©2002 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

5/19/02

Hope

Lamentations 3:21-25

5/19/02 Hope

I do not think there is anything

more potentially devastating to our forward movement as Christians

than a loss of perspective.

The very heart of all true faith

is the belief

that God will take the choices we make now

and use them to bring into existence

a profoundly different future

than we would otherwise have known

because we chose to trust Him.

The very definition of faith,

given to us in Hebrews 11:6,

is built upon our assurance

that God Himself will restructure our future

in response to our trust in Him.

HEB 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Every act of faith

is at its heart

our choosing to believe that God is really there,

and that His love for us

will cause Him to respond to our trust in Him with His kindness and goodness poured out on us.

But there is always a gap between the two -

between our trust

and our experiencing the reality of that kindness.

There is always a time

when all we have sustaining us

is our conviction that God is there

and that He is good

and will be good to us.

And nothing is more devastating

to that process of faith

than the loss of our long-range perspective.

If we ever begin to believe

that our life is going nowhere,

that what we do or don’t do really doesn’t matter,

that we are trapped forever

in an endless and meaningless routine of life,

if we ever begin to believe the lie

that the choices we make now

will have little or no significant impact

on our future,

it will paralyze our ability

to make the choices that move us toward greater freedom,

and greater health,

and greater productivity.

Of course our Lord said far better

what I’m trying to say here

when He told us in Jeremiah 11:29,

“'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

The beginning of His redemptive work within us

comes in the form of His giving us

a future and a hope,

not just once or twice in a lifetime,

but daily renewed within us.

I seldom involve myself in the song selections made by John and Vickie.

I love what they do for us

far too much to fiddle with it much.

But I made a request of them this morning.

I asked them if we could sing “Let Us Search And Try our Ways”

because it fits so perfectly

with some of what I want to share with us this morning.

I don’t know if you are aware of it,

but that song

is directly out of the King James translation of several verses from Lamentations chapter 3.

Lamentations was written by the Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah has been called the prophet of the broken heart.

He lived most of his life

in tremendous emotional

and often physical pain.

He was called by God

to speak for Him

at a time when the nation of Israel

was in total disintegration.

He saw the destruction of Jerusalem

and the Jewish people

carried off into captivity to Babylon.

His message of warning

and call to repentance was never received

by the Nation of Israel.

He was forbidden to marry because of the terrible times in which he lived,

he converted no one,

was rejected by all who heard him,

and tradition tells us that his life ended by his being stoned to death by his own countrymen.

In the verses that lead up to the song we sang this morning

Jeremiah cries out to God for the way He has dealt with him.

I’ll read just a few of his words

so that you can get a feel for what he says.

Talking about God, he says,

LAM 3:3 Surely against me He has turned His hand Repeatedly all the day.

LAM 3:4 He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away, He has broken my bones.

LAM 3:5 He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.

LAM 3:6 In dark places He has made me dwell, Like those who have long been dead.

LAM 3:7 He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.

LAM 3:8 Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.

LAM 3:9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.

LAM 3:13 He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts.

LAM 3:14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their mocking song all the day.

LAM 3:15 He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood.

LAM 3:16 He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.

LAM 3:17 My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness.

That is the backdrop against which

he then says what he says

in those verses we so love to sing.

Beginning with verse 21

he says this:

LAM 3:21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.

LAM 3:22 The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.

LAM 3:23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

LAM 3:24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."

LAM 3:25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him.

Twice in those five verses

Jeremiah affirms his hope for the future,

and he does so on the basis of his remembering

that the Lord renews His lovingkindness and compassion to us again and again every morning of our lives.

There are two things I want us to see in these words of Jeremiah.

First of all,

I want us to see that true hope for the future

never comes from our circumstances,

it comes from remembering each day

that the lovingkindness of our God toward us never ceases,

that His compassion for us never fails,

and that both are renewed to us

and for us each time the rays of the sun creep over the horizon.

I love the way Jeremiah says that.

He speaks the truth about our God

as seen through our eyes.

Of course, with God there is no such thing as morning,

or evening,

or night,

or day.

God doesn’t sleep.

He doesn’t get up in the morning.

But we do.

Every 16 hours of life

we need to drop out of conscious existence for a while,

and then, seven or eight hours later,

we need to reenter the world.

And Jeremiah’s message to us here

is that the basis of all true hope in life

comes from remembering

that each time we reenter

we do so bathed in the lovingkindness,

and compassion,

and faithfulness of our God to us.

Maybe I could say what I want to say to us best here by contrast.

When you look toward your own future,

what things give you hope?

Is it that person sitting next to you right now?

Is it those investments you’ve been able to make recently?

Is it that new, pre-approved low interest credit card application you just sent in last week?

Is it that new job,

or that big move coming soon?

You know what hope is, don’t you?

You know where it comes from?

It comes from the belief

that we have established for ourselves

an emotional anchor in the future.

None of us know the future.

None of us even know

how this day will end for us.

Without our being able

to plant some sort of emotional anchors in the future,

the future could be a terrifying thing.

And so, without even thinking about it consciously,

every one of us establish those solid places as we look ahead.

“I’ll have you beside me.”

“I’ll have that IRA.”

“I’ll have my diploma.”

“I’ll have that vacation.”

“I’ll have that paycheck, or that bonus, or the Permanent Fund Dividend.”

“I’ll have that new treatment,

and I just know this one will work.”

Last week Chuck suggested to Jan

that she might want to place her hope in curry

in her ongoing battle with MS.

(I took comfort in knowing

that I believe Jan derives her hope

from a very different source.)

We establish numerous emotional anchors in our future,

and through them derive hope

that allows us to move forward.

My Trinidadian friends use to say that the last thing a man gives up is hope.

I like that.

Without hope any life worth living ceases to exist.

But when we look at the life of Jeremiah

we see a remarkable thing.

We see a man placed by God into history

who had none of the hope anchors

that we so commonly cling to in our own lives.

He had no one beside him.

He had no IRA,

no vacation from his turmoil,

no paycheck, no bonus,

no realistic hope that anyone would ever respond to his message.

And yet it was this man

who speaks to us about the true nature of hope

more clearly,

more powerfully than anyone else in history.

You know why, I think.

It is because, when God removed from Jeremiah’s life

all the things that we normally look to for hope,

when they were all taken away,

it allowed us to see with absolute clarity

the only thing in life

that has the power to give us

the kind of hope for the future

that can never ever be taken away-

This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

I certainly don’t mean to suggest

that we are wrong to derive some sense of hope for the future

through making wise choices and plans now

with the belief that we will reap benefits from those choices down the line.

But what Jeremiah wants us to see

is that there is only one unfailing certainty in all of life -

God Himself.

And until we allow Him to become our bottom line in life,

our ultimate source of hope,

we have no certain basis for hope whatsoever,

because everything else can fail,

everything else can be removed.

So how do we get there?

I mean, how do we build that basis for hope into our lives?

Well, that is the second thing I want us to see in Jeremiah’s words here.

And the answer to that

begins with that first phrase in verse 31,

This I recall to my mind...

Hope in God never just happens.

It enters our lives through a conscious,

ongoing mental process.

A few minutes ago I read for us

where Jeremiah began his thought processes.

He began by reminding himself

of all the things God had brought into his life

or allowed others to bring into his life

that he hated.

I understand that.

I’m very good at that,

and my mental list of grievances

looks like heaven compared to his.

He was hated,

rejected,

abused.

I especially liked that part

about where he tells how all his teeth were broken out

by having his face shoved into the gravel.

Vivid...very vivid imagery.

But then Jeremiah hit a point

where he chose to turn his mind, his thoughts a different direction.

He said, “This I recall to mind...”

And my point here is simply this -

establishing our God

as our source of hope,

building that kind of foundation into our lives

never ever just happens.

It is always the result

of conscious choices we make.

“This I recall to mind...”

And with most of us

most of the time

it is a choice we must make on a daily basis.

I’ve shared with you in the past

that I am not a morning person.

I tend to be an early riser,

but I am not a morning person.

Nearly every morning I wake up

having once again forgotten the truth.

And nearly every morning

I find it necessary to once again

consciously recall the truth,

and through that truth

to reestablish my own personal anchor of hope for my future -

both for the immediate future of the next 24 hours,

and for the months and years ahead

that I can see only in my imagination.

And what I like most of all

about what Jeremiah does in these verses

is that

he not only shows us how much we need to recall the truth on a daily basis,

but that he then goes on to show us

just exactly what that truth is.

It has two parts to it.

The first we’ve already seen.

LAM 3:22 The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.

LAM 3:23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

God is absolutely and utterly good,

and His heart desire is to be absolutely and eternally good to me.

No matter what my circumstances

may be saying to me,

no matter what other voices around me

may be screaming lies to me,

all truth

and all hope begins with my recalling once again

that the Lord’s lovingkindnesses to His children never cease,

His compassion for us never fails,

and His faithfulness is more certain

than the rising of the sun.

But there is a second part of the truth, too.

And this is the part

that will very likely make us feel anxious,

or even afraid

until we have experienced the reality of it.

When I was writing up these notes this past week

I stopped part way through

for a coffee break with Sandee.

We took our refillable cups and two pieces of See’s candy down to the Tesoro station,

got our coffee refills,

and then went down by the river

and sat on a bench in the sunshine.

Sandee asked me what I was writing my notes on this week

and we talked a little about this remarkable life of Jeremiah,

about the tremendous pain

that blanketed most of his life.

Then I mentioned his bold affirmation

in the absolute goodness

and kindness,

and compassion,

and faithfulness of God

that we find in this passage.

And as we were talking

the obvious question that came to mind

was, “Given the circumstances of his life, how could that be?”

And all of the sudden I saw it.

He tells us how it could be in that 24^th verse.

LAM 3:24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."

Do you know what he’s saying there?

He is saying, “If God is all I have,

then God will be all I need.”

And this is where I’ve been wanting to take us all morning long,

because it is this truth

that provides the basis for all true hope in life.

If God is all I have,

then God will be all I need.

I few minutes ago

I asked you a question.

I asked what things give you hope for the future.

I also suggested some possible answers to that question.

But what Jeremiah wants us to know,

and the truth he wants us to remind ourselves of each morning,

is the truth that,

if any or all of those emotional anchors we have placed in our future fail us,

if they never become a reality,

and if all we have is our Lord,

then our Lord will be all we need.

Do you think this truth is an age thing?

I mean,

do you think this business about God being our only certain hope-anchor for the future

is something that applies mostly

to really old people

with grey beards

and more years behind them than ahead of them?

The true basis of hope has no age.

All throughout life

we select for ourselves

an ever changing set of emotional hope-anchors

that fit our age.

“If I can pass this test...”

“If I can sit next to that cute girl in history...”

“If I can make the team...”

“If I can score the points...”

“If I can get through school...”

“If I can find a wife or husband...”

“If we can have a baby...”

“If I can get the job...”

“If I can earn this much money...”

“If I can buy or sell or own this or that...”

But I wonder if you have yet allowed yourself

to be honest with that evolving process of ever changing emotional hope-anchors in our lives.

Have you allowed yourself to see

that, even when we achieve the ones we have been hoping for,

none of them ever have the power to satisfy the deepest longings within us?

Most of the time

we handle this discovery

by telling ourselves

that it was simply the wrong anchor -

that what we really need is this, or that.

And then we head out in pursuit of our new goal.

But the two truths Jeremiah gives us,

the two things he wants us to recall each day we live,

are the two truths that have the power to bring us absolute hope for our future

no matter what our age may be.

First, whatever my God may choose to bring into my life

will come as an expression of His lovingkindness and compassion for me.

And second, at those times

when all my other little anchors fail me,

and all I have is Him,

then He alone will satisfy the deepest longings I have.

LAM 3:21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.

LAM 3:22 The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.

LAM 3:23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

LAM 3:24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."

LAM 3:25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him.