SPEAKER_00: If I'd you open your Bibles now to Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_00: If you are using the Pew Bibles, they're in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: I heard the thumps, so some of you are using the Pew Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Page 517.
SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't bring a Bible, please grab the Pew Bible, the red one in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Page 517 in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And it'll, I'm going to say it'll make more sense if you're following along in the uh the words in the Bible, so I encourage you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the Psalms of Ascent.
SPEAKER_00: These are a group of songs that the Israelites memorized and then sang in the back of the camels on the journeys to Jerusalem when they would come for the pilgrimages to the feast days, the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the Israelite equivalent of Thanksgiving or Christmas time, or you have the songs you memorize as a family.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the songs the Israelites would have memorized and sung on holidays.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to read it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to sing it, although I did sing it in the car on the way over here today.
SPEAKER_00: I'll spare you.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 126, a song of ascent.
SPEAKER_00: And the word ascents there just means it's one of the songs they sang as they went up to Jerusalem on the feast days.
SPEAKER_00: When Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
SPEAKER_00: Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.
SPEAKER_00: And they said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for them.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh has done great things for us, and we are glad.
SPEAKER_00: Restore our fortunes, O Yahweh, like the streams in the Negev.
SPEAKER_00: Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.
SPEAKER_00: He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, will come back with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.
SPEAKER_00: Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a youth pastor.
SPEAKER_00: This is the late 1990s.
SPEAKER_00: The youth ministry was crazy back then in the 1990s.
SPEAKER_00: And the youth group I was part of partnered with other churches in the area.
SPEAKER_00: There were about four or five of them.
SPEAKER_00: And we did something called uh 30 Hour Famine.
SPEAKER_00: It was this package deal that we bought from some, there were the companies that sold games to youth ministries in the 90s.
SPEAKER_00: This is before the internet had been invented.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a hot market for these kind of youth games.
SPEAKER_00: And 30 Hour Famine, one of the years we bought this package with it that had this additional game called Underground Church.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'd get all the kids together.
SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing some nods out there, so perhaps some of you played this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if IBC did this back in the Wild West days of youth ministry in the 90s, but church I was at did, and groups would gather together, the churches would come together, and uh we would do a lock-in.
SPEAKER_00: And the kids would uh not eat starting Friday morning, and they would uh fast all Friday, and they would basically be fasting Saturday as well.
SPEAKER_00: They'd sleep at the church on Friday night.
SPEAKER_00: And uh at some point for the underground church part of this, uh leaders dressed like, I don't know, army soldiers or whatever, would invade the church.
SPEAKER_00: And they would take all the kids captive and give them a stern warning that there's no more gospel preaching, that there's no more church meeting, no more praying, no more Bible studies, church ministry not allowed.
SPEAKER_00: Christians no longer allowed.
SPEAKER_00: Now they weren't really scared because they would recognize their leaders as like, hey, aren't you Johnny's dad?
SPEAKER_00: And then it would be a lock-in, so people would stay up all night and with different games and activities and stuff they would do, but no church business.
SPEAKER_00: No reading the Bible or praying or singing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then it was left to see what the students would do.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and the idea would be that some of the small group leaders that are interspersed would like organize underground churches where they would like hide up on the roof for Bible study, or they'd sing songs together in the hallway and run when leaders came.
SPEAKER_00: And they, you know, they would pray, not before their meals, because it was, you know, there's no eating these two days.
SPEAKER_00: It was a way to save money on the youth budget, really.
SPEAKER_00: Saturday morning, one of the leaders, the the one time I did this, Jonathan, he starts cooking bacon in the church kitchen, and the the smell of bacon is going all over the church, and and you could come get bacon and break your 30-hour famine.
SPEAKER_00: You could be exempt from it if only you would agree to not sing or pray or read the Bible the rest of the day.
SPEAKER_00: And uh uh you start doing some math, and like, well, how much do I really sing or pray during a normal day?
SPEAKER_00: And it becomes a convicting exercise because the bacon smells good.
SPEAKER_00: I'll return to 30-hour famine in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 126, as I mentioned, was a song that was memorized and sung on the journey to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins when Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion.
SPEAKER_00: Zion is the word for Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: This is the capital of the uh Jewish nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The people have been taken captive from Zion by the Babylonians, 70 years, 80 years before the Psalm was written, 90 years, somewhere in there.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually three waves of captivity, so you don't know exactly when the captivity really started, because it was a massive endeavor.
SPEAKER_00: They rounded up everybody in Jerusalem and deported them, dragged them, screaming and kicking, some of them with literal hooks in their nose or hooks in their cheek, put them in lines together, hooked them up like fish, and paraded them into Babylon, which is a long ways away, modern-day Iraq.
SPEAKER_00: And then they just decimated Jerusalem, destroyed it.
SPEAKER_00: So now new generations of Jews are growing up in exile.
SPEAKER_00: They've heard of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They remember what it was like, perhaps, from their parents or their grandparents to have a temple.
SPEAKER_00: They remember what it was like to sing the songs of Jerusalem, to sing the Jewish psalms, but they don't sing them.
SPEAKER_00: They're in exile, they're in captivity, and they don't think it's ever gonna end.
SPEAKER_00: And the Babylonians really crushed them and integrated them and made them learn the Babylonian language, and this is the story in Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 1 through 5 is this story.
SPEAKER_00: And the Jews begin to lose their identity as it was eroded away, and then the unbelievable happened.
SPEAKER_00: The Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, and you thought it's going from bad to worse.
SPEAKER_00: But the Persians, something crazy happened.
SPEAKER_00: The Persians let Israel return.
SPEAKER_00: The Persians, in fact, commanded that they could go back and settle Jerusalem and ordered supplies from the king's own treasury to be used to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls.
SPEAKER_00: And they were allowed to resettle.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Jews went to sleep one night, so to speak, in exile, thinking I don't even remember what a Zion was.
SPEAKER_00: And they wake up the next morning in Jerusalem with a temple.
SPEAKER_00: I know it took a lot of work and there were several returns as well, but you get the point.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image here.
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed.
SPEAKER_00: They woke up in the morning and they didn't know if they were awake or still dreaming.
SPEAKER_00: We're back in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, why would you write a song about how great it was that the Persians returned you to the land?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you remember, it was actually Yahweh who did it.
SPEAKER_00: It was God who did it.
SPEAKER_00: God named the Persian ruler Cyrus.
SPEAKER_00: Hundred plus years before he was even born, God named him and said, He's going to be the one that orders you to come back.
SPEAKER_00: So now Cyrus is born.
SPEAKER_00: Cyrus does it.
SPEAKER_00: None of the Jews are confused about this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's whole, you can buy massive books on uh world history that explain the Persian philosophy towards resettling the nations they had conquered, and to explain why Cyrus thought this was a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, long before Cyrus' parents even knew each other, God named Cyrus and said, it's going to be Cyrus that resettles you so that the mystery is gone.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody who's back knows this is the Lord who did this.
SPEAKER_00: So they wake up in the promised land and they were like those who dreamed.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kid who walks downstairs in Christmas morning and sees the presence and is like, whoa, am I awake or asleep?
SPEAKER_00: This is incredible.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a dream come true.
SPEAKER_00: That's this language described.
SPEAKER_00: I think of uh Acts chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: You remember Peter's in jail, and Peter's praying for his own deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: The church is praying for Peter's deliverance, and then an angel comes into the jail cell.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a really funny story.
SPEAKER_00: The angel wakes up Peter and has to tell Peter, put on your jacket.
SPEAKER_00: He puts on his jacket and then he put on your shoes.
SPEAKER_00: He's like having to dress Peter, like article of clothing by article of clothing.
SPEAKER_00: Tie them, okay, Peter?
SPEAKER_00: Left, right, together, cross, under, together, pull.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go, man.
SPEAKER_00: And walks Peter out on the street and leaves them in the street.
SPEAKER_00: And then Acts chapter 12 says, Peter didn't know if he was awake or dreaming.
SPEAKER_00: He can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: He was in jail a second ago, and now he's jacket, shoes.
SPEAKER_00: So remember what he does?
SPEAKER_00: He walks over to the uh the church, knocks on the house where the church meets in the door, and the girl answers the door and she says, You can't come in, we're upstairs praying for Peter's release.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, hello.
SPEAKER_00: And they close the door on him and run upstairs and tell everybody, she tells everybody, Peter's downstairs, and everybody's freaking out.
SPEAKER_00: They were praying for his release and they left him outside.
SPEAKER_00: The angel left him outside, the church left him outside.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of this attitude of Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_00: This is so incredible, they can't believe what God has done for them.
SPEAKER_00: And so their mouth is filled with laughter, their tongues with shouts of joy.
SPEAKER_00: They're stoked.
SPEAKER_00: And then they said, Among the nations, Yahweh has done great things to them.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is the name of the covenant God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That's the name the Jews use for their God.
SPEAKER_00: The nations are singing praises to Yahweh because of what He's done through the exile.
SPEAKER_00: They would never have chosen the exile, remember?
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah wrote the Book of Lamentations, just weeping about how Jerusalem was destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Weeping, weeping, weeping.
SPEAKER_00: But now they can't stop laughing.
SPEAKER_00: They can't stop singing praises.
SPEAKER_00: Even the other nations are singing praises about how God, how great God is for them.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh has done great things for us, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: So the nations are praising Yahweh, and now they're praising Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: They can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: The Psalm is split into two paragraphs.
SPEAKER_00: This first paragraph is just looking at past joy.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot believe they woke up in Jerusalem, childlike delight about what the Lord has done.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh returned their fortunes.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, back in verse 1, Yahweh was, it's only one word in English, but it's two words in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this it's a double turn, shov-shuving kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Shuva's the Hebrew word for turn.
SPEAKER_00: Shuv-shuving.
SPEAKER_00: God turned us to turn us.
SPEAKER_00: God spun us around and threw us back in the promised land, and they were glad.
SPEAKER_00: This is a word that's sometimes used translated as revival.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119.
SPEAKER_00: Nine times the psalmist prays for this word and it's translated revival.
SPEAKER_00: God wants the people of God are praying, wanting to experience revival.
SPEAKER_00: They want God to do a work in their midst.
SPEAKER_00: Please, Lord, revive us.
SPEAKER_00: And now here it happens.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, written before the exile, here now, after the exile.
SPEAKER_00: They've restored their fortunes.
SPEAKER_00: God has brought revival.
SPEAKER_00: Revival is where God supernaturally stirs the hearts of his people and causes them to rejoice in his goodness.
SPEAKER_00: That's revival.
SPEAKER_00: Can't be orchestrated by people.
SPEAKER_00: People can't make a revival.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can do a revival.
SPEAKER_00: I remember uh uh Alistair Begg describing when he first entered the United States, he flew into Cleveland and drove from Cleveland to his church, and he passed one church in the drive that said revival Monday night, 7 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: Then he passed another church a few blocks later that said revival every night of the week except Mondays.
SPEAKER_00: You can't orchestrate revival.
SPEAKER_00: God causes revival, and that's what the Psalms have been praying for, and now it's happened, and it happened through God's work through exile.
SPEAKER_00: Through exile.
SPEAKER_00: Last night my family was talking about we were thankful for for the year in the year past, thinking all the Lord has done in our church the year past and in our life the year past, and kids went around the table and they're thankful for families and answered prayer and things that we've experienced, thankful for school and everything.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to be the pastor at the table.
SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm thankful for church, actually, but I am the pastor at the table, and so and I am thankful for church.
SPEAKER_00: Like it just struck me in a fresh way last night how grateful I am for what the Lord has done through Emmanuel in this past year.
SPEAKER_00: And I see a lot of family and friends and people that aren't uh normally part of Emmanuel, so just bear with a few minutes here as I just think of what the last 18 months have been like at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when when COVID first came, our church closed its doors, uh, which was not an easy decision to make.
SPEAKER_00: I would say we were the leadership was probably less than unanimous about it, but we closed the doors for 11 weeks.
SPEAKER_00: We live streamed church, as much as that's sounds like a ridiculous sentence to say, but we live streamed church for 11 weeks, and finally, like week nine rolls around, and I remember Steve Holly coming in the office and being like, This is over.
SPEAKER_00: No more of this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're opening up two weeks, let's get this thing done.
SPEAKER_00: And and we've opened up and stayed open ever since.
SPEAKER_00: And I know if you've been part of Emmanuel, that seems like axiomatic.
SPEAKER_00: Like it just seems like obviously you've been a church.
SPEAKER_00: You might not even be thankful for what has happened at the church because it's been opened these last 18 months.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, it is unusual in Northern Virginia for churches like ours or any church to have been open through that whole time period.
SPEAKER_00: I coach a soccer team.
SPEAKER_00: On the soccer team, it's a Christian team.
SPEAKER_00: I've got 12 different churches represented on the soccer team.
SPEAKER_00: Easter this year, so the Easter like six months ago, whenever Easter was five, six months ago.
SPEAKER_00: I asked the the kids on the team, are they going to church on Easter Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: Of those 12 churches on the team, only one other church was open.
SPEAKER_00: And this is just a few months ago.
SPEAKER_00: It's you don't realize this if you're part of a manual, but most churches in this area stayed closed for a year.
SPEAKER_00: Or they're, you know, meeting just in groups of here, groups of here, a small group here, a small group there, meeting in fields doing whatever they they can.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's hard for to meet in the field through the winter, hard to get older people in the fields in the winter, hard to get older people to come for 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there and rotate in and out.
SPEAKER_00: Hard to do church that way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just so thankful that our church didn't do that.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That our church busted open the doors and said, You want to come?
SPEAKER_00: Come.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a sign that said?
SPEAKER_00: I think of the things we even the 11 weeks we were closed, home visits.
SPEAKER_00: Me and some of the other pastors went and visited a a bunch of the well, our shut-in list went from 10 to 1,000 and went and tried to do home visits as much as we could.
SPEAKER_00: Me and a couple of my friends, perhaps you received the sign.
SPEAKER_00: I've never fessed up to it publicly, but me and some of my friends went and put Easter signs in every member's front yard.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so if you were a member of IBC and you woke up one morning and there was a worship with us on Easter at IBC.church, my bad.
SPEAKER_00: In that time, hundreds of new people have come to Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: We've had at least a hundred new members.
SPEAKER_00: We've had over 20 baptisms.
SPEAKER_00: We had when all the public schools were closed, IBC's school was open and people were here and excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want you to appreciate for a second, I don't want you to clap again, but I just want you to appreciate for a second the Lord's kindness and what he's done through our church by staying open.
SPEAKER_00: We've, as I mentioned, baptisms members, new missionaries have gone out.
SPEAKER_00: During that time, the Standridges went to Italy, where they are celebrating Thanksgiving with Italian food.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Davis is now in a closed country in Africa.
SPEAKER_00: Almost finished a whole work where he was in Chad and is now at a different closed country.
SPEAKER_00: Our seminary has 18 students.
SPEAKER_00: The seminary kept meeting the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody asked me at a conference I was at last week how many of our graduates from the seminary have gone into ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I think we have 18 students now.
SPEAKER_00: I think we've had six or seven graduates, and almost all of them are in full-time pastoral ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: There's real strategic ministry happening in our city, in our nation, around our world through the Lord's faithfulness to our church.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord has done his own work in our hearts also.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you think about some of the biggest systemic illnesses of the American church, I would say there's two.
SPEAKER_00: One is this incessant idea that politics determine the future of the church.
SPEAKER_00: That if the right person wins the election, the gospel goes forward.
SPEAKER_00: If the wrong person wins the election, the gospel is hindered.
SPEAKER_00: This idea that our freedoms come from government rather than God, which is a horrible idea.
SPEAKER_00: But you understand our freedoms don't come from government, our freedoms come from God.
SPEAKER_00: The call to worship comes from Him, not from county health regulators.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a systemic idea in American Christianity going back at least 40 years.
SPEAKER_00: You read books on, you know, kind of the religious right and the growth of that, it's probably 40 years ago where that started to worm its way into Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been a Christian, if you got saved anytime in the last 40 years, you've just kind of experienced that Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: That's just what you've experienced.
SPEAKER_00: And man, nothing has been able to fix that until this pandemic.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like the wheel of the bus got turned hard right and a bunch of people fell off the left side.
SPEAKER_00: And you kind of wake up and you realize, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Our freedom, if we're going to meet as a church because the government allows us to, that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people, I think, realize, you know what, our freedoms do indeed come from God.
SPEAKER_00: And we're responsible to stand before Him, not before the County Health Commissioner.
SPEAKER_00: And in this time meeting, by the way, I have a connection with the County Health Department, and that we have a rep there, and I've been talking to her and telling her what we were doing, and and you know, I don't I wouldn't say she was okay with it, but she also never sent the police here.
SPEAKER_00: But then one day I got a voicemail.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know my voicemail worked, but my light was flashing in my office, like, oh, what's that?
SPEAKER_00: So she left me a voicemail anytime in the last several years.
SPEAKER_00: No, that I did not receive it.
SPEAKER_00: So I checked the voicemail, and it is the county health commissioner who normally emails me.
SPEAKER_00: She left me a voicemail, or the not the commissioner, but the my connection there, the the community rep.
SPEAKER_00: She was asking if IBC would use our worship center uh to to to let the county health department use it to train their contact tracers.
SPEAKER_00: So they needed a large room to meet.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, where have you been meeting?
SPEAKER_00: We've been meeting at Christian high schools, but we're exceeding the capacity that's allowed by county ordinance, so we can't meet in the high schools anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, they can't meet at Thomas Jefferson anymore because they got too many people in the building.
SPEAKER_00: So can they meet at the church because they know that we're open?
SPEAKER_00: We said no.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just like a layer of irony upon layer of irony.
SPEAKER_00: And I I'm so thankful the Lord, in a sense, woke us up to the reality that our privilege of worshiping comes to us from the Lord, not through the government.
SPEAKER_00: Government doesn't get to regulate church worship, it just doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that's systemically, I think, often wrong in American Christianity is this idea that the church needs to be pleasing or well thought of by the world.
SPEAKER_00: That the gospel will advance if the world thinks highly of us.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that's there's all kinds of names for that, from seeker-sensitive ministry to liberalism or whatever, but this idea that if the church acts itself in a way that is appealing to the world, then the gospel will have a stronger effect going forward.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way the gospel is designed for the church to be well thought of by the by the by the world.
SPEAKER_00: And people even said that, you know, the church shouldn't be open because other churches aren't open, all these businesses aren't open.
SPEAKER_00: And what if people drive by and see a bunch of cars in the parking lot that'll hurt the church's witness?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it will.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think people will care, firstly.
SPEAKER_00: But then I met a couple, and I'm looking for them today because they became members of IBC.
SPEAKER_00: But I met a couple who were not part of the church, but were driving by on Sunday morning to Giant and saw our parking lot full.
SPEAKER_00: And at first the guy said he was his his wife was actually kind of upset, like, hey, why do they get all to meet at the church and when we can't, you know, we can't meet anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And then look, the parking lot's filled.
SPEAKER_00: And so the next Sunday they came.
SPEAKER_00: And they came again and came again, and now they're they're members of the church now.
SPEAKER_00: It's just so kind of the Lord to turn that thinking on its head that we better act in a certain way to be appealing to the the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why am I rehashing all this?
SPEAKER_00: Not I don't want to relitigate COVID, but I'm afraid one com here's what sparked it one commentator.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 126 says that Christians often do a bad job of acting out Psalm 126 because they think it's pride or proud to sing songs about what the Lord has done to the church.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a natural Christian tendency to say, hey, we don't want to be stoked about what the Lord did through Emmanuel in the last 18 months because there's other churches that decided things differently.
SPEAKER_00: There's other churches that stayed closed, there's other people that didn't come to worship because they didn't want to go to church or, you know, health conditions or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to talk about how good it was for the church to be open because what will those other people think?
SPEAKER_00: And that has the effect of muting praise.
SPEAKER_00: But you understand this, I hope you understand this isn't bragging.
SPEAKER_00: Know that I'm not trying to brag through this or I'm not trying to say we did things right.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we did lots of things wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And given another global pandemic in 80 years, we would probably make different choices.
SPEAKER_00: But I will say that the Lord worked through us and the flawed choices we did make in a remarkable way that causes me to be filled with joy and thankfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that your heart is filled with joy and thankfulness over it too.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're not ashamed of it.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you rejoice and more than rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I hope you raise your kids.
SPEAKER_00: Uh lots of kids here.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you raise your kids to be thankful about this last 18 months.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that they're gonna learn about, you know, COVID is gonna be on the timeline.
SPEAKER_00: Their kids are gonna grow up memorizing a timeline in school, thinking of the key events of world history.
SPEAKER_00: You know, September 11th is a new one that's that's on there, and then COVID is gonna be on it.
SPEAKER_00: The world shut down.
SPEAKER_00: And I want your kids to grow up and learn that timeline and remember, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: This is the time that the authenticity of my family's faith and the authenticity of the church life at Emmanuel Bible Church was vindicated.
SPEAKER_00: It was shown, it was tested and proved and that they celebrate for what the Lord did through the church.
SPEAKER_00: They look back at these last 18 months with joy in their hearts, and they grow up for confidence.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's been 18 months, so some of your kids, you know, they don't remember a time where people weren't wearing masks on airplanes, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But I want them to always remember the time the Lord was faithful to IBC.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord was faithful that the youth group game, Underground Church, in a sense came to life.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't, you know, for bacon.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't sell out for bacon.
SPEAKER_00: They said, we're gonna meet together, we're gonna worship and praise the Lord and see what the Lord does through our church.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that your family is grateful.
SPEAKER_00: You make a little ebonizer in your house.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it would be, but you make a little ebon easier in your mouth in your house, in your mind, in your family, around the table where you are thankful for what the Lord did through your church improving the authenticity of your faith these last 18 months.
SPEAKER_00: But I also recognize that not everybody is rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: That the last 18 months were hard, people lost their jobs, and more will lose their jobs.
SPEAKER_00: That there were funerals, people died in the church, died from COVID, and I just want to give the footnote here.
SPEAKER_00: None of them that I know of that that died got COVID at church or any of the worship that we were doing here.
SPEAKER_00: But people did die, and there are families that have an empty seat at the Thanksgiving table this year, and it's hard for them to hear like the Lord brought back the captive ones from Zion, and we were like those who dreamed.
SPEAKER_00: Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with praise.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for them to say that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second paragraph of the Psalm, which I can go through quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Restore our fortunes, O Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: So now it goes from looking backwards to looking future.
SPEAKER_00: Backwards was God restored our fortunes, and we were like those who dreamed.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're looking future.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who are still doing the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody came back with the first wave of the return.
SPEAKER_00: There's others still in exile.
SPEAKER_00: And they're doing the they're singing the same song.
SPEAKER_00: Restore, Lord, restore us.
SPEAKER_00: Like the streams of Negev.
SPEAKER_00: Negev is like the desertiest desert that ever deserted.
SPEAKER_00: It is the very tip of Israel along the Egyptian border.
SPEAKER_00: It is dry, it is arid, the sand is thin on the top, you go underneath it and it flakes and nothing grows there.
SPEAKER_00: It's horrible.
SPEAKER_00: Can't find a drop of water anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And then the rainy season comes and it floods.
SPEAKER_00: The rainy season comes and the waddies fill up and the washes or arroyos or brooks, whatever you call them, fill up with water, and the place is like a flood.
SPEAKER_00: But that's so brief.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the analogy the author is using for those that are still in exile.
SPEAKER_00: They're still looking at the dry and parched lands where there is no water, there's no green anywhere, and they're still stuck there.
SPEAKER_00: They hear the song over the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Ingeti Mountains are there, and Jerusalem's on the other side, and they hear the Jews singing on the other side metaphorically.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the sound doesn't really travel that far, but the idiom here is that on the other side they hear the songs.
SPEAKER_00: People are back at the temple saying, The Lord returned us, and they're still in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: They're saying, God, return our fortunes too, like the streams.
SPEAKER_00: We know the flood's gonna come.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5 Those who sow in tears, they will reap with shouts of joy.
SPEAKER_00: Reformers turned that into a phrase, post tenebrus luxe, after darkness light.
SPEAKER_00: Those who who sow in tears will reap with joy.
SPEAKER_00: It's out in the desert, the ground is sandy, but it's been plowed.
SPEAKER_00: The plow came through and put the furrows in the ground, and it's just sand, and there's not even dirt, just sand.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing's gonna grow there.
SPEAKER_00: And the farmer's walking through the furrows of sand, and he's got a seed with him.
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna throw a seed in the sand, so he's planting his tears.
SPEAKER_00: His tears are falling from his face.
SPEAKER_00: He goes out weeping, planting his tears in the deserts.
SPEAKER_00: But then verse 6, he's gonna come home with shouts of joy.
SPEAKER_00: That guy's also gonna come home.
SPEAKER_00: Lord's not gonna leave his people in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna bring them home too.
SPEAKER_00: The guy's gonna come back with sheaves with him, it says.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is a Thanksgiving psalm.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna come back with all of his harvest, all of his produce in his arms, bundled up, even though all he planted was tears.
SPEAKER_00: He just watered the desert with his tears.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna fetch him too.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be another wave of the return, and another wave of the return.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, God's people will all be back, and they will all sing back to the circular psalm.
SPEAKER_00: It goes back to the beginning of it.
SPEAKER_00: They will all sing about how joyful they are.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has done great things to us.
SPEAKER_00: By the time the guy comes back home, harvest is plentiful.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope this year, as you celebrate Thanksgiving, your heart is filled with joy about what the Lord has done to your family at work, answered prayers over the last year.
SPEAKER_00: But I hope that one of the special places in your heart is you're so thankful for the revival the Lord has brought to his church.
SPEAKER_00: Where the Lord has brought so many new people to church, so many baptisms, so many people coming to faith in Christ, so many people getting rid of the cultural Christianity baggage, so many people who who have gotten rid of the I'll worship when it's allowed, I'll worship when it's kosher, I'll worship when it's legal.
SPEAKER_00: They've checked that baggage at the door.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not there yet, and you're still still out in the wilderness, you're still looking at the empty seat around the table, you're still heartbroken about things that have happened last 18 months, then the psalm is also for you.
SPEAKER_00: And water the ground with your tears, knowing that none of the tears a believer sheds are ever in vain.
SPEAKER_00: They always produce a flower.
SPEAKER_00: Every tear produces a flower, it blossoms red, and of course the image for that is the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the best example of this, we started the service by reading Jesus' charge to his disciples before he was crucified.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I want to end too.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the perfect example of this.
SPEAKER_00: He goes out to the wilderness, he's tempted by the devil, and he returns triumphant.
SPEAKER_00: He goes outside the city gate where he's crucified, where he's murdered, put to death, and he rises from the grave, offering new life to those who would believe.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is Psalm 126 incarnate, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord returned the fortunes of Zion.
SPEAKER_00: Israel was sent into captivity and brought back.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was fled to Egypt, brought back.
SPEAKER_00: Then he flees to the wilderness, brought back.
SPEAKER_00: Then he's crucified outside the city, buried, and then resurrects and appears to his people again.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 126 is very much a challenge for you to believe that through death comes life.
SPEAKER_00: Through the death of Jesus Christ comes eternal life for those who believe that Jesus bears the penalty for our sin on the cross, suffering in our place, so that he can revive us again, so that he can restore our fortunes through our faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful that we sa celebrate Thanksgiving every year.
SPEAKER_00: As the Jews would have sang, Psalm 126, every year we too will celebrate every year what we are thankful for.
SPEAKER_00: And we never grow tired of it.
SPEAKER_00: Every season you give us new things to rejoice for, new things to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Also, every year brings new tears to shed, new sorrow, new heartache, new difficulty, new trials.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we know that where those tears fall, the ground will indeed blossom red.
SPEAKER_00: And that you produce through the blood of Jesus Christ eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: You, as John writes, will wipe away every tear as we behold the resurrected Lamb of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So I pray that this Thanksgiving our hearts would be filled with joy as we contemplate all that you have done for us and to us through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Really, none of the glory belongs to us, it all belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: All glory is indeed his because he is the worker in all of our good deeds.
SPEAKER_00: We surrender our lives to him and honor him with our lips and even with this song.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.