SPEAKER_01: It's kind of where we get this idiom, you know, pinch me, I'm dreaming, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's we'd waited for it, we couldn't believe that this actually happened.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you've endured something for so long that you never thought it would end.
SPEAKER_01: And when it does end, you don't know whether to cry or laugh.
SPEAKER_01: So those are tears of pain and songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: And those are the two sentiments this morning's Psalm of Ascent care.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be reading Psalm 126 today.
SPEAKER_01: It's the seventh Psalm of Ascent.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's 15 Psalms of Ascent.
SPEAKER_01: So I've told you that this was a summer series.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it says out there, a summer series, a summer pilgrimage through the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: And I've got my Sharpie ready for right after our second service.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just going to cross off summer.
SPEAKER_01: There's no need to print a new one.
SPEAKER_01: I like the way that one looks.
SPEAKER_01: So it's we're going to obviously continue on.
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe the summer's over, and it is, in a sense.
SPEAKER_01: Next Sunday was our kind of our back to school blessing, which kind of does.
SPEAKER_01: It marks kind of the end of the summer and the beginning of a new school year, but it's not going to mark the beginning of a new psalm series.
SPEAKER_01: So for those that are late coming into this series, the Psalms of Ascent are Psalms of Pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: They're a collection of psalms compiled together, Psalm 120 through Psalm 134, for the specific purpose to continue to teach generation after generation after generation of Jewish pilgrims as they would make their way up to Jerusalem for the three annual national feasts.
SPEAKER_01: And the Psalms, in essence, they told the story of Israel's history in the context of the person, the presence, and the power of Yahweh, the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That history was taught to be to be carried, to be carried.
SPEAKER_01: Effective learning has three different components to it.
SPEAKER_01: And then to that we add personal life application.
SPEAKER_01: So we start with this core knowledge, and then how many of you know you learn by doing more than you learn just by hearing?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And so then becomes we start applying there there are some things that we now because we believe this core knowledge, and then we start living this core knowledge out, then it gets solidified, and that leads to kind of that third element of learning is then I use that in order to move forward into the future.
SPEAKER_01: Make sense to everybody?
SPEAKER_01: We start with core, we got core information, we start adding our lived experience, and then now we apply that to the stuff in front of us that we no longer can kind of handle or control or look at, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is this is what the Psalms of Ascent does for me.
SPEAKER_01: This is how I'm looking at that.
SPEAKER_01: But the Psalms of Ascent begin with some core, core information, core knowledge about who God is.
SPEAKER_01: And then over the history of Israel, then becomes this added life application to it.
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, it's what they lean on for the things that are still in front of them, things that they can't seem to get a handle on.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in this series, I've asserted that we can approach life as a journey or as a pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: So, as a journey, it's like we either take life as it comes or we live life's parts as part and parcel of an overarching purpose and a destined path, which is what I call a pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: When we take life just as it comes, it sounds like a nice mantra.
SPEAKER_01: I just roll with the punches, you know, I just take it as it comes.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the issue with that is the parts of life I think can feel random and arbitrary and disconnected.
SPEAKER_01: But when our lens is more on a pilgrimage, we're believing that all of these parts fit this comprehensive, purposeful whole.
SPEAKER_01: And when and when we have that view, we we tend, we look at things and deal with the things that come in a much different way.
SPEAKER_01: So I wrote it this way: life's parts are purposeful.
SPEAKER_01: Each shape our person and direct our path.
SPEAKER_01: And while we may not understand the parts in the present, they're not random, they're not arbitrary, and they're not disconnected.
SPEAKER_01: See, the issue with the postmodern culture is that is it rejects this idea of a meta-narrative, one overarching story.
SPEAKER_01: So basically it disconnects itself from any kind of history.
SPEAKER_01: Well, when you disconnect yourself from any kind of history, then basically everything's new and fresh, and you have to figure it all out on your own again, right in that time.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work, it's not grounded.
SPEAKER_01: But we get to be grounded in a common information about God, our lived experience, and using that for our future reference.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's hard to get lost anymore because of GPS.
SPEAKER_01: I I can still manage it, but it's a lot more harder to get lost.
SPEAKER_01: Um for those of us who lived before GPS, getting lost was just kind of part of the journey, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, lost didn't mean you didn't know where you wanted to go.
SPEAKER_01: It meant you didn't know how you got where you were.
SPEAKER_01: And you had no idea that you could get there from there, from that place, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um the application I have in here is many of us we know what we want out of life.
SPEAKER_01: We just don't know how we got to where we are.
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times I've heard that expression used with me over 35, 36 years of pastoral ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, I don't know how I got here.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how I ended up here.
SPEAKER_01: This wasn't my plan.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't plan to end up here, but I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: So you know what you want out of life, you just don't know where you are, much less how to get to where you want to go from there.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's possible to still feel lost on a pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: But what have I taught you?
SPEAKER_01: Feelings are real, they're just not reliable.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what's the difference of feeling lost and being lost?
SPEAKER_01: If you're on a personal journey, then you're on your own.
SPEAKER_01: You've chosen your destination, you've chosen a path, you've chosen all the resources, everything rests with you.
SPEAKER_01: So being lost when you are only dependent on you is truly the definition of lost.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do, I don't know how to do it, I don't know where I'm going, and I can't get there.
SPEAKER_01: But when you're on a pilgrimage, what's happened is you have you have surrendered your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just this spiritual esoteric thing.
SPEAKER_01: You have surrendered your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Where am I going?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want from me?
SPEAKER_01: What's my plan for my life?
SPEAKER_01: You've surrendered that to him.
SPEAKER_01: So although you might feel lost, you're not lost because everything you've placed, you've placed it in his hands.
SPEAKER_01: And when you place it in his hands, then he's the one that resources, guides, and he's the one who makes he makes ways.
SPEAKER_01: That's the difference really between the journey and a pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: You've learned or learning to lean your whole weight upon him.
SPEAKER_01: It's why worship is so critically important to me.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to be careful of who you worship.
SPEAKER_01: Because you've got to make sure who you worship can support your weight.
SPEAKER_01: If you worship the wrong things, they can't hold you up.
SPEAKER_01: You worship God.
SPEAKER_01: He can hold you up.
SPEAKER_01: He's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the Psalm, Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_01: As you know, these are short Psalms, but they're so they're just layered beyond measure.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the six verses of Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_01: When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed.
SPEAKER_01: Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: Then it was said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them.
SPEAKER_01: This is an outward testimony.
SPEAKER_01: This is an outside testimony.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has done great things for us, that's an internal testimony, and we are filled with joy.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4 Restore our fortunes, Lord, like the streams of the Negev.
SPEAKER_01: Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy, those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves, harvest, with them.
SPEAKER_01: So the psalm breaks down into two parts.
SPEAKER_01: I've labeled them this way: an historically grounded statement and a bold present ask.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, so here's the historically grounded statement.
SPEAKER_01: God restored our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: That is a done event.
SPEAKER_01: That's a historical event.
SPEAKER_01: God has restored our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: The bold present ask, then, so in light of the fact that God has restored our fortunes, the ask is, God restore our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: Because you've done this in history, I find myself in a place where I need your history.
SPEAKER_01: One's a core piece of information about God that we lean on.
SPEAKER_01: So the application then is trustworthiness, the trustworthiness of anything really, probably, but the trustworthiness of God, in my opinion, has been and is established in history.
SPEAKER_01: In 1948, Winston Churchill gave a famous speech to the House of Commons where he said, Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
SPEAKER_01: Now that wasn't new to Churchill.
SPEAKER_01: He had adapted a quote from a Spanish philosopher named Santiana in 1905 who said in a book, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a little harsher statement.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that's new to Santiano.
SPEAKER_01: I think in 900 BC, this is what Solomon said.
SPEAKER_01: There's a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
SPEAKER_01: Other translations will read, there's a way that seems right until man, but its end leads to death.
SPEAKER_01: So what I'm saying is then when when you're disconnected from history, then all what you have, you only have what you know and understand in the present.
SPEAKER_01: And when you when that is disconnected from any past experiences, it's a crapshoot.
SPEAKER_01: It might look right, feel right, seem right, it might seem like the logical thing, but when it's disconnected from any kind of historical precedent, then man, it's just gonna, you're just left on your own.
SPEAKER_01: What's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_01: How is this going to happen?
SPEAKER_01: Harry, I told the story.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Harry graduated from undergrad in Oklahoma State University in history, and then went, was going on to do a master's in history.
SPEAKER_01: I did make fun of it a little bit, Harry has said, what do you do with a history degree?
SPEAKER_01: So I don't I don't know what you do with that.
SPEAKER_01: Um then he gets a job and starts making money, and so he lets the master's degree go, um, had worked through most of his coursework and was in the writing phase, and then years later decided he wanted to go back and finish.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's history.
SPEAKER_01: And um the chair said he had to start over from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And Harry said, it's it's history.
SPEAKER_01: And the chair said, history has changed.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we know that that's kind of how culture is working, the the continual change of history.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the here's the truth.
SPEAKER_01: The best truth teller is history.
SPEAKER_01: History tells us the truth.
SPEAKER_01: In 2008, when the market crashed, um, my mom had passed away in 02, my dad had passed away in 07, and um when my mom passed away in 02, I can I can laugh a little now because it's been so long.
SPEAKER_01: It's a little fresher since my my aunt and my mom looked like they were twins.
SPEAKER_01: Um but she handed me a three-ring binder of all the family business.
SPEAKER_01: And and we, I mean, she's in hospice care, and we were we're reviewing this three-ring binder of of where what what's where and where it is and all this, and and it was a little overwhelming at the time.
SPEAKER_01: And and over over a period of time, I just had to tell my dad, dad, I gotta start putting this stuff in a way in which I can handle it, because it's it's I can't handle all of what mom's done where she's done it.
SPEAKER_01: So I had kind of worked everything into mutual funds by the time dad passes away in 07, late 2008, 2008, January, if you recall, the market crashes.
SPEAKER_01: So, in an instant, if you were heavily invested in even the most conservative of mutual funds, you you lost half to 60% of your net worth.
SPEAKER_01: So the person that was helping us through this was older and wiser than me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm this young guy, had never really been, have mutual funds or anything like that.
SPEAKER_01: And he just told me, he said, he said, Charlie, you just need to you need to settle down.
SPEAKER_01: Settle down.
SPEAKER_01: This is not unprecedented.
SPEAKER_01: The history of the market returns 10 to 12 percent over its lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: So I kept arguing, but this time's different.
SPEAKER_01: This is unprecedented.
SPEAKER_01: Country's never seen anything like this before.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Yeah, and it didn't see anything like the Great Depression, and it didn't seem anything like he said, I'm just telling you, history, Charlie, tells you to stay put that the only way you're gonna lose this is if you sell and lock in the losses.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't know you were gonna get a financial lesson today, too.
SPEAKER_01: A wealth planner came to speak to me afterwards, told me he did a pretty good job.
SPEAKER_01: Uh told me, would he would he give an asterisk on his next letter that said that he learned all of this from his pastor?
SPEAKER_01: Um you have the same number of shares, they just don't have the value they did before, they're gonna rebound.
SPEAKER_01: I kept arguing with him because I'm smart, right?
SPEAKER_01: So eventually what I did was I gave in to him because he was older, wiser, and been there the longest.
SPEAKER_01: So as I'm writing this message, I decided to look to see what the market has done since 2008.
SPEAKER_01: And the return on the stock market from 2008 to yesterday was 1,000 percent.
SPEAKER_01: 1,000 percent, sitting where half of our family's net worth was gone.
SPEAKER_01: And I could have said history doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: This is new, unprecedented.
SPEAKER_01: I need to do something different.
SPEAKER_01: And see, what Psalm 126 begins with was is it beginning with an historical account of what God did for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So Isaiah and Jeremiah, if you ever, I don't, I don't know, I I've never wanted to be a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone ever wants to be a prophet, I would suggest go back and read some of the Old Testament prophets, and it will cure you immediately of wanting to be a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: So Isaiah's writing, he's writing hundreds of years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and he's he's saying, Listen, God's saying to Isaiah, listen, if you continue this idolatry, if you continue this idolatry, you're gonna find yourself in a place away from me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we can we can overlook the term idolatry because it sounds so it sounds so churchy or it sounds so theological or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: So, in essence, it means worshiping other gods.
SPEAKER_01: But he also calls it, Isaiah does, and so does Jeremiah, calls it idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: Now that one hits a little bit more home.
SPEAKER_01: Basically, what what God is speaking to the prophets is you are married to me, and I have given you these laws of worship and sacrifice, because I'm bringing you into a land that's a great, plentiful land, but it's filled with people worshiping other gods.
SPEAKER_01: And the way you stay locked in and married to me is you lock in to these set of worship practices and these laws, and this is how you stay married to me.
SPEAKER_01: Well, they kept doing that, and at the same time, they had other gods on the side.
SPEAKER_01: So they say, Well, we're gonna do that, but we're also gonna worship this God, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna do this and do that.
SPEAKER_01: And God's saying, Yeah, you're having an affair.
SPEAKER_01: And you're having it out in the open.
SPEAKER_01: I see what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01: I know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01: You're not fooling me.
SPEAKER_01: You continually to separate yourself from me.
SPEAKER_01: You think, you think you're still married to me, but not the way you're living.
SPEAKER_01: And Isaiah foretells of Assyria and Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah, Jeremiah's prophesying not 102 years away.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah is in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah, he's he starts prophesying 20 years before the Babylonian exile.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's amazing to me is first of all, Isaiah, there is more messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah than any other book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Which means that while God is saying, you are walking away from me, and I am going to destroy what you know as your nation, there's still hope.
SPEAKER_01: The hope is there will be a remnant and I'm going to bring a Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: That's Isaiah's message.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah's message, some of you might know this passage of scripture off just off the top of your head, but Jeremiah 29.11, which a number of people kind of hold on to kind of as a life verse, is um, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Plans uh to prosper you, to give you a future, not to destroy you.
SPEAKER_01: That's a paraphrase.
SPEAKER_01: But the beauty of that passage is it comes in the heart of a book saying, guys, you are continuing to have an affair.
SPEAKER_01: And and there's come there's no way out of this, but this is gonna be destroyed, but not forever, and not for always.
SPEAKER_01: So when the psalmist is saying that he has restored our fortunes, other other translations say that when he brings back the captives, so which is right?
SPEAKER_01: Bring back the captives or restore the fortunes?
SPEAKER_01: Well, they're both right.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: English can't bear the weight of Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: So there was a captivity, and now there's freedom.
SPEAKER_01: What I had that was taken away and gone has been restored.
SPEAKER_01: This is how this psalm begins.
SPEAKER_01: And you can imagine it being taught generation after generation that God has restored our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: No matter what they were walking through.
SPEAKER_01: And it's testified to by the nations.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta love this piece, right?
SPEAKER_01: That when God does something in your life that nobody else or nothing else could have could could have could explain it, other people begin saying, Oh, that must have been, that must have been God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's how magnificent this restoration was, that even the other nations saying, There's no way this nation could have been restored, other than, other than God has restored it.
SPEAKER_01: Um Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah are uh, these are the three people that go back to start restoring after the 70 years, begin restoring what Israel's like.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what you have to understand, not only Jerusalem was destroyed, all that, all that around Jerusalem in there, all that land, all those little towns, all those hamlets, all that, that that green, lush area, it was all just turned to rubble and dry.
SPEAKER_01: So the devastation was significant.
SPEAKER_01: So when Zerubbabel starts bringing the exiles back, it was to nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this in Zechariah.
SPEAKER_01: Because Zechariah prophesies this God speaking to Zachariah, chapter 4, 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord to Zerubabel.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why would Zerubbabel need a word?
SPEAKER_01: Zerubabul would need a word because he was walking into a mess.
SPEAKER_01: Standing looking at how in the world do we start.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been in a it's like walking into your garage in the fall?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: What where do I start?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: How am I possibly going to put this back together?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, imagine then walking into a nation that had thrived and it's it was desolated for 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do with that?
SPEAKER_01: Have you or are you in a situation where you just say, I don't even know where to start?
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how to put any of this back together again.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So here's the word disrubbable then.
SPEAKER_01: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: Disrubbable, you're not going to stand in the middle of this rubble.
SPEAKER_01: I find that an ironic kind of symmetry of names here.
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: I can't.
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: I can't.
SPEAKER_01: And then comes the testimony.
SPEAKER_01: What are you, mighty mountain?
SPEAKER_01: Before Zerubbabel, you will become level ground.
SPEAKER_01: What are you, obstacle?
SPEAKER_01: What are you, rubble?
SPEAKER_01: What are you, rubbish?
SPEAKER_01: What are you, desolate?
SPEAKER_01: What are you?
SPEAKER_01: Who are you before Zerubbabel?
SPEAKER_01: Then he will bring out the capstone, the shouts of God bless it, God bless it.
SPEAKER_01: Then the word of the Lord came to me.
SPEAKER_01: The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation for this temple.
SPEAKER_01: His hands will complete it.
SPEAKER_01: He will start it, he will complete it.
SPEAKER_01: Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.
SPEAKER_01: Who dares despise the day?
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm going to read it out of this translation, but then I'll tell you how I memorized it.
SPEAKER_01: Who dares despise the day of small things?
SPEAKER_01: Since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel.
SPEAKER_01: The version I learned is to rejoice when you see the plumb line in the hands of Zerubbabel.
SPEAKER_01: Plumb line is just checking to see if the thing's straight.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's one of the first things you're going to do is you're going to you want a straight line on that wall.
SPEAKER_01: And God's saying, even when Zerubbabel picks up that plumb line to begin the work, you can have confidence that the work's going to be done.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we serve a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_01: So his historical work in Scripture becomes our foundational groundpiece of what we stand on.
SPEAKER_01: There's a movement of dismissal of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And just look at the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If it's not in red, then don't pay attention to it.
SPEAKER_01: So that's an old, there's to print Bibles where everything they believe Jesus said, they printed in red.
SPEAKER_01: And that started going away because then everyone starts challenging.
SPEAKER_01: Well, did he say that?
SPEAKER_01: Did he not say that?
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to keep taking red away.
SPEAKER_01: And I just like if Jesus quotes Old Testament, I'm going to stick with the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus comes from the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: This is the history of our God.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we hold on to when there isn't anything left in your life to hold on to.
SPEAKER_01: We hold on to the fact that He has restored the fortunes and has brought back the captives.
SPEAKER_01: That is our core information we have about God.
SPEAKER_01: So much so it gets embedded in a psalm that gets taught generation after generation after generation after generation.
SPEAKER_01: That is who God is.
SPEAKER_01: He restores.
SPEAKER_01: So I wrote this way: the work for Zerbabel was daunting.
SPEAKER_01: It was overwhelming.
SPEAKER_01: The obstacle as large as the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: And yet God promises that it is His Spirit, the Lord Almighty, who will empower the work.
SPEAKER_01: Make no mistake, restoration is a joint effort between God and His people.
SPEAKER_01: But God is the one who provides power.
SPEAKER_01: We provide movement.
SPEAKER_01: Restoration always is going to include our movement in faith on the core information that we understand of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: Always.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so then we get to the second half.
SPEAKER_01: God restores our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's restored our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm asking him to restore our fortunes, right?
SPEAKER_01: One's grounded in historical act.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: The other one is grounded in present reality.
SPEAKER_01: But I need something restored now.
SPEAKER_01: I feel captive now.
SPEAKER_01: There's a mountain that just blew up in front of me now.
SPEAKER_01: But it starts with we know that you restored our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: So I can stand and boldly ask for you to restore our fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: Core knowledge leaned onto for a present need.
SPEAKER_01: That our hope will, our hope rests in God's past acts.
SPEAKER_01: So can't you see?
SPEAKER_01: The fewer of God's past acts that we know, the less past acts of God that we have to anchor our present need in.
SPEAKER_01: It's why I continue to just put get your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Open it up.
SPEAKER_01: Read.
SPEAKER_01: I I have men hand over fists tell me, Pastor, I don't like to read.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to convince you any other way.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta ask you though.
SPEAKER_01: And this is not just for men, but why don't you like to read?
SPEAKER_01: Answer that question before we get to mine.
SPEAKER_01: I don't like to read.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you like to read?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about picking up, you know, some novel on.
SPEAKER_01: If if if if if if this holds, if this has the ability to teach me more about what I need to anchor my life in, then read it.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I know that sounds like I'm some 120-year-old Baptist pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I uh in small groups we get we get a can't get a chance to lock in um Bible and we get a chance to lock in lock in other people's personal experience.
SPEAKER_01: That's a great discipleship tool when you take the word and other people's lived experience.
SPEAKER_01: And here, I treasure my time here.
SPEAKER_01: I treasure my time with you.
SPEAKER_01: But if all of you looked at your calendars, I think you'd realize that at best, you're probably in this room with me 30, 35 times a year.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So if this is the if this is the anchoring, if this is your anchoring understanding of who God is, can I can I tell you that you need more anchor?
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be it, and I want whoever stands in here, I want to ensure that they're gonna preach the word.
SPEAKER_01: But we need more anchor.
SPEAKER_01: And the more understanding that I have of what God has done in the past gives me more hope and faith for what he can do right now.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what even this psalmist teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Kids, this is what God did.
SPEAKER_01: Where we're going up to, it used to be, it used to, it was blown up.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't exist for 70 years, and now we're going back to it.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna see with your own eyes all that wasn't there a hundred years ago, 200 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God's done.
SPEAKER_01: So guess what?
SPEAKER_01: You know the mess we're in right now, son?
SPEAKER_01: The same God who restored that then, we're asking that God to restore us right now.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see how that resonates?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's tied to his history.
SPEAKER_01: And then he uses a metaphor like the streams and the negav.
SPEAKER_01: It's a metaphor for suddenness.
SPEAKER_01: See, in the other couple other Psalms of Ascent, I told you about the geography of the area, it was dry, it was rugged, it was arid, there were dry waddies, rains would come, and you could get washed away, and then they would flash down some of the language the psalmist uses is swallowed up by.
SPEAKER_01: It's all negative languages in the first couple of the psalms and Psalms of Ascent on how those rushing waters will overtake you and take you down.
SPEAKER_01: In this sense, they've he's flipped it.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying that the trauma you find yourself in, we're asking God to change it suddenly, like the waters coming to the Negev.
SPEAKER_01: That these rains will come and they'll come without you knowing, because they're coming in a different place.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, this is this is amazing.
SPEAKER_01: The rains are gonna come, they're they can come in this mountain range over here and you can't see it.
SPEAKER_01: But they will fill this riverbed suddenly.
SPEAKER_01: God, restore our fortunes suddenly.
SPEAKER_01: That's a that's an ask.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good ask.
SPEAKER_01: Restore our fortunes suddenly.
SPEAKER_01: Um verse 5, those who sow with tears, Eric, did you pick that up?
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Get it from so I don't I don't lose that.
SPEAKER_01: Can't baptize anybody with that bolt and that that note right there.
SPEAKER_01: Those who sow with tears will reap songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: Now when you read sowing here, um it's like, okay, I reap song.
SPEAKER_01: Do I want to, if I'm sowing, we're in sowing and reaping, right?
SPEAKER_01: I told you you sow what you reap, you sow more than you, uh you reap more than you sow, and you reap later than you sow.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if I'm sowing tears, am I gonna just reap more tears?
SPEAKER_01: That's not what this is saying.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sowing in tears.
SPEAKER_01: When I read sowing, I want you to think about investing everything that you have.
SPEAKER_01: Tears can come in a lot of different ways.
SPEAKER_01: Um of you can tell the story better than I can.
SPEAKER_01: Um but when uh you know Gene and I we we um we resigned our position at our church in Atlanta December of 2005.
SPEAKER_01: We don't move to we don't move to this area until May 31st of 2006.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have our first church service until April of 2007.
SPEAKER_01: So to say there was there there was a lot of tears sowed between December 2005 and our first service of 2007.
SPEAKER_01: And the story I tell is coming up here for a weekend visit early in 2006, I'm I'm in a buddy's truck driving from Brentwood, and I get to the Cool Springs area and I just lose it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I ugly cry.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what did I just do to my family?
SPEAKER_01: And I remember in that crying, yelling prayer, my conclusion was, Lord, don't judge my faith by my tears.
SPEAKER_01: Judge my faith that I'm still driving south on I-65.
SPEAKER_01: And even as I was reflecting over baptizing this morning, is that I can connect the dots between, not that I'm responsible, mind you, but I can connect the dots between those prayers, those tears sown on I-65, and these three people getting baptized.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not saying they wouldn't have been baptized without me, right?
SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying that you can still connect those dots.
SPEAKER_01: And what he's saying is, boy, you're standing in a place where all you got is tears.
SPEAKER_01: But with those tears, you can ask God to restore your fortune suddenly.
SPEAKER_01: And those tears are being sown, they're going somewhere, they're they're not just dripping down on your blouse or your carpet, your pants, they're being sewn into the heart of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 56 or 58, because I don't want to look, but it's one of those two.
SPEAKER_01: There's two different translations where one says that the um that he keeps 56.
SPEAKER_01: So you keep track of all my sorrows, you've collected all my tears in a bottle, you have recorded each one in your book.
SPEAKER_01: This it's carrying two different sentiments there to me.
SPEAKER_01: When I read, you have recorded actually, is that my paraphrase?
SPEAKER_01: You don't know, I didn't say.
SPEAKER_01: I think the different translations translate differently.
SPEAKER_01: One says you collect my tears in a bottle, and I think another translation says that you record them in your book.
SPEAKER_01: And I think I combine that.
SPEAKER_01: So which is it?
SPEAKER_01: Does he does he save our tears in a bottle or does he record them in his book?
SPEAKER_01: What was my other answer?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: English can't support the weight of the Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: But here's how it to me, here's how it breaks out.
SPEAKER_01: When I hear you record them in your book, I think, I think of an accountant.
SPEAKER_01: I think of someone that keeps great spreadsheets, right?
SPEAKER_01: With with every formula correct, everything in the right order.
SPEAKER_01: I think that God's got He's got a pencil on on his ear, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's got a pocket protector here, and he's got all the ledgers out.
SPEAKER_01: And when I'm crying in prayer, he's writing that thing out.
SPEAKER_01: This is the circumstance Charlie's in.
SPEAKER_01: These are the tears he's praying, and he doesn't miss a one.
SPEAKER_01: No, he is the perfect accountant.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna miss a single thing.
SPEAKER_01: What I what I what I feel within he collects my tears in a bottle, that he is personally right there.
SPEAKER_01: He's there.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta be close to collect the tear now, folks.
SPEAKER_01: So he's he's emotionally entrenched in the ditch with you.
SPEAKER_01: And emotionally he's collecting these tears.
SPEAKER_01: He's recording these tears.
SPEAKER_01: Because they're not wasted, they're not lost, they're being sown into the heart of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And what is reaped is joy.
SPEAKER_01: Joy, not the ha ha ha ha ha joy, the lack of anxiousness.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we sow tears in anxiousness, they come out of a whole boatload of anxiousness, but when you're sowing them on your pilgrimage to the Father, we reap, we reap the peace that comes from who is recording these and collecting these.
SPEAKER_01: What's the peace come from?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's a God who restores, and he's shown it, and he's proven it, he's proven it in history, and there's some level in your life, I believe he's proven it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's the collective experience we take to the new thing.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you've done, this is what you've done for me, this is what you will do here.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I ask, standing here in this valley, full of tears, would you restore my fortunes suddenly?
SPEAKER_01: It's a good ask.
SPEAKER_01: The ask is put in good hands.
SPEAKER_01: This is Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_01: Henry Newen, in his book Turning My Morning into Dancing, said, By inviting God into our difficulties, we ground life, even in its sad moments, in joy and hope.
SPEAKER_01: Weeping doesn't have the last word, joy and hope does.
SPEAKER_01: To get a suddenly, you have to keep sewing in your nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: Do you find yourself in a nowhere place today?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, restoration, in my estimation, as best as I can understand it, restoration always comes through God's power and my movement.
SPEAKER_01: They're combined.
SPEAKER_01: And what am I going to move in?
SPEAKER_01: I think the heart of the gospel is I move in faith, meaning I move in, I lean my whole weight upon him.
SPEAKER_01: I move in hope.
SPEAKER_01: Biblical hope is a confident expectation, not wishful thinking.
SPEAKER_01: I can have a confident expectation because who I'm placing my hope in.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not placing my hope in you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not placing my hope in a circumstance.
SPEAKER_01: I'm placing my hope in him.
SPEAKER_01: And then I move in joy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to not be anxious.
SPEAKER_01: Now, someone telling you not to worry.
SPEAKER_01: Have you figured that out?
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Someone tell you not to worry.
SPEAKER_01: Well, of course they're not worrying.
SPEAKER_01: They in your shoes.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy for me to tell you not to worry if I'm not the one going through a however, but if a follow a fellow brother and sister Christ steps up to you and says, Hey, Eric, let's not be anxious.
SPEAKER_01: You're leaning your weight on the right person.
SPEAKER_01: He has delivered, he is delivering, and he will deliver.
SPEAKER_01: Will you keep moving?
SPEAKER_01: Fascinating that these psalms were taught in the midst of movement.
SPEAKER_01: They were on the pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: All of these lessons were taught while people were moving.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna give you a chance to move.
SPEAKER_01: Stand with me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: We have communion on my left and on the right, but if you find yourselves, you can come for prayer for anything.
SPEAKER_01: But as it relates to what Psalm 126 is you are asking God to move suddenly to restore your fortunes.
SPEAKER_01: Over here, you can just pray by yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Over here, someone will link their faith with yours today in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Restoration is always connected with our moment.
SPEAKER_01: Father, this is your time, these are your people.
SPEAKER_01: You saw my tears.
SPEAKER_01: I prayed here in this front row yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.