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Hope In The Darkest Hour

Dear Friends,

One of my favorite quotes these past couple years comes from Charles Spurgeon: "Believe that the deepest afflictions are always neighbors to the highest joys. The greatest possible privileges lie close to the darkest trials. The more bitter your sorrow, the louder your song at the end." The book of Lamentations is perhaps the bleakest in all of Scripture. Yet at the very center of the book we find one of Scripture's loudest songs of hope—"Great is Thy Faithfulness!"

Look at Lamentations 3:19-24.  With the tears still running down his cheeks, Jeremiah pauses to praise God.  Michael Card calls it “a bruised and bloody praise,” but that makes it even more meaningful.  

"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 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.'"

Dear friend, you don’t need to understand your trials and sufferings in order to have HOPE in the midst of them. God doesn’t owe us an explanation. We don’t need to know WHY. But we do need to know HIM. And often it’s in the midst of great grief and sorrow that we come to see Him for Who He is! He is dashing our hopes because He intends to give us better ones. I like the way one poet says it:

I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow; And ne’er a word said she,
But, oh, the things I learned from her when sorrow walked with me.

To cultivate hope in the darkest hour, be persuaded that God’s love and mercy are inexhaustible. "His compassions never fail" (NIV). "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end…” (ESV). There is an endless supply of mercy in God!

Wait quietly and confidently for the salvation of the Lord. Sometimes that’s all you can do—wait! Not with a stoic, passive endurance, but with a hopeful, active, even joyful expectation that someday these trials will come to an end. “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen”  (1 Pet. 5:10-11).  


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HOPE FELLOWSHIP | LOMBARD

Speaking of hope, let me give you a brief update on how things are going at Hope Fellowship, the new church plant we are helping to support in Lombard. Mike Jacoby and I had a very encouraging meeting with Jeff Brewer, Jon Trott, and Ken Kelly on Monday. We heard how God has taken a group of ten people who were meeting last winter and envisioning a new church in Lombard, and built them into a growing and fresh new church of up to 125 people. They are meeting every Sunday in the Commons in the heart of Lombard, reaching college students and a diverse group of adults from Elmhurst, Lombard, and surrounding communities. They also have a thriving small group ministry as the congregation meets weekly in several "Mission Groups" in the homes of Hope's members.

Jeff and Ken wanted to express to the people of New Covenant how grateful they are for the strong support Jon & Jenn Trott and their family have been to this new church plant. Jon is a very industrious and efficient worker, and his labors in gospel ministry have lent a strong hand to Jeff in the groundbreaking work of this new church. The partnership that is developing between them is full of promise and joyful camaraderie.

My prayer is that Hope Fellowship will be the first-fruits of numerous new churches that New Covenant will play a role in planting throughout the greater Chicagoland region in the years to come.

With joy and hope in the gospel,
David Sunday