christians are people who gladly embrace suffering for the cause of Christ. I've seen that. They're people who, in their natural, it just not makes sense for somebody to sacrifice in the way Christians sacrifice. And you who sacrifice daily and weekly for the gospel, you know what I'm talking about. Not my will, but His, be done. So Lamentations is about believing in God's promises. And if we had time to go through the rest of the book, you see glimpses of the writer saying, oh God, I'm calling out to you from the pit. Verse 55, and you've heard my plea. Do not close your ear to my cry for help. Verse 56, you came near when I called on you and you said to me, do not fear. Oh, may we live as people who are listening for the voice of God through His Word, speaking to our hearts. Do not fear, Christian. Your security now and forever is secure. May we live as people like that. Well, I want this to be a different kind of service. I want there to be freedom. to confess your anxieties to God, to repent of any sin that has broken that warm, trusting, hopeful relationship with God or perhaps others that you love. And we're going to do that with a different kind of invitation at the end of the service. So when we get there, you'll know. And I want you to bow your head and pray and listen to the words of a song that I'm going to introduce in a few minutes. This book, like others in the New Testament, Psalms and others, really a book meant to be sung to the Lord, used in worship services like we're doing. And in these services, they were services devoted to asking for God's forgiveness and seeking a beautiful restoration of the relationship covenant relationship with God. And I believe many people today need to pour out their burdens to God and cast their cares upon Him because He cares for you. Verse Peter 5, 7. You who are weary and heavy laden, come to Christ. He will give you rest for your souls. And many people live though Not trusting in God's promises and live broken, anxiety-filled lives every day. I want you to know that as a shepherd and as a pastor, you are not alone. You're not the only one that life confronts you and you have to deal with the bad things that happen to you, sometimes because of the natural consequences of your own sin. sometimes because of the sin and mud and yuck of the world that hits you and you have to deal with it. And at those moments, as a believer in Christ, you cry out to God, God, draw me up out of the pit. May I trust in you at this time? Because I've seen what people do who don't know God during those crises in their lives, what do they do? They curse God. They curse God. So listen carefully, please. Your hope cannot rest in you and it can't rest in your own heart, in your own ability to deal with what happens to you in life. Your hope is solely in the Lord and in His promises. And all that God is for us in Christ Jesus. And I believe most people in our land do not believe this. And most do not daily live by faith. So, what are we to do? What are you to do? Because there are many people, I believe, that are on the broad path that leads to destruction, and many are hurting and anxious, and their lives are not what they had dreamed they would be. They live in a weakly state of anxiety and hopelessness because Again, they're either reaping the consequences of sin their own or someone else's in this sin-saturated culture in which we live or a combination thereof. And so, we live lives that say we are cross-bearers. We follow Christ and we hope that God gives us divine encounters with the hurting because If we have nothing to give them, how can we help them? How can we be salt and light? So we wake up in the promises of God and put our feet on the floor and say, God, satisfy me this morning in your unfailing love, your steadfast love. Because someone is going to cross my path today, Lord, and I want to be able to share with them my hope. My hope is in you now as a believer. I'm not going to, when you meet someone, I'm not going to say, well, let me tell you about how I became a Christian 25 years ago. Now tell them how you're trusting in God today. Why you believe in the promises of God and how you're acting in such a way contrary to the world who doesn't act by faith in God and in His promises. We point Him to the cross. And He is our only hope. It requires us to turn from our sin and to trust in Him. To humbly bow before the Holy Sovereign God. Confess your sins to him. Ask him to forgive you because he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And now you live for him. You died yourself because he saved you and freed you from the power of sin. And you have been declared righteous if you're a believer. You didn't make yourself righteous, but you've been declared righteous. In Christ. So this is the rock solid truth in which we stand as followers of Jesus Christ. We are saved by God's grace alone through Christ alone. To the glory of God alone and you are saved eternally by God. And you can be saved from an anxiety filled life by trusting in his promises. Today. You say, Pastor, I've I've tried. I've tried. I'm doing my best. Well, I want to encourage you. Cling to the promises and God's Word. Know if you're a believer that you have been declared righteous in Christ. Most people don't think about that glorious doctrine that we're justified by faith alone. Being declared not guilty by God. Not on the basis of anything that you've done. But so many people think back to what they've done and say, how could God love somebody like me? Oh, he loves you. We sing about it earlier. Oh, how he loves you. And he wants you to trust him primarily. Trust in him. Confess and trust in him. And this is good news for you today. How can you be free from a lifetime of anxious living? I've told you the best way. Trust in the promises of God. Do not be anxious, Christ says, about life. Because I love you more than flowers, birds, clothing. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be added to you. And I must say, I do highly recommend another little book for some people who just say, the darkness is not lifting, Pastor Tom. The darkness will not go away. Cling to the promises of God. There's this book called When the Darkness Will Not Lift. Yes, my pastor, my mentor, Dr. Piper, wrote this too. Look at the pre-title of this book. Doing what we can while we wait for God and joy when the darkness will not lift. The introduction to that book alone is worth it. It's awesome, saying how we live and the knowledge that we have been declared righteous, Christian, by God and what that means about living by faith in Him. In church, you say, why are you just focusing on this so much, Pastor Tom? Because people are hurting. They don't need me to stand up here and do a big cheer to get you to do, hey, Say these five things. Repeat this mantra over and over again. These five little steps to a happier day with Jesus. Cling to his word into your life and say, God, fill me with your spirit today and he will give you the power to break those strongholds in your life. I'm trying to help you to get our eyes fixed on the author and the finisher of our faith. If you're a believer, he authored it and he will finish it, according to his word. And these promises are to be believed, to be trusted. And you know, Church, I want us all to grow so deep in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that when that day comes, when I visit you in the emergency room, or you visit me in the nursing home, or I visit you, whenever that day comes and this heart's about to stop, Whether we can speak or not. We grab each other's hand and I don't know which one of us will be lying on the edge of eternity at that moment. But if we can speak, we can look at each other at that moment. We've got everything settled. Because we have been Christ followers. We believe in the promises of God. And maybe we can just whisper to one another as we hold each other's hand. Tis so sweet. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. And maybe you can't talk, but you squeeze the hand and you say, I lived for Christ, did the best I could, but didn't earn it. I'm going to say, or you say to me, it's OK. You lived a life that showed. Your life is about Christ. For to you, I really believe, to you, to live with Christ. But guess what? To die now. Squeeze. It's going to be day. It's going to get better. Not worse. You don't have to fear. When you're born again, you're born again forever. And it makes the anxiety of being in the emergency room or the nursing home, as the breathing becomes more shallow, more bearable, Because I've been there with Christians who have died. There's a difference between them and the unbeliever who knows when their heart stops and they stop breathing, they are going to be in the presence of Jesus forever in heaven. It's a real place. God tells me. I don't need anybody else of any age to tell me that heaven is real. God tells me it's for real. I trust in His Word. So we believe that. And heaven is promised for all who what? Believe. Follow Him. For those who don't believe, He's not going to say, enter in, ye good and faithful servant. It will be, brother. It will be horrendously more devastating that anything we can ask or imagine where Jesus Christ will not be forever. But people are given a choice today to trust and obey. For there's no other way to be what free from anxiety. And to trust in the promises of God. I want to close today with a story about somebody who suffered with anxiety a lot in their lives. Have you ever heard of William Cooper? Lived in the 18th century. And he struggled mightily in his life with depression and anxiety. He was committed in the early 1800s to an insane asylum And he was walking in the garden one day in his 30s, found a Bible sitting on a chair in the garden. I'll tell you a little bit about the story. He picked it up, turned to John 11, read Promises of Christ, and he got to Romans. A man suffering from deep anxiety and depression. He read this in Romans 3 verse 21 through 26. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation or an atoning sacrifice by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And William Cooper was born again and his life changed. He kept going. He kept going and he still suffered with depression and melancholy in his life. He didn't skip away, skip through life thinking everything's just fine now when sin confronted him or he sinned. And he lived and met John Newton and moved close to his parish in Olney, England. Let me read a little bit from this article of William Cooper, this man who suffered great anxiety. The mental pain that he struggled with. He had many battles with it. But after his conversion, throughout the rest of his life, he remained convinced of God's sovereignty and goodness, even if at times he had great difficulty believing he himself was the beneficiary of them. And Cooper's hymn writing as he and Newton wrote together as Newton as a pastor shepherded him frequently with the word of God and they wrote hymns together. John Newton of the famous Amazing Grace hymn. Newton saw Cooper's bent to melancholy and reclusiveness and drew him into the ministry of visitation as much as he could. They would take long walks together between homes and talk of God and his purposes for the church. And then they collaborated on a hymnal to be sung by their church. And in the end, Newton wrote about 208 hymns in Cooper 68. The hymnal was published in 1779. Then besides amazing grace, Newton wrote how sweet the name of Jesus sounds and glorious things of thee are spoken and come my soul, thy suit prepare. And William Cooper wrote, God moves in a mysterious way. And there is a fountain filled with blood and oh, for a closer walk with God. A man tormented by anxiety. These are great, great hymns of the faith. The hymn, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, is a combination, listen, of assertions about God's goodness, His sovereignty, and His wisdom, along with commands to take courage and to trust in Him. And Cooper's use of metaphors of storms and mines and smiles and flowers illustrate this meaning in a timeless way to us. And this hymn is a beautiful expression of the kind of, listen church, the kind of faith that sustained Cooper through long periods of darkness and despair. It reminds us. This song, God's God Moves in a Mysterious Way, reminds us that many of the greatest hymns grow out of life's most difficult circumstances. The first verse goes, God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Listen to verse four, when we get there, this is a song I'm going to play. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace behind a frowning providence. He hides a smiling face. I want us to hear these words. I want this to be a time of invitation for us today. If you don't know this song, feel free to to watch. The words will be on the screen. And this is a more modern rendition of this song because it adds a chorus. But I love the I love the verses and I love the chorus to this. Please don't check out yet. Listen. I mean. If you're anxious. We need to put our minds and our hearts and our eyes and our ears on the promises of God in the midst of our affliction. Our Christianity doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything if we can come here and saying, oh, how he loves you and me and walk out of there. God doesn't love me. Love me, I gotta go to work tomorrow and I'm gonna face this tomorrow. I've got this paper due and I don't know how in the world I'm gonna get it done. You sit down, you claim the promises of God and you start writing. You get to work the next day and you say, God, you are my portion. I'm gonna have hope in you today. And I'm gonna do my job because I'm gonna provide for my family. I'm gonna love my family well. And I'm going to do it with an attitude that my workers around me who hate it because they'd much rather be doing something else. But God allows you to work for His glory, whatever He calls you to. Whether you're collecting garbage tomorrow morning. Can I garbage for the glory of God? Because I bet you there's a workmate that you work with who's not a believer. And you believe in the promises of God. It doesn't matter what you do. So this is reality. God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform in the midst of the muck and the yuck that we live in every day. His grace is sufficient. So, Will, if you would put the song on. I'm going to sit down there with you and I'm going to praise God for William Cooper. as we sing this song. But I want to praise God for the truth of these words. Let the words minister to your hearts. And if you feel toward the end of the song, I'm going to come up here. And if God has moved in your heart this past week, this past weekend, in any way, and you want to come and declare what God is doing in your life, if you want to quietly pray with me, if you say, Pastor, I've been praying about A church that is God-centered and Christ-exalting and Bible-saturated and Spirit-filled. And I want to unite with this church. You can come tell me. This is the invitation. We'll start the song, if you would, please, son. So, God, we trust in You. We've never slept in the street, and rather from the storm. Deep in the dark and in the night. We've never failed in the field. We've passed the waters bright and green, and watched the clouds move in. The Word. Yeah. Thank you. Would you stand with me, Church? Keep in an attitude of prayer. Stay in an attitude of prayer. We're going to sing this last chorus again together. God moves in your heart, you respond and respond right there. Sing it. We trust in you. So God, we trust in you. God, we trust in you. Oh God, we trust in you. Tears are great and comforts few. We hope in mercies ever new. We trust in you. I pray that your prayer today as we Get ready to depart and go our separate ways. We're the body of Christ. We live to encourage and support one another. May we trust in God's promises. So, Lord, I thank you and praise you that you are good in the midst of life's storms. You're lovingly sovereign and you desire us to trust you in the valleys of life. So God, I pray for the flock now. Here and around the world, God. May we claim your promises because your promises are true. And may we live by faith and not by sight as we go into this world now. God, and I pray your word now. May you, the God of hope, fill us with all joy and hope in believing. And that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will find our hope. in you. So, God, we go now believing in the grace that awaits us now in the coming week. May we be found faithful. In Christ's name and for his glory we pray and live. Amen and amen. God bless you. Thanks for coming today. And as you make your way out the door, greet some friends, we pray, and some guests. And Tom and I will have some handouts here for you.