Revival

[SPEAKER_01]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Well, let me add my good morning and welcome to you welcome to Citizens Church If we have not met yet, my name is Scott and I have the joy of serving as one of the elders here at Citizens If you are here a couple weeks ago when Jeff preached

[SPEAKER_01]: As he mentioned, the way that we compose our elder team here at the church is that there's some of the guys that are on staff and this is their full-time job and then there's some of us that are have other jobs and volunteer and all serve on the elder team together.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I would be in that category of have the joy of other daily work but the great joy of serving as one of the elders and an opportunity like this to open God's Word to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're new here to

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't always sing songs from the 90s, but we should, I think they're the best.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're welcome, and if citizens is home for you, then you're very welcome back as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: How's your summer going?

[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody having fun?

[SPEAKER_01]: Summer's almost over?

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, I talked to someone between services and their teacher and they're going back to work basically on Monday.

[SPEAKER_01]: So summers over for some of you, I know.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I hope some of you have had a great time this summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope all of you have.

[SPEAKER_01]: But have you had an experience this summer?

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people take breaks, relaxation, vacation, hopefully most of you have.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you did or not, have you had an experience recently where in the midst of the experience you thought to yourself, wow, this is really good, this is great.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just want this to continue for a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Having experienced like that this last week, Angela and I went away for a couple of days to New Mexico.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just spent some time together and the hotel we ended up at was on an Indian Reservation and there was horseback riding.

[SPEAKER_01]: Neither of us are big horseback riders, but we're like, hey, something to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go on a horseback ride.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was great.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you've never been on a horseback rider, you haven't in a while, you should do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: This horseback rider was beautiful.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were up 5,000 feet in the mountains, outside Albuquerque and high desert, cactus and different stuff around the Rio Grande River, the sun setting, and riding a horse is amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Especially for the trail horse, because trail horse is only due what you tell them to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you lack self-confidence, you should go on a horseback ride, because you're on this huge animal, and you just do this, and the horse does it, and you do that, and it does it, you can have dominion over creation by being on this horse.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: And on that trail ride, that was one of those moments for me, where I just felt like

[SPEAKER_01]: This is great, I could do this all day long.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't because it actually hurts after you get off the horse.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have you had an experience like that?

[SPEAKER_01]: In Psalm 126, we find the people of Israel having an moment like that with each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 126, if you're not there already, I would say turn there.

[SPEAKER_01]: because it'll help you follow along as we work through it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 126 is a Psalm of a sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's called that because the people were ascending as they created these reflections.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was part of the Psalm book that they would sing to each other as they would ascend to Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they would go up to Jerusalem to the temple for these different festivals in things in the rhythms and life of the people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as they did that, there was no phones then, there was no AirPods, no podcasts, they had nothing to do as they walked up these hills to Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they would sing to each other and they would sing about what's true about God.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would sing about their history and what He has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we're finding here in Psalm 126 is one of these times where they're going up to worship and they're reminding each other of what God has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what they remind each other of in this Psalm, repeated twice there in the first couple of verses, is that God does great things.

[SPEAKER_01]: God does great things.

[SPEAKER_01]: We actually don't know which part of the history of the people of Israel, this Psalm is particularly reflecting on.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't tell us the historical context.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some people think maybe Niyamaya wrote this Psalm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Niyamaya, you might have remember, is the cut bearer to the king of Babylon, who appealed to the king that the people could be released and given the opportunity to go back and rebuild Jerusalem after exile.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that could perhaps be it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what we know from the rest of the Old Testament is that the people of Israel believe that God did great things for them, chapter nine, Job, one of the earliest books of the Old Testament in terms of chronology being written, Job says, God, who does great things beyond searching out and marvelous things beyond number.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of Samuel's life, Samuel the prophet, at the end of his life, for Samuel 12 captures his departing words, his final words.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for Samuel 12, what Samuel says to the people and his last comments to them, only fear the Lord serve him faithfully with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 106,

[SPEAKER_01]: says, God, they're Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't know exactly which great things the people had in mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know if this was an occasion that they were affecting on.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what we can see throughout Scripture is that the God of Scripture is a God who does great things.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is the God who does great things.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the way that can give us is that we can be, and we can enter into this Psalm as the people did, knowing that we worship and serve the same God, who does great things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Specifically though, this Psalm does give us a little bit of a hint as to what kind of a great thing they're reflecting on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Specifically, this Psalm is talking about the great thing in the work of restoration.

[SPEAKER_01]: It says when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this isn't fortune in the sense of wealth.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, well, they made a great fortune when they sold their business.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is fortune in the sense of your destiny, or your life path.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is things going well for you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you experiencing a fortunate season?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have good fortunes?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they weren't, they had bad fortunes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Things were not going well for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Things were going poorly for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a sense of desperation that is in contrast in the sense of joy that they experienced when the restoration took place.

[SPEAKER_01]: And just to underscore this, this idea of restoration, this isn't just kind of one thing on the list of great things that God does.

[SPEAKER_01]: But restoration is the greatest thing that God does throughout Scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see His power and creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see His power and daily provision.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see great things in horseback rides and cups of coffee and all the good things that are in our life.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the greatest thing that God has done is He has worked restoration for His people.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the only thing that could create this sort of dream-like joy that the people had

[SPEAKER_01]: So to move us through this Psalm this morning, I think the Psalm gives us three pushes.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm gonna do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Three pushes to push to remember, to seek and to trust.

[SPEAKER_01]: Push to remember God's restoration and what He has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Push to seek His restoration to continue and to push to trust that He will restore.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let's talk about remembrance.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've already started thinking about this, but in this song, it's beginning with a sense of reflection in a sense of looking back.

[SPEAKER_01]: A sense of seeing what had happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just make a high-led just a few things that we see about the restoration.

[SPEAKER_01]: See if any of these resonate with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: One thing that we see there about the restoration is that it was divine.

[SPEAKER_01]: obvious, but essential to point out, God was the one who restored them.

[SPEAKER_01]: When God restored the fortunes, this is causing them joy and laughter in the dream-like state.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pinching themselves or we even awake because God has broken through the barrier of the spiritual and the physical and God has broken into the world and He has restored them from their desperate state.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not sort of when we learned some good stuff about God, then we were happy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not when we started working with God, we saw some great things come about about.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, hey, we were desperate and God did something.

[SPEAKER_01]: God divinely did something, he restored.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's divine.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's corporate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Notice that in all of these things, it's an hour, it's a we when the Lord has stored our fortunes.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were glad.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a kind of joy that comes when you're successful.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's a different kind of joy that comes when we are successful.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we win.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is that kind of a joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you see the World Cup matcher at your favorite sports team

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they won.

[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't do anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're cheering about their success.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in this environment, and in this Psalm, what we're seeing here is that we are fortunes.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was true for the group was true of each one of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a reminder that the grace that God gives us and his restoration is indiscriminate.

[SPEAKER_01]: to who can receive it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's for everyone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone can join in on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no saying, just the guys were laughing.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, men, women, children, everyone were filled with laughter.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's corporate.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's wonderful.

[SPEAKER_01]: It produced a dreamlike state.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pinching themselves with joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was total.

[SPEAKER_01]: This restoration was total and complete.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was attractive.

[SPEAKER_01]: The nations looked in and said, wow, what's going on there?

[SPEAKER_01]: What happened?

[SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen to those people?

[SPEAKER_01]: Those slaves from Egypt?

[SPEAKER_01]: God did that for them?

[SPEAKER_01]: Those people that got defeated in battle and taken off, got doing great things for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe in your life, there's people that are surprised with where you've gotten to.

[SPEAKER_01]: That if they saw you here in church today, some of your friends from high school or whatever it might be, would say,

[SPEAKER_01]: You're in search, you're a Christian?

[SPEAKER_01]: What happened?

[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's attractive when God does his restoration work.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I realize for us today that what this Psalm is leading us to think about, and the kind of emotions and posture that it's beckoning us to think about is actually really, really hard for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: The idea of a dream-like joy

[SPEAKER_01]: I know we're in church and so that sounds like church language, but in the world we live in, that is nonsense.

[SPEAKER_01]: We swim in a secular culture where everything is about, life is just fine without God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't need them.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can do whatever we need to do without them.

[SPEAKER_01]: We live in a culture where to get better to when something's not going well and we want to see it go better, we want to see restoration, what do we do?

[SPEAKER_01]: We reach for self-help.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's literally called self-help.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can do what we need to get done, what we need to get done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for those great and amazing things that we dream about that we want to see, technology, you'll get it for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Trust Elon, he's got it covered, it's going to be awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to help ourselves and technology is going to solve our greatest future needs.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't need Psalm 126.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what I'm asking you to do today is use this Psalm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Use this Psalm in the remembrance of what God has done in the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remembrance of his restoration work, like some wind-ex, on some paper towels, scrubbing, the secular, self-help technology culture off your mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Praise God that we get to live in a world where there's technology.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so thankful for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Praise God that we have a lot of worldly wisdom that we can know how to do better.

[SPEAKER_01]: And how much protein we should eat every day and all that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are all good things.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it can distract us from actually the best thing is just to feel like God is amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: The God of the universe who created and sustains the world broke into our world to save us from all of our sin and shame through the person in the work of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't make sense in our culture, but it's amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you come to know it, and if you have come to know it, the joy that you have will be, what the New Testament author says, joy inexpressible, do you remember coming to know that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember that time?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember in your life where you started to remember what God had done for you in Christ and the joy that was yours?

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope so many of you can.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope for some of you that if you're sitting here saying, well, actually no, I don't.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have never used that wind exit and wiped the culture off and realized I need eyes of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope that you can hear that as an invitation.

[SPEAKER_01]: What we're doing today is we are remembering that there's a God who does great things and he restores his people who would love to invite you to join us in that journey.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a journey to remember, you know, one last thing before I move on, recently at an elder retreat, about a month ago, two months ago, the elders went away to just pray and think about the church, and what we could do that could be helpful for you as a church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that we did, it was my highlight of the entire few days that we were together, is that we got all the baptism testimonies,

[SPEAKER_01]: from the history of Citizen's Church.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've ever been here for about four times a year, we do have a celebration service where folks get baptized, share what God has done in their life, to bring restoration for them, and how they come to know about Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: We got all of those testimonies out and just spent a couple hours.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just quietly reading testimonies, what has God done in this church?

[SPEAKER_01]: Talking to each other about, oh yeah, you know, this person, remember that and oh here's some themes across these testimonies and again and again coming back to you and God has done great things for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: and we're glad.

[SPEAKER_01]: God has done great things here at Citizen's Church and we're glad.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you can remember your story and I hope you can celebrate with those the Lord is working in here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's remember God's goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: This song also pushes us to seek.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's an interesting turn in the middle of the song.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you cough that out as it was being read or you see it here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it goes from this idea of this dream-like gladness, this wonderful restoration, this remembrance of the amazing great things God has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then in verse 4, there's this turn from looking to the past to the present.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what it says about the present is restore our fortunes, oh Lord, like streams in the Negeb.

[SPEAKER_01]: from gratefulness, for past restoration, to appeal, for continued and ongoing restoration.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever felt that dissonance before?

[SPEAKER_01]: You've known the restorative power of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you believe in it, you know that it happened, you believe in that theology and you have a foundation of your faith that's unshakable.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you believe it.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you look back and you remember, you believe it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you feel like you need it now.

[SPEAKER_01]: You feel like you need is restoring grace now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this song is here to tell you, that's OK. That joy and you wonder that you've experienced we continue to pray for.

[SPEAKER_01]: Past thankfulness is not in contrast with present dependence.

[SPEAKER_01]: Past thankfulness is not in contrast with present

[SPEAKER_01]: dependence.

[SPEAKER_01]: We live in this era between the work that God has done in Christ in the ultimate fulfillment of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And right now, it feels like we're in the negab and we need some streams.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might not know what the negab is.

[SPEAKER_01]: The negab is a desert region of the land of Israel, dry, dusty.

[SPEAKER_01]: What you find there are these valleys in these riverbeds or creekbeds, streambeds.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where, for the most of the year, it's barren and dry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think of cropped mud, just nothing going on there, no life, but then what happens when it rains.

[SPEAKER_01]: Within an hour, overnight, a flood of water comes through and fills those stream beds with streams.

[SPEAKER_01]: The streams of life, plants crop up.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the people are praying for.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're saying, we need that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We feel a dryness, and we're asking Lord, bring your restorative grace.

[SPEAKER_01]: What would cause a Christian, someone who believes in Christ, to need that?

[SPEAKER_01]: What would cause you, to have a dryness, to have a riverbed in your life that is in need of a stream?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not, I don't believe, and based on the authority of Scripture, talking about the loss of your salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, as we remember what Christ has done in the cross, it's full in His final and belief in Him, it secures us for an inheritance that's a bot for us imperishable, kept in heaven for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is no question about belief in Christ, giving a foundation to our faith, and there's a present reality where at times we can feel like, I don't feel it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's dry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me mention a couple of reasons that could be for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Simply, just that you've lost the joy of your salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: You remember those times, we sing these songs, and you remember those times.

[SPEAKER_01]: I remember 15, 16-year-old Scott, singing better as one day and singing, you know, all these different songs, all in all, and we used to sing it really great, you know, where you do it in the round, where the girls are singing one part, the guys are singing the other part.

[SPEAKER_01]: 15 of 6-year-old Scott, the joy of salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that same joy and that same emotion hasn't carried through every day and year by year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you might be in a similar place.

[SPEAKER_01]: Were you saying, yeah, I was excited at one point, but today is just unbusy.

[SPEAKER_01]: What about a loss of a spiritual victory?

[SPEAKER_01]: summertime, a lot of mission trips, a lot of camps, camp experiences, but even for us that aren't in camps in mission trips, you went through a time where you're at Men's Bible class or you went through steps or you had some experience where the Lord was at work in your life change was taking place, restoration was being experienced, and then

[SPEAKER_01]: Falling back into the same sin patterns, same arguments, same addictions, same ways that I waste time, why am I doing that?

[SPEAKER_01]: You can be a loss of spiritual victory, just a couple more, loss of missional purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm assuming for most of you, there was a time in your life where you were just on fire and you had a plan.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to reach my neighborhood for Christ or I'm going to memorize the entire Bible or I'm going to move to Africa and save all the orphans or whatever the thing was that the Lord had given you and then over time, life got busy and that's dwindled.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're just not, it's not happening anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: What about loss of Christian fellowship?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just being rolled to pressing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to be as depressing as I can.

[SPEAKER_01]: loss of Christian fellowship.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had a great group of friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: You were encouraging each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: Things were great.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're in each other's lives, living life together.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was really fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I kind of dwindled away.

[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody moved away.

[SPEAKER_01]: or maybe things ended sadly.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was tension, there was frustration.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's suddenly this disunity.

[SPEAKER_01]: You see each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't talk anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: The loss of Christian fellowship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lastly, just loss of physical or mental health.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're just not feeling good.

[SPEAKER_01]: You just third John says, John prays for the church, and he says, I pray that it would go well and your body as goes and your spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your physical mental health matter,

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have the diagnosis, isn't clear.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're anxious, and you're doing all the right things.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not going away.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are all river beds.

[SPEAKER_01]: Dry river beds in your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: What does it look like for the Lord to bring grace to that moment, to that place?

[SPEAKER_01]: To that place where you are most dependent, what would it look like?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you two ways it won't work before I point you to what the song is leading us to think about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two ways that the water won't come into that driver of her bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: One is nostalgia spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't live off your spiritual glory days.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't live off your spiritual glory days.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you ever see the movie in Napoleon Dynamite?

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember Uncle Rico, there's this character, he's like a 40-year-old man or something, and he's still talking, the only thing he can talk about is that he didn't make the state football team, and he goes back, he's like, I was so good in high school, and I was this, and I was that, and if I just had a chance, he's living off his glory days, and it's like, bro, that was 25 years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do that spiritually, don't we?

[SPEAKER_01]: We're tempted to, again, you had that camp experience, you had that wonderful time in college, you're part of campus life, and things were amazing, now it's 10 years later.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord is ready to meet you today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not just to help you get a bucket of water from what you had 10 years ago, but to give you life today from His Word by His Spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't live in a stout just spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second, don't live by carrying spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: The water will not flow into the dry place by living somebody else's spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why is this a danger?

[SPEAKER_01]: You hear me talk up on stage, you hear jaymen talk up on stage, you hear Jeff, any of the other guys, and you can think they're doing okay, they seem to be doing okay spiritually.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm listening, so therefore I must be doing well spiritually.

[SPEAKER_01]: or you're listening to this podcast, and this person's really articulate about their faith, because other people are articulate about their faith, does not mean your faith is going well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't be a spiritual vampire, suck in the blood out of other people for life.

[SPEAKER_01]: You go to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: You go to the Lord through His Word by His Spirit, find the refreshing that is only yours in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, do that in community.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, listen to sermons.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'll listen to edifying things, but do it to encourage your spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't have the style of spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't have vicarious spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: What should you do?

[SPEAKER_01]: Learn to embrace the Christian life as described here in this Psalm.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's surprising, maybe for some of us, surprising.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look here in verses four, five, and six.

[SPEAKER_01]: The kind of Christian life that this Psalm calls us to, what is it going to look like when these streams are flowing in our life?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually kind of sobering.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tears, weeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: tears in weeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: It says, those who so entiers shall reap what shouts of joy, he who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for so and shall come with shouts of joy, tears in weeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why would the Psalmist, and why would this song of a sins, tell us that the Christian life is going to look like tears in weeping?

[SPEAKER_01]: One more aside, Jonathan Edwards.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you, I hope, know about Jonathan Edwards.

[SPEAKER_01]: Brilliant theologian pastor from the 1700s.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you know one thing about Jonathan Edwards, you probably have heard of the sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've heard of that one thing about Jonathan Edwards, you probably think he's no fun, because that just sounds like a lot of doom and gloom.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jonathan Edwards was actually brilliant and full of fun and joy in the Lord, so read more than just that if you do.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he was a pastor in theologian during the period of time, called one of the great awakenings.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of these revivals in the early, well, wasn't early America, it was pre-America, a war of independence, but a great awakening.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those pastures, Jonathan Edwards was one.

[SPEAKER_01]: George Whitfield was another.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were going around and people were getting saved and great numbers across the colonies.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there was this spirit of revival.

[SPEAKER_01]: kind of like we thought about in the first verses, where the people were just glad and full of laughter and people were responding with great emotion to the things of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jonathan Edwards wrote a book called Religious Affections.

[SPEAKER_01]: Religious Affections and what he was doing in religious affections was he was answering both the energy and the emotion of the revival and the people that were looking at the revival and saying, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, emotion has nothing to do with Christianity.

[SPEAKER_01]: These people just need to learn more and then need to stop being so excited about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a series lately, and you can go back and read people that we're literally saying that thing, that this revival's not real.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jonathan Edwards was trying to say, no, emotion, affections, affections about religion, the gospel, are good, and there's a way to have the resilient Christian life.

[SPEAKER_01]: I say all that to say, he centers the book on 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 6 to 8.

1 Peter 1:6–8

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me read that to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 6 to 8.

1 Peter 1:6–8

[SPEAKER_01]: In this you rejoice, you have affections, you have joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been

[SPEAKER_01]: So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes the tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: And though you have not seen him, you love him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Though you don't see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: So into that time of revival, into that time of great emotion, Jonathan Edwards writes from the first Peter one, and he says, yes, joy, there is great joy, rejoice with joy that's inexpressible, and there will be various trials.

[SPEAKER_01]: There will be various trials.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the normal Christian life, or as someone 26 points it out as tears and weeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a farming metaphor, I used here in the song, to go out to sow seeds, to do the hard work of planting, to dig, and to pull out the weeds, and to labor and labor and labor, tears and weeping, trusting that something will come out of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So,

[SPEAKER_01]: If you just read about streams, the negative flowing, you might have just thought, hey, things are gonna be easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're just gonna be this water that flows through and it's all gonna get better.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the Psalm reminds us, yes, the Lord does that by His power.

[SPEAKER_01]: And most often, the way that He does that is when you feel the greatest dependence upon Him in those dry areas of your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: The presence of hardship here this, the presence of hardship does not indicate

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's the context in which you might find him working the most.

[SPEAKER_01]: The presence of hardship does not indicate God's lack of care for you, but it's often the context you will find him the most.

[SPEAKER_01]: Working restoration, working grace, and love, lastly.

[SPEAKER_01]: were called to trust.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we remember, we remember the great things that God has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: We seek Him to continue to restore in our daily life, ready to do it with tears and weeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we trust.

[SPEAKER_01]: We trust that one day Jesus, Jesus will restore all things.

[SPEAKER_01]: You saw that in verses five and six?

[SPEAKER_01]: the tears and the weeping, both times it's repeated that you shall reap with shouts of joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: You shall come home with shouts of joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's this confidence, there's this boasting and that hey, things are gonna be hard, but we're gonna get the right thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's gonna be joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now on this side of history, we know what they had in mind

[SPEAKER_01]: John chapter four, in verse seven, John chapter four, in chapter seven, both of those chapters, Jesus compares himself to streams of living water, a stream never ending of life for those who believe in him.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you believe in Jesus, Jesus says, if you believe in me, there will be stream of water in your life by this spirit, welling up for eternity.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hebrews chapter 12, verse two,

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tears in weeping were Jesus' life, and Jesus' ministry, he did it why for the joy that was set before him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus, both modeled for us, the ministry and the life in an expectant hope, and he is the one who promises and fulfils that in the basis upon which we can have that hope.

[SPEAKER_01]: On that day, when we're gathered into the new heavens and new earth, what is Jesus promises?

[SPEAKER_01]: He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more weeping and no more pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this song points us to the life that we have in Christ in the trust that we can have.

[SPEAKER_01]: that our hope in this joy is not just a work it up by our own strength, it's not just a take it in the chin, hey, this life is hard, but it's gonna get better someday, I hope.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not just, hey, I'm sewing, and I'm trying to do all this hard work, I hope it goes somewhere, it's total confidence.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Jesus Christ is the one who has done this, he has shed tears, he has weaped,

[SPEAKER_01]: He has endured the cross and there is joy set before those who put their trust in him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me end this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to end with some invitations.

[SPEAKER_01]: To the one who's here, it would acknowledge that they don't know God's great work of redemption in their life.

[SPEAKER_01]: If that's you, at first of all, thank you for being honest with yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's not you, as I'm talking about all this, you're saying, yeah, I'm the one who's really happy in the secular culture and God, I don't need God in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we want to invite you to consider whether this might be true for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That God would restore you from all your sin and shame, and promise you an enduring life now and joy forevermore.

[SPEAKER_01]: To the believer here who feels their need of restoration, you feel those dry riverbeds, maybe some of those things that I talked through, you're saying, yeah, that's me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know my salvation in Christ is secure, but man, it's a dry riverbed right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord would love to answer that prayer, and we would love to walk along with you in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't leave today without giving voice to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And say, hey, that's me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I need that stream in the Negev.

[SPEAKER_01]: And come forward to pray with someone with you, have a conversation this week, and so the Lord could work by his spirit for your encouragement and endurance.

[SPEAKER_01]: To the one who's glad,

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you're here this morning and you're a, hey, I'm still in verse one.

[SPEAKER_01]: The things are going really well for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is great.

[SPEAKER_01]: The scripture calls us to rejoice with those who rejoice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we would love to rejoice with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can also come forward for prayer and just say, hey, this is something the Lord's doing great in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could talk to someone next to you and say, hey, before you leave, can I just tell you, I'm kind of just boasting the Lord, let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is good to have things go well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if that's you, praise God, so into all of us know that Jesus will make all things new, He will restore, He will do it for our joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me pray for us, Father, thank you for this song, thank you for the reminders that it gives us.

[SPEAKER_01]: The reminder to remember Lord, the great work that you have done, Lord, thank you for the great work of redeeming grace that you have worked for us in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: What I pray is we as a church, as we seek you, as we seek not to live on on the great things of the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to with thankfulness for those things, trust you for daily bread.

[SPEAKER_01]: Trust you for the grace that you will give to our church and to us individually day by day in the weeks and years to come.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I pray for the ones here that are struggling that are struggling to hold on to this promise, what would you help them endure?

[SPEAKER_01]: Father, for all of us, I pray that where your spirit needs to convict, with a beacon of vision, when there needs to be strength, would you give encouragement,