A Word in Season: New Every Morning (Lamentations 3:22-24)

Good morning, my name is Pastor Jeremy Walker from Maiden Bower Baptist Church. I'm sitting here this morning with the sun streaming through the window in my study, remembering that through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in him. Those words were written by a man called Jeremiah in a book in the Bible called Lamentations, which was written in the midst of great sorrows and distresses.

They're words of real hope and real consolation. All of us have something of that this morning, because God is still enthroned and everything is under his control. His compassions are not failing. The overarching structure of regular life on earth continues.

While the earth remains, God promised, Seed, time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer and day and night shall not cease. We are not consumed physically. We're still alive. God is granting to all of us who are listening to these things, life and breath and all things.

And most of us are supplied with the basic necessities of life in abundance, far, far more than many others. And we have, in addition to even some of those basics, these wonderful technologies that allow us to interact, at least in some measure, with one another.

And perhaps the sweetest mercy of all, God in Christ, his beloved son, is offering mercy to sinners like us, forgiving the sins of all who call upon him. But you'll notice that in those words from Lamentations, it's a particular category of people who are speaking of the compassions of the Lord.

The Lord is my portion, says my soul, and therefore I hope in him. To have God as your portion is to have God as your all in all. It's to put your trust in him. It is to rely upon him, not just for the things of this life, but for the blessings that our soul needs.

It's to have his grace and his mercy poured out upon us day by day, to have him sustaining our soul, whether in this life or even in death. And if you're a Christian this morning, then you can say that you are not and will not be consumed and that the mercies of God will be new to you, not just this day, but for every day.

And that whatever comes to pass in the coming days, whether or not the things we're being told turn out to be maybe less true, if you will, that things become even worse than we're being promised, or whether or not in the kindness of God, he restrains some of these things that are happening in the world that he has made.

Whatever comes to pass, God is still on his throne and he is still the father to all those who are trusting in him. We know that whether we live or die, we belong to God. We know that he will feed our souls day by day.

And if you cannot yet say that, if God's compassions to you are simply on a material level at this point, those are not to be despised by any means, but there is so much more to God's compassion, God's kindness and God's goodness than that.

You need the Lord as your portion. You need to be able to say that Christ is your all in all. You need to be able to say that God is your father in heaven. You need to be able to say that because of his mercies, your soul is and must always be safe, both in life and in death, in this world and the world which is to come.

So if you come to him, you can hope in him, you can trust in him, you can have confidence in him, and you can be sure that he will continue to be good to you all the days of your life. Thank you.