All right, well, welcome to Red Village Church. I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here. And I’m glad you’re with us. I know a lot of us are gone this week and probably again next week over spring break. And so I’m glad that you’re here. And so if you have a Bible with you, if you’d open up through the Book of Lamentations. So Lamentations, chapter three. If you don’t have a Bible with you, fear not. There’s Bibles scattered throughout the pews, and it’s on page four, 401. So Lamentations, chapter three. First time here. I’m just going to read verses 21 through 26. And so if you are familiar with the Book of Lamentations, maybe a little bit familiar before we started this study a couple weeks back, these are probably the verses that you’re probably most familiar with. And so I’m going to read through them. And as you’re reading, reading through them, just kind of take note the context as we work through them as we get to the sermon today. So sometimes there are these famous verses scattered throughout the Bible, and they’re great, you know, just kind of seeing them as they are, but when you see the context of them, they mean so much more. And I think you’re going to see that this morning as you work through these famous verses when we get to them in our study. So let me read verse 21 through 26, and then I’m going to pray, ask our Lord’s blessing on this time, and then we’re going to get to work. So the Bible says so in verse 21. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. 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. Okay, so that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, it is good to be here. It’s good to be here. Not just to be around each other, but to be around your word. Lord, I pray that for the glory of Christ that you would speak today through your word, through the preaching of your word. Please help me to be a good communicator and please give the congregation good listening ears. To hear what your spirit is saying. Please use this time just to encourage us and give us hope. I pray song in Jesus name. Amen. So if you’ve been around Red Village for a little while, you know that every good story, it’s every good story I like to tell starts off the words, so there we were. So in this story, where we were is actually right here in this very room. So this is a handful of years ago when one of our missionary families from our church was back on an extended break. And this is a much needed extended break for this family because so many things were hard for them. So they had some real hard, challenging health issues. They had some increasing, like, financial uncertainty. Things are even a little uneven with the team that they’re ministering to. Ministry itself was just hard. So just a lot of hard things for his family as he came back to the States to visit with us. They’re coming back, like, riding on fumes, like emotionally, mentally, physically exalted. Well, one of the things we like to do here when our missionaries are back home is like to give them an opportunity to share with us, like any updates that they want to share with the hopes that they can share in ways that they’re just like, very honest with us. So if things are going well, they’re in season of encouragement, right? They have freedom to be honest, to share that. But if things are not going well and they’re in a season of discouragement, they have freedom to share on that end as well. Right? We don’t want missionaries, we don’t want any of us to feel that we can’t be honest with how we’re doing really on either end. And because of all the hard things this family was facing, my assumption was for their time of sharing would revolve around just how difficult life has been. So there we were. The couple goes up to the mic and they start to share. And as they start to share, they did share a number of the hard things that they’re going through, which, as mentioned, I assumed that they would do, and I was actually glad that they did. It’s good for us as a church to hear the struggles that missionaries have as they seek to proclaim Christ in difficult areas. But then what I did not expect, although I probably should have because of how godly this family is and how strong their faith is. After sharing the hard things, the wife then start to testify how even in all the hardships that they stood before us that morning with hope, much hope. And the reason why they have much hope is because Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead. Or then she further testified that no matter how life, how hard life may be, and for them was really hard in that moment. As Christian people, we live as people of hope. In Jesus Christ, we always have hope. No matter how hopeless things might feel. We are people of hope. Now, I tell us that story to set us up for our text today, which is the third of the five poems that make up the book of Lamentations. Now, if you’ve been with us the past couple weeks, you know, the first two poems that we went through are really heavy poems, poems that may have been hard for us to see and think through. As the poet of Lamentations, likely the prophet Jeremiah, she shared just the human emotion that he was wrestling with as the holy city of Jerusalem was just destroyed by the evil nation of Babylon, where Jerusalem was, I mean, absolutely devastated. And this destruction of Jerusalem was brought on mainly because the sins of God’s people, who, for generation after generation rejected the Lord, rejected his rule over them, rejected even God’s warning to them that this would happen if they did not turn from their sin and turn back to him. So we’re through the first two poems. You could just feel the weight that the poet was carrying as he’s trying to find answers to all the hurt and all the pain that he was wrestling with, where it felt like all the strength the poet has is just to cry out in a lament over all the things that have just taken place, where lamenting was not only there to help the poet process his feelings, but also to be a bit cathartic as well, just to get his motions out in ways he was seeking to trust the Lord through it all. Trust the Lord. The situation that he in Jerusalem was in, which was not a situation that we would say a situation of hope, rather, for the poet, for Jerusalem, that situation looked bleak. I’m sure it felt hopeless. Now, today, as we gather together, as we come to the third poem, we come to a poem that we might not expect from the poet, as the poet declares to his readers, hope. Hope even in the midst of all of the really hard things. Now, before we get back into the text, I do want to mention a couple things up front about this poem and. And how we’re going to work through it. So first, if you kind of let your eyes run through the poem, you’ll see that the poem is 66 verses long. So I mentioned in the first sermon on this series, and let me mention again here, that the first four poems of Lamentations are structured by an acrostic. So an acrostic is a type of poem that every verse starts with the next letter of the Alphabet. So in the Hebrew Alphabet, there are 22 letters. So this poem makes up three acrostics. So 22 letters times 33 gets the 66 second. Let me mention, because this is 66 verses long, we’re not going to have time to work through each line like we have in the first two poems. So in this sermon here, I’m going to work through each verse, but we’re going to have to go through a little bit more quickly, because I do want to encourage you later today, or maybe sometime early this week, is to read through this third poem a little more slow, slowly on your own. So my hope is that this flyby nature of this sermon is going to give you just some handles to help you understand what you’re reading as you go through a little more slowly on your own. So let me also just mention, as we work through this poem, you’re going to see there’s some clear sections in the poem or like movements within the poem and how the poet was processing things. So the first two poems, right, the mood, the tone was pretty consistent throughout. But in this poem, we’re going to see the emotions, the mood of the poet actually kind of change. And so what I’m going to do here in the sermon is going to try to break up the sections of the poem into these movements where we see how the poet’s processing things a little differently. And I hope that also helps you as you read through it more slowly later this week, just to feel and see the change of the poet’s tone as he was starting to trust in the Lord and finding hope in the Lord. Okay, so that being said, if you look back with me starting verse one through 20, it’s to me, this is. I’m labeling as the first section of the poem. So others have labeled this as the poet’s dark night of the soul, which I do think is a very good description for this first section. So let’s work through this section. A couple of things to take note of. First, just see how the poet describes his dark night of the soul. So if you’ve been in the dark night of soul, or maybe you’re in one right now, and you have a hard time, like, knowing how to communicate your thoughts, I think the poet is going to give you some language for you that you maybe can identify, maybe use for yourself. Second, as you work through the dark night of the soul here, just Notice how personal this section is for him. So later on, the poem becomes a little bit more communal in nature, as the poet wrote. But in this first section, it starts off very personal, like his personal dark night of the soul, that he’s like, very honest, very vulnerable, very raw with us. So verse one, if you take your eyes there, this is what the poet wrote. So I am a man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath, which is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, is brought on by the justice of God. Verse 2. He, the Lord has driven me and brought me out, or brought me into darkness without light, which here’s why it’s labeled the Dark night of soul. The poet felt complete darkness in his soul, which, if you’ve been in a dark night of the soul, you know how depressing this can be where there’s like, almost like a thick, heavy fog over you that affects every single area of your life. Perhaps it makes it hard to sleep, hard to find appetite, hard to be able to talk, hard to feel anything outside of depression. Everything feels dark. So in this first section, this is the poet’s reality, darkness without light. Verse 3. Surely he, meaning the Lord, surely he is against me. He turns his hand again and again the whole day long against me, meaning for the poor. I felt like the Lord is standing against them in everything. Every time he turned, the Lord was like standing right in front of him to not allow him to go forward. Verses 4 through 7. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He had broken my bones. He besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He’s made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so I cannot escape. He, the Lord has made my chains heavy, which for the poet, not only was he in the darkness of his soul, but he felt like he was trapped there as a prisoner, where he had to, like, dwell in darkness forever, where he would never be able to break loose, where he felt like the walls are just there, that are there, just too high to climb, that the chains are too heavy, too strong to ever be able to break free from. In the dark night of the soul, he felt there was no hope for him ever to escape. Once again. If you’ve been in the dark night of soul, you know these feelings. You know the feeling of being trapped, no way out, where everything feels like very claustrophobic, tight, heavy. We feel like you’re bound up in chains. Verse 8. If you take your eyes there, the poet, he felt trapped. Though he called out, though he cried out for help as he shouted with prayers to the Lord to hear him, to free him. Verses nine through ten of the poem. Even though the poet shouted out with prayers, the poet wrote, the Lord has blocked my way with blocks of stones. He has made my paths crooked. The Lord is like a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding. Meaning if even somehow the poet was able to break free from the prison, from the chains, from the dark night of the soul he was in, that the Lord was like lurking, like a bear or a lion to attack. Verse 11. Take your eyes there. The Lord turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces. He has made me desolated, isolated from others. Verse 12. The Lord has bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrows, which here, for the poet of Lamentations, he felt he’s almost become like a sport for the Lord to shoot at. Verse 13. As the Lord shot his arrows, he drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver, which further speaks to the pain that the poet was feeling. Verse 14. As the poet felt the Lord had trapped him in the darkness of his soul, he wrote that he’d become a laughingstock of all peoples. He’s the object of their taunts all day long. You know, for us, bad enough to be in the dark night of soul, so much worse when you feel others like taunting you, mocking you, shaming you while you’re there. I guess some of the times probably even involved, you know, where is your God now? For the poet, he couldn’t answer. Verse 15 and 16. As the poet sat trapped in the dark night of the soul, he expressed how he’s processed everything as he wrote. He has filled me with bitterness. He has seated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel. He made me cower in ashes, which here, for the poet of Lamentations, he’s angry. He’s angry at the situation. He’s angry at his enemies for putting him in this situation. And he’s angry at God, who is sovereign over it all. Which, by the way, once again, if you’ve been in the darkness of soul, you know some of the progression that we see here in the first section. In the beginning, we move from, like, depression, sadness, almost numb, despondent. But in times those feelings move to where we become almost like bitter, angry, intense frustration the longer we sit. Friends, that’s the poet here in these verses. Finally, in this first section, Lamentations 3, verses 17 through 20. Take your eyes there. He was bitter, frustrated. He testified that his soul is Brett of peace. And he’d forgotten what happiness is. No joy. All he knew was the dark night of the soul. So he said to himself, because of it all my endurance has perished. So has my hope from the Lord. Right? The poet completely dejected at the end of his rope. Hopeless, almost like no energy to even try anymore. Verse 19. Figurized there. Further, speaking to himself. Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. Verse 20. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Meaning as he sat in the dark night of soul, he starts to remember back to all the different things. I think he’s memory back to what life once was, perhaps when he was happy before Jerusalem fell. But these past memories didn’t bring him cheer, because right now all you can remember is all the hardship. He’s completely dejected. Friends, do you feel what the poet’s feeling here in the first section of chapter three? Can you just feel. He’s basically like collapsed in on himself, almost like no way out. Can you just feel like the darkness of his soul? He felt like he’s like sentenced there forever hopeless. But then we keep going and there’s a drastic change now in the poet, perhaps an unexpected change in tone from the poet for us to read. The fog starts to lift, and it starts to lift because he remembers back to his past, which was making him angry and bitter. But then he almost like starts to remember back to the Lord and how the Lord was present in his life in the past. And how the Lord was present in his life in the past began to give the poet hope that the Lord indeed would be present again for him in the future. Let’s keep going here as we do this, let’s just follow this away, that when you find yourself in a dark night of soul. Just to follow this section here, follow this example from the poet of finding hope by actively remembering the Lord and how he has been at work in the past. Let that give you hope for the future. So verse 21, the words I read earlier, but this I call to mind. This, this I also remember, and therefore I have hope. Yes, his situation in many ways felt hopeless. But as he remembered, as he recalled the mind, he found hope. And that this in the text that he remembered is verse 22. And following he remembered this. And may we as well. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end, rather they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Which by the way, are the verses behind the hymn. Great is your Faithfulness. Now, here, the poet doesn’t give anything specific on what he remembered, what recalled the mind that helped him have hope and the steadfast love of God and the mercies of God and the faithfulness of God. My assumption is there are some specific memories from the past that he was able to recall that gave him hope. So we don’t know what those specific memories are. Poet doesn’t share that with us. But we do know for the poet, for us, this is our hope. A hope that will never fail. Say it again. The steadfast love of God never ceases on his people. The mercies of God never run dry on his people. And every morning they come to us anew. Because our God is great in his faithfulness to his people. Friends, that’s our hope. How God has worked in the past. Whatever situation that we can remember from the past gives us hope, we can work in the current situation we’re in as we move forward. Verse 24. Take your eyes there. The Pope remembered the Lord, his love, his mercy, his faithfulness. He proclaimed from the pit, proclaimed from the dark night. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in him and you will hope in him. Because. Verse 25. The Lord is good. He’s good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks Him. By the way, those are really hard things. Two hard things for us to do when we’re in the pit, but two things we must do even in the dark night of the soul. We must wait for the Lord, for His timing, patiently wait for the future that will come. We must seek and we must continue to seek after the Lord even as we wait. It’s not easy to do. But friends, by faith, it’s what we must do. In the poem. And as we wait and seek the Lord, the poet tells us verse 26 that. That it is good that one should wait quietly. Wait quietly, you know, to not, like, jump to conclusions, to not, let, like, frustration, bitterness overcome us in ways that’s troubling our hearts, but to wait quietly, patiently for the salvation of the Lord. Salvation that lifts the fog, that shines light in the darkness, that sets the prisoners free. I keep saying, friends, it’s hard to do, but something by faith we must do. To wait on the Lord, to wait for his salvation that indeed will come, to hope in him. To hope that according to his perfect timing, he will show Himself faithful for us. In the poem, the poet even the darkness of nights of the soul, found hope in God as he waited upon the Lord. This really is like the second movement of this poem. The first just describes the honest reality of the dark night of the soul. Say it again. If you’ve been there, you know these thoughts. But now, as the poet remembers back to God’s faithfulness in the past, he was able to declare hope. Hope that God will be faithful again going forward. This leads to the third movement of the poem, at least for me, which is now the poet applying that hope in ways the poet is like trusting in the goodness and the faithfulness of God, even as he waits where he declares the goodness of God, even in the midst of the judgment, the judgment of sin. Verses 27 through 28 Paul wrote this. It’s good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Likewise, it’s good to let him sit alone in silence when it is laid upon him. Even though these things might not be good themselves. The hope that we have in the Lord is to trust that somehow God is using them in our lives for. For our good. Verse 28. Let him by, let him put his mouth in the dust and let him do this, where he is brought to this lowly place, so that from there, from this lowly place that he may see, there may yet be hope and friends. I think we do know this. Sometimes the only time we can see the hope we have in God is when we find ourselves in seemingly hopeless situations. Sometimes the only time we can see the hope we have in God is when we’re standing at the end of our rope because it’s there we see that the Lord is all that we have and all that we need. Verse 30. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes. Let him be filled with insults. Short, let him persevere as he suffers, even as he sits in the dark night of the soul. This is verse 31. For the Lord will not cast off forever. He will not cast off forever his people. But though he cause grief, he, the Lord, he will have compassion. He will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. Now let me say for us, we don’t know the timing of how long we’re gonna have to wait. At times it might feel like impossibly long, especially when we’re in it. But we do know that according to his timing, according to his purpose, according to this abundance of his steadfast love. Friend, as we sit and wait, we do know the Lord will respond. And according to his timing, according to his purpose, he will respond with compassion towards his people. Verse 33 Praying to your eyes there for he the Lord does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of man. Meaning that while God is just, he’s not cruel. He does not put us in a dark night of soul and keep us in a dark night of soul. He’s like he enjoys watching these people suffer. That’s not cruel. He has purposes behind. Behind all that he does, including verse 34 through 36, purposes to crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth. Because to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most Holy God, to subvert a man in his lawsuit. The Lord does not approve that. Yes, he is just, not cruel. Just God does not approve cruelness or injustice, but he does approve justice. This is part of God’s good heart. Verse 37, which is the poet trusting in God’s sovereignty. Even though times in our limited knowledge it might be hard for us to grasp in the poem who has spoken and came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it. Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? If the Lord is not the only sovereign over all things, is he not right and just to bring about good from whatever he chooses to do? So in the poem, why should a living man complain about the punishment of his sins? The implied answer from the poet is a man should not complain when justice comes because of sins he committed. Rather, you should trust that somehow God is bringing about good. It is good for him now for us. In the first part of the poem, poet lamented being the darkness in his soul. He cannot see how God was good as he was sitting in the pit. But then the second part is he actually remembered the Lord, his steadfast love. He found hope, such hope that now in this third part, he finds hope even as he sits in the dark night of the soul. That not only was this part of God’s good justice, but through it God would bring about good from it in ways that he would put his love on display in even greater ways. This week I was thinking about the old hymn, the famous hymn, it is well the hymn writer wrote after losing his family at sea, which was not good. Yet the hymn writer found hope in God, and he can declare, it is well it was well with his soul. This leads to the fourth movement of the poem, where I think we see the poet shift from self, which was his focus in the first movement, to not hope in God, where he takes his eyes off himself and puts his eyes not just towards God, but also towards others. We see his eyes now are on others in his community around him. Which by the way, also I think is really important for us, although also really hard for us to do. When we’re in the darkness of the soul, we’re going to be so trapped. We’re just like so self focused, self pity, self loathing, self centered. Where the only place we look is to self. That’s never good. When we are self centered, self loathing, we only fall deeper and deeper into the pit of despair. Our eyes are to be towards the Lord and towards others in ways that we’re seeking to love and serve God and others. This is what the poet does. If you want to look back with me Stern verse 40. So just notice how the poet changes from I and me in the first part of the poem, the first, especially the first few verses to now starting verse 40 and following. See words like us and we and our in this section. So verse 40. 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, and you have not forgiven. Say it again. The poet found hope and now is trying to help others find hope by serving them. Verses 43 to 47. You, meaning the Lord, you have wrapped yourself with anger, pursued us, killing without pity. You have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can come, can pass through. You have made us scum and garbage among the people. All of our enemies open their mouths against us. Panic and pitfall have come upon us. Devastation, destructions are everywhere we cheer. Even though the poet is trying to be encouragement to his community with the us and the we, it’s not like he’s pretending that everything is great right now for the community. He’s not selling some false sense of reality to them, that he’s being very honest with how awful life is, honest with them, honest with the Lord, honest with how sinful they have been, honest how justice has rightfully come. Which by the way, I think is important as we try to give others hope in seemingly hopeless situations. We don’t need to patronize them by denying hardships, hardships maybe they have gone through or currently in, or even deny that sometimes life is hard. Not always, but sometimes life is hard because the consequences of sin, you know, sometimes life is just really hard just on itself, but sometimes it’s hard because of sin. So even as we seek to encourage others, we do so by acknowledging that sometimes life is hard where we can be honest, even honest, to call for repentance if needed. Verse 48, 51. As the poet sought to encourage his community by acknowledging their hardship. He communed to him how he was affected by everything as well, how he was able to sympathize with them because he was in the same boat as he testified to the community. In the Poet or in the poem. How my eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees my eyes caused me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city. So once again, even though the poet found hope, even though he’s trusting in God’s perfect timing, that the Lord will look down from heaven in ways that he would sing and bring salvation. But as he waited for that hope to come, he just continues to be honest, honest with the community, honest with himself, honest. Until that day comes, life can still be painfully hard. As he cried tears of great grief. You know, for us, this actually is a real part of living by faith in this life. It’s living by faith, trusting in God, having hope in God that one day God will make everything right. Even though in the moment, perhaps things are not right. Where in the moment, perhaps things are actually really hard. That’s part of living by faith. This is true of the poet. This is true of his community. Yes, they had hope, but life was hard. Things were not easy. They were living in this already, not yet of the faith. We’re interfaith. Yes, already we know. Listen, we know God will make things right. We know we have hope. But until the Lord returns and sets up his kingdom, it will have no end because we are not yet there. Life still can be hard, so we can acknowledge the hardships, Acknowledge the hardships as we pray, Pray as individuals, pray as community. Pray that God indeed will make things right, that God will promise or fulfill what he’s promised to do. Which actually the last movement of this poem of Lamentations 3, which is simply the poet praying for justice to come to the enemies of God, which is part of God’s making things right. The wicked will not win out. Rather, the wicked will perish in judgment. Which, by the way, also gave the poet hope. So look back with me again. Starting verses 52 through 54, we see the poet continue to acknowledge how awful the situation, how awful it was. I have been hunted like a bird by those who are my enemies without cause. They flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me. He wrote, water closed over my head. I said, I am lost. Which, by the way, further describes the pain and dread, the darkness, dark night of the soul. Poet felt like he’s like drowning in pain, waters closing over his head. Verse 55. But from the pit he prayed. He says, I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. And as he cried out from the depths, he wrote, you heard my plea. Did not close your ear to my cry for help. And as the Lord heard his plea in verse 57, the Lord came near when I called you. And as the Lord came near, he comforted the poet with these words, do not fear, which is one of the great commandments, the great comforts that run throughout Scripture. Over and over again God tells his people, do not fear, do not fear. In the poem, not only did the Lord provide the poet with these great words of comfort to not fear, but Starting in verse 58, we see the poet also found hope. The Lord came to fight for his cause in ways that he would bring about justice to the enemies. Verse 58. You. You have taken up my cause, O Lord. You have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord, judge my cause. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. Verses 61 through 63. You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all of their plots against me. You have heard their lips and thoughts of my assailants as they go against me all the day long, O Lord. As you hear all that they have said against me, Lord, may you also see. And behold, they’re sitting and they’re rising, as all day long I am the object of their taunts. Right. This is the poet hoping in the Lord that indeed justice will come to his enemies. Then in the end the wicked will not prosper, but judgment will come. God will make all things right. And finally, verses 64 through 66, which ends the poem. As the poet continued to appeal to the Lord for justice, he appealed with hopeful confidence. You will repay them, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. You will give them dullness of heart and your curse will be on them. You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord. Which ends the poem ones with a lot of different, different movements from the poet from where he started in the beginning of the poem. Angry, frustrated, bitter, as he sat in self pity in the dark night of the soul. It’s where he ends this poem with conclusion, with his eyes on the Lord, with hope that indeed God will make all things right. That indeed God will be good to him. That indeed God’s love and his mercy is on him. That indeed God’s timing will be right now for us. Let me just give You a couple quick thoughts on this poem. Thoughts to mention again, I do hope hope you later on as you read through this poem, maybe a little bit more slowly than we went through this morning. Morning. So I just have three things, kind of three takeaways from this poem. So first, friend, you can be honest when you’re in the dark night of the soul. Now we obviously do need to be mindful that we’re honest with our situation, honest with how we’re feeling, that we don’t put ourselves in situations where we’re not like being completely self centered or that maybe we’re feeling like justified or licensed to do whatever we want because like we’re in this position of self pity, whatever. But that being said, friends, we should be honest with ourselves, honest with others, honest before the Lord, honest when things are just really hard, honest when you feel like you’re in a dark night of soul, that’s like circling in and starting to crush you. You know each of the five poems of Lament that make up the book of Lamentations, including this one today. I just appreciate how honest the poet is. He’s honest with how he was actually feeling, how he was doing. And this honesty of the situation is really found in this entire movement of the poem, which by the way, this is actually one of the hopes I have for us as we study through this book. I know this is not an easy book to study Lamentations, but I do hope that this book helps us to be honest. Honest with our situation, maybe honest with our emotions, honest in ways that we know how to like, lament when things are not going well, even know how to lament if we find ourselves in our own dark night of the soul. So that’s the first thing. You can be honest when you’re in the darkness of the soul. Second, that being said, you can, you should have hope even in the dark night of the soul, which might seem impossible when you’re in it, where it might feel like you’re trapped forever in the darkness of the soul, forever drowning. But friend, if you are in Christ Jesus, as our missionary friend so passionately reminded us a few years back, if you’re in Christ Jesus, you have hope. You always have hope. Hope in God. You have hope in the steadfast of the Lord that never ceases. You have hope that his mercies will never come to an end. You have hope that his mercies are new every morning. You have hope that your God is great in his faithfulness. You have hope that justice will come when the Lord returns to set up his kingdom, he will make everything right now. A couple things on this hope that we already talked about. First, as we have hope, at times we might have to wait and be patient for this hope to be realized. Where we might feel like we’re stuck in the dark night is so much longer than we’d ever want to be. So at times we might have to patiently wait for the right perfect timing of the Lord to accomplish whatever he set out to accomplish. Remembering that the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, but he’s patient. Patient even as he’s working in our hearts as we sit and wait. Second, we have hope. When you think about this hope, part of it is just remembering back to God’s work in the past to give us hope for the future. As mentioned again, the poet doesn’t share any specifics on what he remembered from the past, what he’s able to recall to memory. But clearly God’s work in his life in the past gave him hope for the future. Same for us. Even when there’s a darkness in the soul, it’s good for us to remember the past, to recall. It’s not easy to do. It’s so much easier just to sit in despair. But we must recall God’s past faithfulness in our life, even try to come up with as many specifics as you can. So this is where God has been faithful to you to give you hope. He will continue to be faithful to you. And as you do that, as you try to recall, start with God’s faithfulness to you through the work of Jesus Christ, through the salvation he’s given to you. We’re in this great salvation. Jesus Christ came to take on the judgment of your sin upon Himself by dying in your place, only to rise again on the third day, which through this great salvation, not only does God pour out his steadfast love and mercy on his people, but but through this salvation, this is the hope that we have that life will not always be one where we’re stuck in the dark night of the soul. This is through the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is where God shines His light in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, overcome it. Friends of the darkness of your soul, yes, we can be honest about it, but we can’t let our minds just run in ways we put ourselves deeper and deeper into the pit of self pity. Rather, when we’re in the dark night, we must remember back to God’s work in our life, starting with God’s work through the good news of Jesus Christ remembering the one who died and who rose again and who promises to come again because of that, friend, you always have hope in which for some of us today, perhaps you walked in and just feeling the poet in the first section of this poem, maybe you walked in on the end of your rope. And if I can encourage you, if I can give you hope, please turn your eyes on Jesus actively remember what he has done for you and trust in his timing that he is going to accomplish whatever he’s seeking to accomplish in your life. So quietly wait upon the Lord. He will be faithful to you. Third, you should seek to serve God and others even in the dark night of your soul. Now, this serving when you sit in the darkness of the soul, might not be in the same level or ability when you’re at your best. But friend, even in the darkness of the soul, we still should seek to love God, love others by serving, which is what the poet really seeks to do in this poem. As he found hope, even as he sat in the darkness, even as he still was waiting, as he found hope, he sought to serve others by sharing hope. Now, one of my favorite passages in Scriptures is 2nd Corinthians 1. Maybe some of you are familiar with this. Where in this passage. So the Apostle Paul also very honest about the darkness of soul that he and some of his companions were in darkness that was brought on because of like religious persecution as he was testifying to Jesus Christ. Where in this honesty, Paul wrote this, he says, we are so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despair of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we received the sentence of death. That’s very honest. It’s very raw. But as Paul’s companions were in the dark night of soul, he further testified that it was there that God brought them to the end of their rope in ways that they would not rely on themselves, but they rely on God, the one who raises the dead, who in the past delivered them from a deadly peril which gave them hope that he would deliver them again. And what I love about this passage, even as Paul sat in the dark night of the soul, he sought to encourage others with these words. Let me just read these. This is from 2 Corinthians 1 said, Blessed be the God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort. This is the encouragement here, who comforts us in all their affliction, so that we might be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort which we ourselves have been comforted by God for We have share abundantly in Christ’s suffering. So through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. See this? He had hope, he had comfort. So now he’s encouraging others to do this well, to share hope, share comfort. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings which we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken. For we know that as you share in our sufferings, you also will share in our comfort. See how he put his eyes on other people to encourage others. Friends, who knows all the reasons how God is at work in your life. My life, when we sit in dark nights of the soul when we’re at the end of our rope. But I do think this is actually one of the great reasons is to put us in ways that we trust in him more so we can better serve others Church. Our missionary friend was right. The truth that we see running throughout all of scripture for those in Christ Jesus Christ, all here today, you have hope. You have hope. Even in the darkest of nights, you have hope. Let me just end our time here just with these words also by Paul. It’s kind of a doxology that he prays in. Book of Romans wrote this. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Let’s pray. Lord, I do pray you give us hope. Particularly those who maybe walked in this morning feeling the dark night of the soul. Lord, I pray that you would just fill them with hope and comfort today. And Lord, thank you that in Jesus we do live as people of hope, no matter how dark or how hopeless things might feel around us. Think that your steadfast love never ends, your mercy never ends. Your mercies do come new to us every day, every morning. Lord, we thank you that you are a faithful God, one who is great in faithfulness. Pray so in Jesus name, amen.