How Could We Sing?

Everybody, how are we doing?

Good.

So as Justin said, I don't need to give you a big introduction by myself because he just kind of did that.

But I'm Luke.

So my wife and I also have we've been serving as community leaders over in the land and Deerfield area.

Actually, so actually when we when the communal campus and we've been blown away at God's faithfulness through how Missio North has come about.

We actually moved north and did that community and started that community, and we're planning on staying there and staying at Central, and then North popped up.

And now we have a church 10 minutes away from us that we love with people we love and uh we feel super blessed by that and the opportunity to serve here.

Um so Melissa and I have we've got three kids, uh Samuel, Elise, and Solomon, five, three, and one.

Uh so you've probably seen us running around, or you've seen me in the kids' ministry with my very fancy earpiece poking into the service every once in a while, looking like a CIA operative.

Um that's much more official looking than it actually is.

It's mostly just to make sure the kids' experience is coordinated and uh kids aren't like running loose and into the streets.

So um, so you might see me back there, you might see me in here every once in a while, but most of all I want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity to stand up here.

Uh I don't take this lightly.

I have um been granted the opportunity to do this probably four or five times at the central campus.

It's been a joy to do it there.

This is my first time here, so I'm super excited to dive into our next psalm this morning as we continue our series.

And for me, and hopefully everyone feels this way, for me, this has really been a valuable series.

Uh, not only the sermon series and and that being all about the psalms and our emotions that we see in the psalms, but we also, in parallel to that, over our summer term and our community went through a study on the psalms.

And I, for me at least, and I would think that the people in our community feel the same way, it was a very fruitful and engaging study.

Um that was the first time I've ever done a dedicated study on the Psalms in any kind of group setting.

Uh, this is actually the first time I've ever been a part of a series that also focuses only on the Psalms.

So I think um the Psalms are so relatable because of the emotion behind it.

And I think we saw that in our community group as well as we as we dug into those and got deep into what the Psalms have to say about who we are and how God has designed us.

So we're gonna be in Psalm 137 this morning.

So if you want to turn there in your Bible or in your app, however you want to get there.

Uh quick call-out too, if you don't have a Bible and you're looking for one, or you just would like a physical copy of one this morning, there are some Bibles back at the Welcome Desk.

Uh, some ESB versions, which we feel like is a good copy of the Bible.

Feel free to grab one of those if you want to follow along.

But we are going to be in Psalm 137, and I it's funny because a couple guys this week were joking with me.

I got two or three text messages about how I was gonna preach about um a passage that talks about dashing children on the rock.

Uh, if you haven't read 137, you'll see that here in a minute.

And um Pastor Justin has also joked that this is the first passage I have where it's not about kids, because most of the sermons I've given have been about kids' ministry over the years.

And I was like, well, verse 9, I could totally take this to be about kids, um, but we won't do that, I'm kidding.

So we'll we're gonna dig deep into 137 this morning.

So if you can turn there with us, we're gonna talk a lot about the context and the history to kind of provide insights on when this was written and why it was written.

So let me first start us out by reading the passage.

So if you're at 137 and would like to follow along with me, let's read that.

This is how God's word reads.

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there we hung up our lyres, for there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my hand, my right hand forget its skill.

Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, Lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations.

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed.

Blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us.

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this morning.

Uh, thank you for all the people that were able to make it out.

God, we are just so grateful for these words that we have in front of us.

That we get the opportunity, God, to be in us to be.

And what your purpose for us is based off of these words that were written so many years ago, um, God, with your truths ever present in them.

Father, I pray that you would go with us this morning.

I pray that my words would be your words, Father, that you would uh just open our hearts, Holy Spirit, to learning about what you have for us, learning about your truths, about the truth of the gospel and who Jesus is and this passage and what you say we should be and what our identity should be based off those truths.

God, we love you.

We're so grateful for all that you do for us.

We're grateful for this series.

Um pray that you would continue to be with us today as uh we grow and learn in your word, and just ask it all in Jesus' mighty name.

Amen.

All right, so I I'll say a lot of the psalms we've done so far are pretty different than this.

I think this psalm stands out a little bit, just in that it's it's very contextualized to the time and the history and the place it was written.

Uh I'll be honest, the first time I read through it, I actually went and double-checked to make sure it was the right psalm that Justin had sent me the right psalm, because I was like, that's very different than any of the other ones we've done.

Um and it was good though, because it it caused me to really have to look into and dig deeper into the history of these words and how they were written in the context they were written.

So I want to spend uh a little bit of time digging into the background of this passage.

Uh because as I said a minute ago, it's the Psalms are very easy to relate to because of the emotions that are there.

There's a wide range of emotions that we've seen through all the different psalms that we've studied in this series, and it makes them, as I said, it makes them very relatable because we all have felt those emotions and regularly feel those emotions from time to time.

Uh but this, I will say, this passage, knowing that it is so contextual, can sometimes feel a little harder to relate to than maybe some of the other ones we did.

But I think if you dig into the con and get the context, it's actually very relatable.

And the emotions there are very relatable.

Um I just want to talk a little about who wrote it.

So there's kind of mixed thoughts on it.

It's hard to take away um exactly who wrote it from just the the scripture itself.

But if you look into the context of Babylon and what Babylon was, so the the thought is that this was written sometime between 586 and 539 BC.

The reason for that is uh has to do a lot with the Babylonian Empire and how their kingdom was and how their relationship with Israel was.

Uh the author was more than likely either a Hebrew that was held captive at that time and was actually writing this in reflection of that, or was thinking back to when they were in captivity and wrote this as a reflection of that.

And so that captivity, it's interesting to know about why that captivity happened and why the person that wrote this psalm is in the place that they're in and why they're reflecting on how they are.

Uh and that it would help us to know a little bit more about Babylon and the history there.

And so it Babylon, you've probably seen Babylon referred to in Old Testament pretty often.

Um so what that refers to usually is either the kingdom of Babylonia or the capital city of Babylonia, which was Babylon.

And Babylon was a kingdom, an interesting, it's an interesting story because Babylon was a kingdom for a long time.

Um, and the Mesopotamia region is where it was located, which is present-day Iraq.

So if you think about geography, I don't know how much of a geography buff you are, uh, but that is kind of adjacent to where Israel sits and kind of to the east of where Israel sits.

And Babylon and Israel didn't always have a bad relationship.

So before this context, uh Babylon for a long time wasn't really seen as a military power.

They didn't have a lot of might in terms of taking over uh other kingdoms and invading people and attacking others.

In fact, uh in the time of King Solomon, if you know the Old Testament and you know about um King David's son Solomon, when Solomon was king, Babylon wasn't really a military threat at all.

But as we see, Babylon grew and uh came under the power of King Nebuchadnezzar, which you probably uh at least have recognized that name if you've been in Scripture or Sunday school at all.

Um so, and that was actually predicted by the prophet Isaiah, and that's in scripture as well.

So it's important for us to notice and recognize that this context and how it is closely related to what's written here.

And what they did when they invaded is they not only took Israel's treasure, they also took their people.

So they physically captured the Hebrews and took them back with them to Babylon.

So you'll see this passage, that's kind of where the passage starts, and we'll dig more into that here in a minute.

Um, but the other quick kind of Bible fact, fun fact, side note I wanted to call out is that you'll see Babylon also mentioned in the New Testament.

Um, most people think that is actually a reference to the Roman Empire.

So you might be more familiar with the Roman Empire and kind of the power that they were and um the anguish or the torment that they put on God's people uh in the New Testament.

So think of that as a similar thing to the Old Testament in the context we have here.

So that time frame that I said was when that invasion happened, and so that's when the thoughts are, or why the thoughts are that this was written either then or after then in reflection of that time.

So, all that to say, I think there's a lot of emotions here that we can relate to, even though the context might be a little foreign to us.

So, as I said, the Psalms, as we've talked about, the whole series has been, series has been focused on how the Psalms are about emotions, and we see that wide range of emotions in each of the Psalms that we've read.

Obviously, there's many more than what we've covered, many more than we're having the opportunity to cover.

Um, but one thing I love about the Psalms is you can jump in anywhere, anytime, and God can speak to your heart to the stories of these people and the reflections that they have.

And even if the context is very foreign to what we're used to, so even if you're not someone who has ever been held captive and physically captured, you can still relate to the emotions here.

And some of those emotions we see from this psalmist in Psalm 137, they're all over the place.

So in verse 1 and verse 2, when we see that by the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows, there we hung us sing as one of the songs of Zion.

So there's a couple emotions there through verse 1 through 3.

First, they're sad.

Obviously, there's sadness.

They're weeping.

So they're not in a good place.

They've been captured, they've held against their will, and they're being tormented, because obviously they're referring to their captors as tormentors.

So this isn't something where they're in captivity and they're feeling comfortable in their captivity.

So we see sadness, we see weeping.

We see remembrance when they're thinking back to the hope of Zion, and they think back to where their hope lies in their home in Zion.

And we see torment, as I said, in verse 3.

And then it moves on into kind of taking a different tone.

In verse 4, we see that they are perplexed, they're trying to think about how they can sing the Lord's song and a song of praise in a foreign land where that's not normal, where that's not the place that they normally sing those songs, where they feel out of their comfort zones to give praises to God and to remember the hope that they have with God in relationship to where they're from and the city of Jerusalem, um, and the hope of that.

And then at the end we have kind of a dark turn.

We see, and then this is, and I say this somewhat uh lightheartedly, but it's a it this passage, and specifically verse 7 through 9.

I think when we first read this, we're like, man, that's messed up.

All of a sudden they're talking about being perplexed and being in captivity, and then this psalmist goes into talking about the Edomites who were part of this invasion, and specifically them, in essence, mocking the invasion of Jerusalem and saying, as it's happening, as Jerusalem is being invaded, as it's being destroyed, they're saying, lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations.

So burn it to the ground.

And so the psalmist is reflecting on that and reflecting on the thoughts that those people had towards them and their people.

And then in verse 8 and 9, that's where it kind of takes a dark turn.

And that's, as I said, where a couple of the guys I know this week were like, How on earth are you going to preach about that?

But I think if you look at it in context, it actually makes a lot of sense.

So destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us.

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against a rock.

It's pretty messed up, right?

Like that's to say, blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them on a rock is a bold thing to say.

But if you look at verse 8, you can see that anger isn't the only emotion and the only call from the psalmist here.

It's also revenge and more importantly, justice.

So verse 8 really, really drives verse 9 in the sense that they're saying, Doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you've done to us.

So what that tells us is that what they're calling for in verse 9, for that revenge and for that justice, happened to them.

So these people that are writing this, the person that's writing this, has either seen that firsthand, probably, or has seen of their own children, or has people close to them where this has happened as part of that invasion.

So it's important to know that in context of why that verse is the way it is and what it says.

So the question becomes: how do we translate this into our common everyday lives?

And how do we take this very specific psalm that's talking about a specific incident thousands of years ago related to this ancient kingdom invading another ancient kingdom and taking those people into exile and captivity?

How do we relate that to our lives?

And we may not be held in physical captivity day to day.

I don't know, maybe some of you are.

If you are, we should probably talk about that.

Um, I don't know if I can help you, but we can get you some of the can.

But we might not be held by physical captivity, meaning someone's not actually taking us to a place where we feel uncomfortable.

But I think that we can all relate to the feeling of being out of place or being felt like, feeling like we are in a place that is foreign to us, that isn't comfortable for us, and in that, forgetting who God is and not feeling like we can either share his truth, speak his truth, or sing his praises.

And I think for all of us that are believers that are in Christ that follow Jesus, we know that's what we're called to, but in the circumstances and in the places where we feel like we can't do what we're called to do.

So that's what leads us to our main idea for this morning.

And if you're following along in our notes, uh, this will be the first item there.

This is our main idea for this morning.

In all circumstances, in all places, we are to remember the truth of the gospel and how it has rescued us from eternal captivity.

So just like our psalm today, as I said, we don't always remember who God is in our circumstances.

But I want to talk this morning about how that relates to this story in this psalm, and I want to give us some ideas of how we can get better and trust in Jesus in those places.

And so I want to talk for a minute.

Um, I said a second ago, like there are circumstances, there are things we do, there are places we are day to day, week to week, where we feel at a place or we feel like we're held captive.

And I want to talk about our story a little bit.

I want to talk about how our expression of unbelief or how we forget, how that comes to play in our lives day to day.

Even if I said, even like I said, even if we're not in that physical captivity, but we're in circumstances that feel foreign to us.

The first way I think we express unbelief or we can relate and how we live our lives to what's going on in Psalm 137 and the psalmists that are in captivity here is that we feel and we act like foreigners.

So I alluded to this a minute ago.

But what I mean by that is so whether you're a new, so if for followers of Jesus, if you're a new follower of Jesus or you've been following him for a while, um, or even if you don't know Jesus and you're here and you're curious and uh you're not sure about who Jesus is and what he did, um we're gonna we're gonna talk about that this morning.

But whether no matter where you're at in life, I right now you could probably sit in your seat and think, this is a place, this is a circumstance, whether it's right now, whether it's in the past, whether it's coming up, even if it's in your normal rhythm of everyday life, there is a circumstance where you feel like a foreigner or out of place.

So we just um recently, probably about a month ago, yeah, about a month ago, a little over a month ago, sent our oldest son to kindergarten.

Kids running around like a maniac after service.

So if he's run into you in the back hallway or taken out one of your legs, I'm sorry.

Um it's just who he is.

Uh but we sent him to kindergarten a a month or so ago.

And I thought, I was thinking about that as I was preparing, about I thought back to when I would go to school.

And when I was in school, even every year.

I remember every year when I would go to a new grade, and sometimes more than others, depending on the transition from one school building to another or one grade to another, how I always felt a little apprehensive and a little nervous about feeling out of place and feeling like I couldn't really, like I didn't really know what to expect.

And so, and then as Sammy, our kindergartner, was going to kindergarten, uh, I thought about that for him.

And it was a weird thing as a parent.

If you've been if you're a parent of sent kids to school, it's a weird thing to think about having your child who's with you for the first five or so years of their life, and now all of a sudden, five days a week for a full day, they're just somewhere else in a in what we think is kind of a foreign place, having to adjust to all these new norms.

And that doesn't change, that happens as a kid.

Obviously, every year you go to a new grade.

And as an adult, maybe you have a job and you're it's not a new thing every day, but it's still, there are still times of transition and times of circumstances where we feel out of out of place.

As believers, I think we feel that friction a little more.

We feel foreign and as foreigners in this world oftentimes, because the world doesn't understand our faith and doesn't understand who we are and and what we believe in Jesus, and they can't really relate to us a lot of a lot of the world.

For me, example, in my job, um, you know, I would I would say most people are this way.

The vast majority of the people I work with aren't believers, they don't know Jesus.

And so it there's friction there.

It's a hard thing for me to take the biggest, most important part of my life and translate that into a place that just doesn't get that.

So that's a good example of of how the world maybe can't relate to us.

And honestly, you might even be in places where there's rebuke for your faith.

So we see our, I think it's easy to say, or easy to reach the assumption, and as we see how they make the request for them to sing songs, they're not asking them to sing songs because they want to praise God with them.

There's some form of mockery or rebuke there.

And some of us might experience that where we're at.

Now, some more than others.

Um but as you sit here, think about what that foreign place is for you, church.

And like I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be a place.

For our psalmists, it's Babylon.

It's along these rivers in Babylon where they are held in captivity against their will and being mocked for who they are and what their hope is in.

For us, like I said, it could be a place.

It could also be relationships.

So this is a hard thing for me to admit, but I have a friend I have been friends with for since seventh grade, so more than 20 years.

He doesn't know Jesus.

He has never really expressed desire to be in church or know Jesus.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've talked to him about the gospel.

It's embarrassing.

And as I think about why I don't, it's because it feels very foreign to me to talk to him about those things.

And I'm worried about that rebuke, and I'm worried about what it might do to our friendship.

But what does it say about me if I'm more worried about what it would do to our friendship and I'm less worried about what is going to happen with his soul?

Twenty years of friendship.

So maybe you have a relationship like that.

And it might not be a friendship where you're trying to share the gospel, it might just be something where you want to talk about your faith and who you are, and you don't feel like you can talk to certain people in your life that are that way.

Or that are not the same way as you, that don't believe the same thing.

And I think we long, I think a lot of this as people, we long for a greater citizenship than what we have.

We want to be a part of something bigger.

And for those of us who know we're part of something bigger, we want those other people around us to be part of something bigger, but we're not quite sure how to talk to them about it.

So that makes us feel like foreigners.

The next way I think we are Psalm 137 is that we.

Forget our Jerusalem.

So obviously, I don't mean this literally.

I don't mean that we forget the city of Jerusalem that's in Israel.

But the Jerusalem for these people in this psalm, as they sit on the rivers of Babylon, was a reminder of their covenant with God.

It was the promised land that they were led to.

They remember the history of who they are in God and how God has blessed them and brought them through all these trials and tribulations in these places and has set them in a place where there is hope.

And now they've been taken away from that hope.

And it gave them, Jerusalem and Zion gives them reasons to sing.

It gives them reasons to praise in the first place.

And in the face of torment and challenge, the psalmists have a hard time even remembering and feeling like they can sing God's praises.

What torments you?

What makes you feel challenged?

And in the face of that torment and challenge, how often do we forget Jesus and who he is?

The psalmist has something to say about that forgetting, about forgetting Jerusalem.

And verse 5 and 6, the psalmist says, If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill, let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

So he's saying, if I can't use my hands and my mouth to give you praise, to offer up praise and sing about who you are, don't let me use them at all.

I don't think that way.

I don't think, hey, if I'm if I go into my work day today and I don't use my abilities and the skills God has blessed me with to praise him and do work for him, for these people around me that don't know him.

You know what?

Just shut me down.

Don't let me walk to my job.

I don't walk to my job.

I'd somewhat walk to my job.

I walk a five-block walk from a parking garage.

But still, don't let me get to my office.

Don't let me speak to my colleagues.

Don't let me type the things I need to type.

Don't let me communicate the things.

So we need to reflect on that, just as the psalmist is reflecting on it here.

Our third point on how we express unbelief and how we our story reflects this story is that the torment becomes our truth.

So I don't everybody in this room has had varying degrees of suffering.

I think one point of truth that we can all relate to is that in this life suffering will come.

And there's varying degrees of it.

And I would be the first to say, in those varying degrees, there's no perfect scale for what's a harder, harder suffering than another.

But I think we all have something, either currently, in the past, or in the future, that we're wrestling with and that is bringing us torment and anguish, just like our psalmist is here.

And it we the, I think when I say the torment becomes our truth, is what I mean by that is we get so caught up in the cause of our torment and the circumstances it puts us in that we lose sight of the truth of who God is, why we were created, what our identity in Christ is, and how we should be living our life, and how that truth should pour into our circumstances and pour into the torment that's being caused to us, and how it should help us to overcome it.

Now, this doesn't mean that we aren't allowed to feel bad, that we're not allowed to experience torment in a way that we feel sadness or we feel upset or we feel like we're suffering.

But we should use it to cause us, to call us back to God, to call out to Him.

So just like our psalmist here, who clearly is experiencing torment and held captive by these people and does not want to be there, we should use it to drive us to try to remember who God is.

And we'll talk more about that in a bit.

But we as we let that torment, that torment can be a lot of things.

It can be health circumstances.

I mean, we all know this, some more than others.

Our bodies break down.

And that might be minor, like my daughter's sweet little three-year-old daughter's toe last night that she dropped a toy on, and there was blood, it looked like a crime scene.

There was blood all over the place, and she was freaking out.

To her, that was the worst thing ever.

She was crying so hard for like five or ten minutes.

And after we got it all cleaned up and looked at it, it was just a little cut.

Caused at the hands of an elmo toy.

But for some of us, it might be a terminal illness.

It might be something that's more emotional and mental.

It might be something like anxiety or depression or just sadness about circumstances.

For me, I a couple years ago, towards the end of 2017, and you if you know me and you know my story, I've talked a lot about this, and it helps to talk about it.

Uh, for me at that time in the fall of 2017, it was anxiety.

I was crippled with anxiety for about four to six months.

And looking back, that torment of that anxiety, it absolutely was my truth for that amount of time.

And I no doubt forgot about who God was in his truth.

And I looked for a lot of different outlets to help me overcome that before I ultimately came back to who God was and his truths.

And thank God he's helped me to constantly overcome that.

But remembering that played a key role in coming out of it.

And in God's word, specifically in Hebrews, there's encouragement for us of who Jesus is and the life he lived and how he can relate to that torment and the suffering.

So in Hebrews 4.15, the word of God says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

So Jesus felt sorrow.

Jesus felt sadness, pain, loneliness, the feeling of captivity.

And he can relate to who we are.

So in those times when we don't remember who he is, we should remember that he's not a Savior who is seated on a high place and has never been in a situation where he can't relate to the everyday struggles that we have.

He can, and he chose to.

And because our captivity and our torment doesn't have to be the only.

And this leads us to our gospel conviction.

So this is a this is gonna be a statement of how the gospel speaks truth into our circumstances, and how we should trust in that so that we can overcome these things that I say that we struggle with.

And this is the gospel, the gospel conviction statement.

And hang with me, it's pretty long.

But it's good, I promise.

Although we were born into captivity because of the fall, Jesus' death and resurrection is an invitation to join God's kingdom and be freed from captivity.

By faith in Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we remember the truth of the gospel, sing his praises, and share his truth in all places and circumstances.

So when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit in the garden after they were created to live a life without sin, they were created in this perfect place to be one with God, God gave them one command to not eat of the fruit of a certain tree.

And once they ate of the fruit and the fall happened and sin entered our world, we are all foreigners in this world because of that sin.

And we're all living in a foreign land held captive by that sin.

And so the reason why our circumstances are the way they are, the reason why we suffer, the reason why we feel burdened and anguished and tormented by all the things that can be like can come into our lives or circumstances or places that we are in week to week, day to day, is because of that fall.

But praise God He sent the perfect sacrifice to help us step away from that as an invitation to join his kingdom and to be a part of something bigger and to have hope.

So this is how we this is where we get into our gospel practice.

And we're gonna talk about how we put this gospel truth into actual action, how we walk day to day from here and take that truth of what we just talked about and what the gospel is and think about our captivity, think about the places that we're in, the circumstances that cause us torment and anguish, where we forget who God is.

These are some things that are gonna hopefully will help us uh take action to remember who God is and put his truth into play in our lives.

So the first thing I think we need to do is we need to stop empowering our captors.

So, like I said, you might not actually have people that are your captors.

I don't know, maybe some of you feel that way in your job.

Hopefully not.

Um I'm blessed with I don't feel held captive in my job.

I don't I've got a great boss, work at a great place.

Uh but when I say stop empowering our captors, what I mean by that is we have to stop letting whatever it is that's holding us captive, which would be our captors, whether that is circumstances, place, relationships, day-to-day rhythms of our life, things we're personally struggling with, we have to stop letting it have the power over us.

And I think there's some ways we can do this.

One, I think we need to stop being shy with our testimony and praise.

So I know I sometimes can have a hesitation depending on the circumstances or where I'm at.

When I recognize things that are good, when I see things in my life that are good or that are good in relationship with other people, I am not always forthcoming with giving recognition and praise to the author of those good things.

So in James, I think it's 1.17, it talks about every good and perfect gift is from God coming down from the Father of lights.

He is the author of all good things, yet when we recognize good things, we are oftentimes driven by our captors or our circumstances on how much praise or recognition we give to him for those good things.

We hesitate.

So as little of a thing as, you know, it might be a good thing that happens, or overcoming something in your life, just went into remission and overcame breast cancer.

And I think about a thing like that, and I think about how would how would I react in talking to people?

Um, how when we had kids, for example, when I'm in my workplace and when I'm around people that don't know Jesus, how much praise am I giving to the author of life, the author of that miracle, that is that baby, that is the person and the being being God is the author of that life.

How much praise am I giving them?

Or how much am I hesitating to give that praise?

When I hesitate, I empower the things that are holding me captive.

So, as believers, we should be the first people to sing the praises of the Creator when we recognize good things.

The next thing we can do to stop empowering our captors is to sing no matter what the circumstances or place, to offer praises no matter how hard it is.

This is a tough one.

Because I can tell you right now, in the times when I felt crippled by the anxiety I was in back a couple years ago, the last thing I wanted to do was sing praises.

To the point that I would even hear worship music and just be like, no, just stop.

No.

Because I was wallowing in who I was and the identity I had taken on by the emotional stress that I was feeling.

That changes.

Our circumstances change.

The truth of who God is and the goodness and the truth of the gospel and the power of his kingdom does not change, even if our circumstances do.

So shouldn't we hold to that rock that is God, that is his kingdom, that is his truth in the gospel?

And shouldn't holding on to that firm foundation of who we are and who we're meant to be in Christ allow us to sing no matter what circumstances we're in.

Another thing I think we can do to stop empowering our captors is to be a reminder of truth and an encourager to our captors.

So don't just, now we can we can encourage by singing praises when we're in a tough spot, by giving credit and recognition to God as the author of good things when we see good things.

But I also think we should be very intentional about encouraging and speaking truth to our captors.

If we feel that the people and the places and the circumstances that are around us are absent of Jesus and his truth, we should be speaking up for what that truth is, and we should be encouraging the people that are around us that don't know him.

That truth should come out of us in a way that it sparks interest and curiosity from the people that are around us in those circumstances and in those places.

Another way I think we can put this into practice, and this is gonna sound a little bit like a sales pitch as a community leader.

I promise I don't mean it to be, but make gospel community a priority.

So a lot of us have been in church for a long time, and I know for me for a long time, um, so I came to the faith in as a uh as a teenager, and for a long time, all those years I was in church, I didn't really have community.

I didn't really know what small groups were or any kind of like group where it was a group of people focusing on the gospel, working together in discipleship to point one another back to Jesus.

And as I've come into that over the last 10 years or so, it's become it's so much easier to remember our identity in Christ and the truths of his gospel and who he is when we surround ourselves with people who share that same hope, who see that same truth, who believe that same truth, it can help put us back on track.

So if you're thinking about the last point when we were talking about singing praise in all circumstances, it's very helpful to be around people that know Jesus and believe that truth, that are in different circumstances, that maybe are in seasons of joy and can encourage us as brothers and sisters in Christ, but can also relate to our struggle and help remind us of God's truth.

So seek that out.

If you haven't been in community and you're interested in it, right now's a great time.

This is kind of the part that's gonna sound like a sales pitch.

But we're starting a new term in October.

I'd love to have you in our community, Melissa and I, my wife, we'd love to have you in our community.

Um, there's five other communities, five other?

We have six total, yeah.

Uh five other communities around the city.

But even within that, do we have these groups?

And what a joy it's been to do DNA.

What DNA is, is smaller groups of people within the community group that allow you to dig even deeper.

So you'll have, for me, for example, we'd have three or four men in the group and we would share each other's struggles.

Oftentimes we we get into God's word and we talk about what it actually means for our lives and what truth we need to hear, and how encouraging that is on in times when I or you or whoever it is just feels beat down by the world.

So get into community to help us remember our Jerusalem and who God is.

The last point for gospel practice and how we put this into play is pray and meditate over God's word.

I feel like I put this in every sermon I've ever done, one of the action steps is prayer, but that's kind of an obvious one, right?

But how that relates to what's here is the further away we get from God's word, where his truth lives, where we're reminded of who he is and what he's done for us, the easier it is to forget about what he's done and what his truth is.

The gospel at its core is pretty easy to understand.

I believe it's designed that way, that we as people can understand the gospel and its simplicity to save us.

But as easy as it is to understand, it's amazing how easy it is to forget.

And as we saw in the Psalm here in verse 5 and 6, when they're talking about not remembering, we see what the call is when we don't remember, to not allow us to even express who God is with our lips or play an instrument with our hands to sing him praises.

But if we're praying, if daily praying and prayer and meditation over God's word is critical.

It's going to keep us present with God, it's going to keep us close to his truths and in our minds.

So we don't forget, in the face of feeling like this psalmist feels, we don't forget who God is.

Every day we can be reminded of who he is.

And like I said, the psalms are a great place to start because it's so relatable.

And 1 Thessalonians, Paul has this to say Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast to what is good, abstain from every form of evil.

That's 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 22.

Pray without ceasing.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

If you don't know Jesus, the Bible and prayer and meditation is a great way to start getting to know him.

Like I said, we've got Bibles in the back.

If you're looking for one, feel free to grab one as a gift.

And if you're not sure to start, joining a community is a great way to start.

Come see me after this.

I'd be happy to talk to you if you're curious about learning who God is and what his truth is and want to start reading the Bible and you just don't know how to start, or you want to get connected to a community that's closer to you.

I'm happy to get you connected to one of the five other community leaders.

Um, they're those couples that lead those communities to dive into how to start digging into God's word.

So as we conclude here, I just want to give you a couple thoughts to ponder.

So Jesus stepped down from the freedoms and the joys of heaven.

Sitting at the right hand of God, he was sent to earth and stepped into captivity.

So we talk about all the captivity that we feel based off of the sin of this world and the friction of being people that feel suffering and feel like we're in places where maybe we can't share our faith if we're believers, or even if we're not believers, if we don't know Jesus and we're curious about Jesus, just the feeling of being out of place.

The reason why we feel a longing for something bigger is because we're meant for something bigger.

And that captivity we live in, Jesus chose to, he voluntarily stepped into that captivity so we might not be, so that we could be pulled out of our captivity of sin.

He died for us and was resurrected so the captivity of our sin would no longer bind us anymore, and so that we could join him in mission to be a part of his kingdom and to grow his kingdom in that eternal kingdom, and remember his truth and bring glory to the world living in captivity around us.

So for those of us who are in Christ, we should go forth and be empowered by the Spirit, be empowered by this truth, reminding each other of the truth and bringing that truth to the people who don't know it or believe it.

So step into that.

If we're stepping into what we feel like is captivity, it's a great opportunity to take that truth with us and be a light and a place where others feel like it might be darkness.

For those of us who don't know Jesus and are curious about who Jesus is and the truth of the gospel, if you're looking for a way out of captivity of sin, you feel beaten down by your circumstances, you feel a place where you want to belong.

That struggle is real, and that feeling like you have nowhere to belong is relatable to every human being on this planet.

Jesus offers you a way out of that.

The perfect life he lived, sinless, and the death he died, pays the ransom to make us one with a righteous God.

It brings us back to God.

It allows us access to who God is.

And it gives us a hope that's bigger than better than any circumstance and can overcome anything that might feel like captivity or darkness to you.

So put your faith in the one who God's per the one who God sent, whose God's perfect rescue plan, and whose death and resurrection has set us free.

I hope you find hope in that this morning.

I hope you find hope in this psalm that you can maybe better relate to what this psalmist says, even though the circumstances they're in feel very different than ours.

They're not that different.

We all struggle.

We all feel held captive and feel pressed down and struggle with the things that are around us.

But we have a great hope in Jesus and who he is that can help pull us out and give us hope and truth.

So I'm gonna let me close this out in prayer as we get into our worship time, our response time.

Father, thank you for this morning.

God, we are so grateful for the stories that you share through your word, for the inspiration you gave to the people that wrote these words all those years ago.

The fact that we can walk into this building with other people who are seeking you and sing praises and be reminded of who you are and remember of your remember your truths in this place is such a blessing, God, and we're so grateful.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you would pierce the hearts of everyone here this morning, myself included.

Bring us back to who you are.

Help us to remember the truths of who Jesus is, why he came, and what the truth of the gospel means for our lives.

I pray that everyone could walk out of here with more practical ideas and actions of how your truth can penetrate our life and make an impact and a difference.

God, we love you.

We thank you most of all for the gospel.

I pray that you would help us to reflect on that this morning and give you all the praise and glory.

In Jesus' name, Amen.