Sowing the Seeds of Love

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0:00Good morning again, church. It's great to be with you. God's good. Happy third anniversary. Whether you've been coming here for three weeks or for all three years, happy anniversary and it's great to be together with you in the Lord's house. God's been good, hasn't he? He always is and he always will be. We're in a sermon series, a seven-week sermon series, where this is week three on Psalms 120 through 134. It's called Pilgrim Playlists. These 15 psalms are a soundtrack for a journey for God's people as they were traveling from wherever they lived to Jerusalem. Three times a year they would travel.

0:48They were being the most faithful. They would go for all three feasts and they would travel and they would sing these songs. These songs were collected in the song book as the songs that they would sing on the way. These were sung as they were walking, as they were traveling. They would be sung in families and clans and communities. People were traveling in groups. So they're singing these songs to each other, old and young, traveling together.

1:19Let's talk about bad road trips for a second. When I was a kid, my idea of a bad road trip was the A.C. going out in the car when there was nothing but A.M. talk radio to listen to. One time on a trip with my grandparents, I bought something at a gift shop. Something that late elementary school Joel would have really loved. It was an arrowhead, real arrowhead with like a leather lanyard necklace and I got it at a gift shop. I was so happy about it. I was wearing it. Then I left it at a motel and I realized when we were about six hours from that motel that I was gone and my grandparents were like, sorry, we're not going back.

2:11That to me was like a bad road trip. That was the definition of a bad road trip. And then I played a game in my school's computer lab, a game called Oregon Trail.

2:29Yeah, there we go. For those who don't know this game, Oregon Trail is a computer strategy game with very basic graphics. This was really impressive. Young people, this was really impressive back in the day to be looking at this on a screen. This was high end. Look how realistic that ox looks. But you traveled a simulated Oregon Trail and it's one of those old school games that is meant to be educational. I don't even know if they make games like that anymore, but it was entertainment, but it was really education. It taught me a lot. Mainly, it taught me how dangerous it was to try to get from Independence, Missouri to Oregon in the 1800s. You needed stockpiles of food.

3:19You needed ammo. You needed some strong wagon axles. You needed a healthy family and you needed a lot of luck. If you were going to get to Oregon before the bell rang for first period, if you were playing it before school like I was, you had to have all of those things if you were going to make it all the way through Oregon Trail. The game was all about survival. And it was hard. It was a hard game. To get to the end, you had to be strong, resourceful. You had to be unsentimental.

3:51Someone in your group was going to get sick along the way. That was always going to happen when you played this game. Go ahead and go to the next slide, Avery. Yeah, so this is what you started. This is the beginning of the game. And the next game shows you what would happen along the way. John has cholera. Those are the kind of things that would just pop up. It just happened. You know, you try to ford the river and you'd lose half your supplies. You'd have to go shooting buffalo. It was a game about survival. And you just had to keep going. You couldn't mourn too much over, you know, there were little gravestones they would put up for people that died along the way.

4:31But you just, you just had to keep going. The bell was about to ring for first period. You had to just keep on trucking with this game. Just like the original pioneers on the Oregon Trail, I told myself, I was, I was working hard at this game. You had to be resilient on the Oregon Trail, even when you played the game. And in our journey of faith, we need to be resilient. We need resilience for this journey. Because a lot of things are going to happen along the way. Hopefully not that. But a lot of things are going to happen along the way. Sickness, tragedy, shortage of this and that. We need to be resilient. How can we endure? What does it be like? What does it mean and look like for us to be strong as we follow God? What does strength in the Lord look like? Well, Psalm 125 and 126 are here to show us about resiliency and strength in this journey of faith. We're not walking the Oregon Trail, but we are on a journey together, friends. So let's go to God's Word and let's see what He has for us today.

5:39Okay. This is Psalm 125 and 126. It's in your bulletin. It's up on the screen. And no matter where it is, it's God's Word. It's true in every part. It's reliable. You can and you should build your life on it. So let's kneel in our hearts before the Word of God and receive what He has for us today. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forevermore. For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. Do good, O Lord, to those who are good and to those who are upright in their hearts. But those who turn aside to their crooked ways, the Lord will lead away with evildoers. Peace be upon Israel. When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. That our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. Then they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. We are glad. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Pray with me. Lord, we come to you needy people, but you you are full of everything that we need, Lord. Teach us, guide us, correct us, encourage us, Lord. Make us to see you more clearly. And Lord, remove from us the things that are

7:57getting in the way of our discipleship, our devotion. Help us to see that they are not worth chasing after, that Lord, only you can make us secure. Lord, we love you and we know that you are doing great things and you will continue and bring to completion what you have started in your people. Jesus, we pray this in your name. Amen. Pilgrim resiliency. Trusting in the Lord makes us steady in trials and hopeful in grief. Now here's kind of the big thing that these two Psalms are pushing against today. When people want to be resilient, the things that are happening in this life, they tend to go one of two directions. Typically people are, some type of people are firm, they're resolved, they're tough, and they're unsentimental.

9:05There are no tears. There's no crying in baseball, that kind of thing. You're just going to tough it out. That's resiliency. Strength by shutting down emotion, disengaging our hearts. That's how we're going to keep going. That's how some people are. That's how some people go through life. On the other hand, you have people who are feelers, sensitive people, people who are willing to be emotionally honest. And sometimes those types of people have a tough time keeping going. You're feeling so much. You get a little incapacitated with those feelings. You get diverted. You begin to despair. The lights start to dim. People tend to go in one of two directions. And the question comes, could those two things come together? Could there be someone who is a feeler and a fighter? Can you feel your feelings and fight your fight? Are both of those things possible? And the Word of God tells us that they are. They are possible in the Lord. In the Lord, we can be those types of people. We can be resilient in that type of way. Putting those two things together, both strong, but also sensitive. The Psalms here lead us the way. So let's go down this path together and see what Psalm 125 and 126 lead us towards. People who can both feel your feelings and fight your fight. Let's start with Psalm 125, which tells us that resiliency means being steady in trials. The Psalm describes a place that we mention every Sunday, but not usually by name, Mount Zion. This is in Scripture.

11:10Zion represents the promised future kingdom of God. It's a place where God dwells with his people forever. It's a place that cannot be moved. It cannot be conquered. It cannot be overthrown. It cannot be occupied even by enemy forces. It is completely impervious and it will withstand forever. That's the Lord's mountain. And it's your mountain too, if you were in the Lord, that's where to Mount Zion. This place abides forever. It's hard to imagine anything lasting that long. You know, if you go to Jamestown, you'll marvel at buildings 300 years old. That's amazing. A European comes over to Jamestown and they're like, I live in a house that's as old as that thing is, right? When I went to Rome, I could hardly believe that I was looking at things that were actually thousands of years old, 2000 years old. I couldn't believe it, that they're still standing. Of course, they're standing, but they're not occupied. They're not useful for much of anything other than looking at. But Mount Zion abides forever as a home, a cultivated garden, a place where people can live and thrive. Now, Jerusalem is really, really old and it's often been difficult to attack because it's on a mountain and it's surrounded by larger mountains. Despite this, it has been attacked and conquered many, many times. No city in the world has withstood time and hostility, but Mount Zion will. Doesn't that sound amazing? Some place where enemy forces could never get to you, where you would be safe forever, provided for strength, endurance to be steadfast and movable. Sign me up. I want

13:10some of that. But there's a speed bump in verse three. A mention of a threat, the shadow of a threat is mentioned, the scepter of wickedness. The scepter of wickedness is a poetic representation of all of the influence and the power of those who were opposed to God. The psalm says that the scepter shall not rest on the land, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. And that is the ongoing danger that we face is temptation. As long as there is opposition to God around us and in us, we will be tempted to stretch out our hands to do wrong. The image here is of people who cannot be moved, who are protected, who are abiding forever. And it's appealing because we know how much we're pushed, how much we're pressured, the temptations that are around us. We who are following God have a calling to hold fast and to hold fast to three things, to hold fast to truth. The world whispers to us. It tells us lies, sweet little lies like God is holding out on you. He doesn't want what's best for you. Go your own way. And we lie to ourselves to saying it, you know, self, it wasn't so bad the last time you sinned. The world didn't end. You can do it again. We must hold fast to God's truth that his way is better. We're called to hold fast to faith. We get tired, don't we, and think that sometimes it'd be easier just to pitch it all and do our own thing to eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow. We die, but we walk by faith, not by sight. We, we have to hold fast in faith because we are, we don't see what we're after and we must

15:25hold fast to love church. We could speak in the tongues of angels and have so many spiritual gifts, love. But if we don't have love, it's all an empty noise. Love for the Lord, love for our neighbor. It's not enough to bring God lukewarm praise. Don't settle for that. It's not enough just to merely put up with other people. Don't settle for that either. The scepter of wickedness is the pressure that pushes us on all three of these, on the truth that we're holding on to, the faith that we're holding on to, the love that we're holding on to. It's pushing us to get us off of that.

16:10Here's the problem. If we're honest, we usually trust in our own strength. When we think of confidence, we put this little four letter word in front of it. Self, self-confidence. And there are, boy, there are a lot of songs about self-confidence. This is my fight song, take back my life song. I still got a lot of fight left in me. I got the eye of a tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire because I'm a champion and you're going to hear me roar.

16:50I get knocked down, but I get up again because you're never going to keep me down. These make for great sing-alongs, don't they? I'm surprised none of those got sang last night at the karaoke, at the party. They make for great sing-alongs, but be honest. How's that working out for you in real life to be your own fighter? Psalm 125 shows us a different source of confidence, not in our strength, but in God's. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion.

17:33They are the ones who cannot be moved, who abide forever. The Lord surrounds them like the mountains surround Jerusalem from this time forth and forevermore. People of God, if you want to be strong, return again to the trust, trust in the Lord and don't give up. Don't give up. Nothing will overcome His work to save you. Amen? Nothing will overcome His work to redeem you. Nothing will overcome His Spirit's power to renew you. It will keep going and it will keep going. It's the strength that's in the Lord that will make you abide forever. Move off of the strength in yourself and back to the strength of the Lord.

18:20Hold fast there. You will endure because He will endure because He abides forever. And this comes by entrusting yourself to Him by forsaking other security, other hiding places and coming to Him and receiving a new identity. There's all kinds of identity statements in Psalm 125. Wonderful things. Things that we, it's hard to even believe that the psalmist is talking about us. In verse, we are called His people. Even though we are His enemies at one time. In verse 3, we're called the righteous. And in verse 4, those who are good.

19:07That's you and that's me. If you're trusting in the Lord. He's talking about you. Even though we were dead in our sin following the course of this world and going after every sin imaginable, when we trust in the Lord, we are those who are good. We are the righteous. Because of the righteousness of Christ put on us like a cloak.

19:37Don't listen to the lies that are telling you, just give up. You're such a sinner. You'll never change. Don't listen to that. Listen to the psalmist in Psalm 125. The Lord surrounds His people and say, that's me. That's me in the Lord. In verse 4, we're called upright in heart. Even though we still struggle, we're so inconsistent. The Lord looks at you and He says, you're upright in heart. Because you are united to my Son by faith. By trusting in the Lord instead of ourselves. It's that simple.

20:25With this new security and this new identity, you have a strength inside of you to fight temptation. You can be steady. Listen to 1 Corinthians 10.13. It says, God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Friends, whatever is tempting you, whatever besetting sin you are struggling with, don't give up the fight. You can be immovable in the Lord and indeed you are. The Spirit in you, He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Amen? Keep fighting. Be strong.

21:15Because the Lord is strong. You will abide forever because He will never leave you and He will never change. Don't give up the fight. And pray this with audacious faith. Do good, O Lord, to those who are good. And yes, Lord, I'm talking about me. Get up in God's face. He wants you to. I'm talking about me, God. Do good. Do good to me. Surround me. Don't let me be led astray. Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil. Keep me close to you and believe that He will do it because you are beloved and secure in Christ. Steady in trials. That's the first part of our resiliency. But hold on to your hats because now we're bringing in something that we are not sure goes along with that strength, but I can assure you it does. Psalm 126 says resiliency also means hopeful in grief. It means being hopeful in grief. Psalm 126 reflects on another great redemption in the history of God's people.

22:49A time when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion. It's likely that the psalmist is referring to 538 BC when King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jews throughout his kingdom to return to their land, to resettle there, to rebuild the temple. This was the end of the Babylonian exile. After 70 years in exile, this was an overwhelming relief. It was almost too good, too good to be true. It was like a dream. We were like those who dream, it says. They could hardly believe that it was real, but soon their disbelief turned into laughter and shouts of joy, exuberance. Other nations witnessed this.

23:44It was so amazing, such a blessing and a gift that they gave glory to God. The Lord has done great things for them, they said. Once again, we say, sign me up. I want to experience that. And once again, in the middle of this psalm, there's a speed bump. Verses three and four. Verses three and four depict attention. Attention that I know all of you can relate to. The Lord has done great things for us. We are glad. And then, restore our fortunes, O Lord. You've done it.

24:38Do it again. You have given us so much, Lord, but we need more. Even after the exile ended, the people of God faced hardship. Enemies were in the land. Rebuilding was resisted. Redemption was still incomplete. Look at what the psalmist says here. He uses the same language as verse one. The Lord restored the fortunes of Zion. Restore our fortunes, O Lord. In other words, you've done it before, Lord. Do it again. The psalmist is looking for an experience like streams in the Negev. This strange little reference is to an area that was generally very dry.

25:25It almost never rained. On the rare occasions when it did, the water would flow down in powerful torrents, wiping away roads and bridges. He's asking for a miraculous and opening windows of heaven of blessing to rain down on them so that it would be a torrent. And he's crying out for this because he is living in the gap. And that's where we are. We're living in the gap. Now, I want you to really see this and see yourself here so that you can take away the goodness of this psalm.

26:10The gap is this. We know what God can do and will do someday. But right now, he doesn't seem to be doing much. There are so many situations that need him in our lives and the lives of people around us. We want justice everywhere. We long for healing for our bodies, our minds. We want restoration of relationships. This is the incompleteness of redemption. We're living in it. And it's painful.

26:56There's no sense denying it. There is sorrow. There is grief in this gap. And often, we just don't know what to do with sorrow and grief. We are really bad at it. We try to hide it. If you look closer, it's easy to trace the tracks of our tears. When other people get emotional, get uncomfortable, uncomfortable. We get uncomfortable, too, with our own sorrow. When other people get sorrowful and grieving, what do we do? We try to make it stop. Have you noticed how many songs the singer says, don't cry? Don't cry. Please just don't cry. We start to feel like sadness is weakness, don't we? And so we harden ourselves against feeling any grief. A rock feels no pain. An island never cries. In the beginning of her career, Taylor Swift wrote about teardrops on my guitar.

28:14But then 14 years later, she's singing about my tears ricochet. And her tears are now retribution against the one who hurt her. Which was better? Probably the first. Grief is one emotion we just don't know what to do with. One of the gifts of the Psalms is that they teach us how to express our emotions genuinely and faithfully. That is one of the gifts of the Psalms. When you don't know what to do, turn to the Psalms. When you don't know what to read in your Bible, open up to the Psalms.

28:56You're going to find something there that connects with exactly what you're going through. And this Psalm is about living in a broken world on this side of glory, waiting for it, knowing that the Lord could do more. And He will do more. But it's not here yet. And so we're waiting. This Psalm tells us to do something that we probably had never thought of. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. A faithful response to living in the gap is to weep. We don't have to hide it. We don't have to stuff it down. In fact, we shouldn't.

29:42Tears shed because things aren't right, because we're longing for God to finish what He started. They're encouraged. You should cry those tears. As we trust in God, tears of grief, they are compatible with hope. They're part of your resiliency. Don't be resilient by pushing that down and saying, I will never feel that. I'll never acknowledge those feelings. Acknowledge them. In hope, bring them to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm not where I want to be right now.

30:21Your redemption has not come where I want it to come. I know that it will. But in the meantime, will you hold these tears? Will you hold me and help me to keep going? Pilgrim, this is part of resiliency, not just strength, but hope and sorrow. The same root belief that's behind praise is also behind lament. It's the same root belief that God is the redeemer, right? God is the healer. God is the deliverer. We praise and we lament for the same reason, because His power and His redemption is true and it's real even when it's unfinished.

31:13Trusting in Him in this unfinished process means crying tears of hope. And this psalm says something really remarkable. Those tears are seeds for sowing. Like a farmer, we offer them in faith for what we know will come. One of my favorite songs, Bill Withers sings in just the two of us. We look for love, no time for tears. No time for tears. Wasted water is all that is. And it don't make no flowers grow. Well, God says, hang on a second, Bill. Hang on.

31:54No. Tears do make something grow. The tears shed in faith, trusting the Lord, longing for Him to work. Those tears are going to reap a harvest of praise someday because there's hope behind those tears. There's faith behind those tears. There's belief in the Lord's power behind those tears. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that you don't think it's not going to happen someday. That's why you're crying, pilgrim. Those tears will reap a harvest of joy.

32:28They're not wasted. They will be shouts of joy. And so this leads us to a very strange command, a very unexpected part of resiliency, to go out weeping. Yes, weeping is an act of audacious faith. Godly sorrow over a broken world, asking God to work, believing that He can, and then crying when you have to because the waiting is hard and painful. This is resiliency. We do it knowing that this life, this time, it's not the end yet. The story is still being written. We shall come home with shouts of joy. Do you believe that, pilgrim?

33:13We shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing our sheaves of praise with us, saying, He has done great things, and it is finished now. We'll say that someday. It's finished. Every ache and pain, every disease that undercut you, every bout of depression, every hardship that you faced, every estrangement in your life, it's all gone. It's all behind you. And now you're waving sheaves of praise as you come home. This is true for all who trust in the Lord. Trusting in the Lord means repentance and faith in God's Son, and our resiliency makes us look like Him. He was tender. He was responsive to the hurt around Him. He saw that people were sheep without a shepherd, and He had compassion. He saw a community weeping over Lazarus' death, and He wept with them. But He was no shrinking violet. He was also mighty and strong and resilient. He did not yield to temptation. He didn't lay down and give up. He didn't take the easy way out. He persevered in truth and faith and in love, and He went to the cross to die for us. And then at His resurrection, He defeated death, and He brought life to all who trust in Him. Our longing is a longing for Him to return, to bring us to Mount Zion, where the scepter of wickedness is far away from us. In the meantime, we can be resilient, friends, steady in trials and hopeful in grief.