Psalms of Ascent, Lesson 7: Psalm 126, Restoration
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Good morning. Everyone should be really well rested this morning, tonight. This morning, I guess, with the time change. And you're all here, so this is the good one. All right. Well, we're back in the Psalms of Ascent this morning. Our Sunday school. And let me pray for us. Lord, as we begin a new month, we commit it to You. We ask that You would help us to number our days that we would have a heart of wisdom. We pray that this morning, as we gather, we would bring our joys and we would bring our sorrows and we would be met in Your Word, Lord, with consolation, with correction, with comfort. And celebration of Your work in our lives. So Lord, guide us as we come to the Scriptures feed us with the food of Your Word. Lord, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from Your mouth. And we acknowledge again afresh that Your Word is truth, that these are the words that You moved men to write, and yet they are not merely the words of men, but truly the words of God. And so may we receive them as such, Lord, with holy reverence and precious care. So we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, we come to Psalm 126 this morning. 126. Psalm 126. A song of ascents. When Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy. Then they said among the nations, "Yahweh has done great things for them. Yahweh has done great things for us. We are glad." Restore our fortunes, O Yahweh, 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. Amen. Here in Psalm 126, we have a description of the reality of joy and sorrows mixed together. We live in a world marked with suffering and sorrows, trials, and pains. And yet, as believers, we live lives with joy throughout these seasons of sorrow. We all know too well the experience of the apostle Paul when he said, giving us these words to hold to and express how we experience life. He said that we are sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Sorrowful yet always rejoicing. These mingled together. I heard one time the illustration of thinking about the pilot light on a stove. The pilot light on a stove. And this is especially relevant to me. It stuck with me because when we were living in California, one of our apartments had this super tiny oven. And the actually, the door on the oven opened like a microwave. You open like that. And it was super tiny. You had to get a special thing to put in to make cookies or whatever. Normal stuff would not fit in. But on the top, the pilot lights were always on. And so we have little Maggie and we're like, okay, don't get near there. But the pilot light just always, always on there. And you had to just, all you had to do is turn the knob and it would get bigger. It would get bluer, if you will. You might think about it like this. As Christians, the pilot light of joy is always on. However, it may be that that small flame seems as if it could easily go out, like the pilot light. And yet, the flame at times is turned up to make a large blue flame, hot, burning. Our pilgrim lives can be like this. We experience joy, but it may rise and fall throughout the seasons of life. So there may be times when it goes down to just the pilot light. It's on, but it's flickering. And then other times it's turned up and it is just a blue flame of joy. It reminds me of the passage about the Messiah that says he will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick. In other words, if you're like a candle that's like about to go out, he would never snuff it out. He would hold it, nurture it, and keep it going. And if there's just this kind of reed that's about to snap, he wouldn't just break it, handle it, roughly but carefully, gently, so as not to break it. Picturing our lives. Here in this psalm, it describes times of incredible blue flame joy along with times of sorrow when the pilot light seems as if it's about to go out. And this is a great psalm for Israel. Songs of ascent, the psalms of ascent, these 15 songs in the psalter that are used by Israel as they go three times a year to Jerusalem for different festivals. So they're the road trip playlist when you go on the road and you play your soundtrack that you made. This is the soundtrack for Israel. It's the Spotify playlist for Israel. The best of the best. The greatest hits, if you will. For Israel. And so we're working through these. And so there are fitted for the road trip to Jerusalem, to worship the Lord. They describe the pilgrim journey of worship. Psalm 126, maybe summarized well by the Psalm verse in Psalm 30, verse 5, which says, "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." This is a psalm as well that looks at all times. In our lives. It looks back to the past and looks up in the present and it looks forward to the future. And so this psalm is here to help us know how to serve God even when life is sorrowful. And it gives us, in this short psalm, six verses, it gives us three practices to implement when joy seems to be fleeting. Three practices to implement when joy seems to be fleeting. The first is we are to ponder what God has done in the past. Ponder what God has done in the past versus one to three. Look at verse one. When Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Now, we don't know the exact historical circumstance behind this psalm. It's certainly sounds like it could be applied to the return from Babylonian exile, or it may just be speaking in general about God's restoration that that could be picked up later and be an appropriate thing to sing. When that happened in the future. But the language is general enough that it can apply to any season of distress or captivity that was reversed by God. This idea of restoring fortunes comes up quite a bit, especially in the prophets as they anticipate what God will do for Israel in the future. In Jeremiah 29, verse 14, it says, "I will be found by you," declares Yahweh, "and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I've driven you," declares Yahweh. "And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." Ezekiel speaks this way. Ezekiel 39, verse 25, "Therefore, thus says, the Lord Yahweh, now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name." So we see this in a lot of places. Here's one more. We're skipping a lot of them, but Amos, at the very end of the book of Amos, famous Amos, we could call him, Amos, let's see here. Amos, where'd you go? Where'd you go, brother? Oh, there we go. This is not a sticky part in my Bible, but for some reason. All right, there we go. Amos, chapter 9, verse 14, "I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. And they shall make gardens and eat their fruit." I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says Yahweh, your God. So we see this restoration language restoration is actually a key theme in this passage. When Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion, and then look at verse 4, "Restore our fortunes, O Yahweh, so there's this past look and then a future or a present ask that the Lord would do that again. You think about Job and his life. So it doesn't have to refer just to return from exile. Job 42:10 speaks this way. After Job's significant trials, Job 42:10, "And Yahweh restored the fortunes of Job. When he had prayed for his friends, and Yahweh gave Job twice as much, as he had before. So whatever the specific circumstance of this restoration it was unbelievable to the people of God. The psalmist says the experience of restoration for them was like a dream. It was like a dream. A dream come true. I don't know how many of you remember your dreams but this idea is it was too good to be true. It was like having a dream that this is I must be dreaming. I must be dreaming. This is so good. You might think, I might wake up and this will all be over. It seems so great that I mean, when is this going to end? That's how they that's how they feel. Now, there's a kind of a this language is used elsewhere in a different context. In Isaiah 29, for kind of the opposite, Isaiah 29, verse 7, these are like about those coming against Israel, to battle them and how unsuccessful they will be. Isaiah 29, verse 7, "And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night. As when a hungry man dreams he is eating and awakes with his hunger not satisfied. Or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking and awakes faint with his thirst not quenched. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. So here it's like they're like, yeah, we're crushing them. And then all of a sudden it's like it's like a dream and you wake up and you're devastated. You know, it's like have you ever dreamt and you're just you're just eating all this amazing food and drink and then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like, oh, I'm so hungry. I'm so thirsty, right? It's the opposite. But here they're saying, you restored us, God. And it's like we're like dreaming. We're like, is this about to end? Remember when Peter was released from prison, right? They imprisoned him and all of a sudden the his chains are off. The gate opens and he's just walking out and he's like, this angel is leading him and he goes to the house and they knock on the door and they open the door and the servant girl is like, Peter, she goes back and they don't believe her and they're like, leave Peter at the door and just like Peter must have been like, what's happening here? Am I dreaming? And this angel is leading him out and it's just incredible. It's like, how can this be happening right now? God often loves to work when it seems hopeless. It seems so unreal. He loves to make us deliverances so incredible that it seems like a dream come true. The psalmist is not directly talking about spiritual salvation here necessarily, but what a great application to our lives. Isn't that your deliverance from the captivity of your sin and the freedom from your sin and the forgiveness that you have it's like a dream come true. When you realized that gospel was real that Christ was a sufficient savior for you, that he would meet you for every one of your needs, that he could cleanse all of your sin, all the worst sin in your life, and that he would credit you with his perfect life of righteousness, that you were secure forever, that you were headed to heaven, that no matter what went wrong in your life, you were going to heaven. He had your you had his favor. That when you realize that and all the implications, it was like, I must be dreaming. I must be dreaming. How can this be the case? That's this idea does it feel like a dream? Am I going to wake up and this is not all going to be true? That's how the psalmist feels here. Something too good to be true. But the experience of God's acts of restoration not only seem unbelievable, but they are also joy producing. Verse 2, "Then our mouth was filled with laughter. And our tongue with shouts of joy. And they said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for them. The restoration of God brought on a sudden impulse of laughter, of joy. Isn't it amazing that God made us creatures that laugh, that laugh, don't you love to laugh? That's a fake laugh. But why do we laugh? Why do we laugh? Why are things funny? You know, you ever like to watch America's funniest home videos? You know, you're like, watching people fall over, whatever. And I think there's something about laughter that there's an unexpectedness that catches us by surprise and it makes us laugh. It's probably more reasons than that for why we laugh. But it's often a surprise. The punchline of a joke often surprises us. It comes unexpectedly. And so here the surprise of God's sudden and supernatural restoration brought about laughter. How much more should the sudden salvation from our sin lead to laughter and shouts of joy? Deuteronomy 29, verse 24, "And all the nations will say, Why has Yahweh done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger? Then people will say, It is because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. And went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allowed allotted to them. Therefore the anger of Yahweh was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book. And Yahweh uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath and cast them into another land, as they are to this day. Secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children, forever. That we may do all the words of this law. See, the other pagan nations recognize what God had done for this people. They recognize what God had done. And now Israel is recognizing and seeing and recalling what God had done in their lives. Then they said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for them. There's a testimony to the nations. So would their disobedience be a testimony to them as well. Because they forsook the Lord. Look, verse 3, "Yahweh has done great things for us. We are glad." Israel acknowledges God's past actions for them. Listen to 1 Samuel 12:24. It says, "Only fear Yahweh and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. So what is the result of them thinking back , pondering, God's past actions of restoration? Well, they were glad. It was joyful. It was joy producing. So this is a very practical lesson. To promote joy, to promote gladness in our hearts, it's vital that we recall and ponder God's past work in our life. Of saving us, of delivering us, of restoring us. And so what has God done for you? How has God written your story? How can you stir up joy by looking to the past and what God has done in your life? If nothing comes to mind, just start with Ephesians 2. 1 to 5. Who you were, what God did, and what he's been producing in your life now. When God works, we cannot help but rejoice. Just look back to God's past actions of deliverance. Have a way of motivating and driving us to prayer then in the present. So first we have the need to ponder what God has done in the past in order to stir up our joy. Second, we see that we should pray knowing what God can do in the present. We should not only think to the past to recall the past, ponder the past, but also pray knowing what God can do in the present. And we see this in verse 4. Verse 4. He cannot now ask God, having reflected upon the past restoration, now he says, "Restore our fortunes O Yahweh, like streams in the Negev." So sometimes looking back to what God has done, reminds us to pray in light of what God can do. So when we look back, the most obvious thing I think it does in prayer is it causes us to give thanks. Right? You start to think about what God has done and you go, "Oh Lord, thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for that. Thank you for working this way, providentially." And thinking for doing that. But it also then encourages us that if God did that, then I should pray now that God would work in similar ways in my life. It kind of restores your confidence in God's power. When you recall the past. Primes the pump for asking boldly in the present. Here's a prayer for continued restoration. You might think about it like this. Like, "Lord, you have restored. But continue the work of restoration that you're doing." I think of like Philippians 1:6, "He who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So he has begun a work in your life. He will continue that work. And so it's like saying, "Lord, continue this work that you have begun in my life. Restore our fortunes." Now, the psalmist has two illustrations of God's work to restore joy. Restore fortunes. And the first is an illustration of streams in the Negev. It's like streams in the Negev. What is that? Like, I don't know what this is about. The Negev is an arid region that had these wadies, these beds that were dry during a time of drought. But rain that fell somewhere else in the land could quickly create a flash flood where those dry wadies would just fill up instantly and it would just be a rushing torrent could be dangerous if you were there not expecting it. So the picture is of immediate instant change. That would take place. It's also something that only God can produce. Only God can do. God must do. And so God can suddenly work. Like a flash flood. So it's like God restore our fortunes suddenly, quickly, the way only you can. Like a flash flood. Restore us. He can turn a day of dry and dusty and a cracked desert into a flourishing, lush garden in an instant. We have these agricultural illustrations. Not only relevant to the day in which the psalm was written, but also showing that this is the work of God. Man cannot cause it to rain. The psalmist then remembers times when joy was abundant after the work of God. Now he asks God in a season of drought to do it again. To suddenly pour out restoration like a stream on dry ground. So we can ask ourselves, let me ask you this. Do you ever feel dry and crusty in your walk with the Lord? Like it's this dried up. Feel like that dry, steam bed is just like nothing is there. Do you ever long for a sudden outpouring of just God's restoring work? Fresh water flowing into your life. Energizing you. Joy inexpressible. God restore to me my joy. That's the idea behind this request. The psalmist knows that God can do this. In an instant. Because God delivered in the past, in an instant. And so we should, I think we should pray for fresh outpourings of God's joy in our lives. His refreshment in our lives. And pray that he would do it instantly. He would do it today. He would do it this week. Pray in faith that he would. That he would take our hearts that may feel like a desert. And he would turn them into a garden. Refreshing us again. I mean, it's much like I don't know, similar to our study of the church in Ephesus, where they lost their first love. And we might say this is like a prayer to remember the past and pray that God would restore to us the joy of our salvation. The love for Christ. This joy in him. Oh Lord, revive our hearts. And so we should pray in earnestness that he would do this. That's the first illustration of restoration. It is an instantaneous God worked God wrought work that brings about transformation. Restore our fortunes, oh Yahweh. Like streams in the Negev. We're dry. We're dusty. But God, you can bring the flash flood of your promises, of your grace, of your spirit in our lives to revive us and restore us. But then we have a second illustration in verses 5 and 6. And it is an illustration of a much slower work. So if verse 4 is the instantaneous quick work, 5 and 6 are the slow work. And so we'll end with our third point now. Persevere with the promise of what God will do in the future. Persevere with the promise of what God will do in the future in verses 5 and 6. So what do we have here too? When joy seems to be fleeting, ponder in verses 1 to 3. What God has done in the past. Verse 4, pray. Knowing what God can do in the present and then verse 5 and 6. Persevere with the promise of what God will do in the future. Verses 5 and 6. Those whose and notice how this is the slow work. 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. Sometimes we find ourselves in seasons full of tears, full of weeping. What must we do in those times? Well, this is not exhaustive, but it gives us some of what we can consider. And God can certainly act instantly to change our hearts like a flash flood. But when he doesn't, we must persevere and press on like the farmer waiting for the harvest, the slow plotting work. Sometimes joy in our lives comes suddenly. Sometimes it comes easily. But other times we must press on in the work of God and persevere in the means of grace, knowing what God has promised to do in the lives of believers. So there's an element here of work and faithfulness needed in sowing, in doing the work of farming, so to speak. There's a human responsibility aspect here in this passage about the need for sowing. And reaping. This is work that we must do. And yet there's the divine aspect where God acts and causes growth. He brings in the harvest. So in 1 illustration of verse 4, it is a flash flood illustration. It's all God. In this illustration, there's the need to sow seed human action and there is the waiting for the harvest. God's action. So we sow in faith and we wait in faith. What does this mean then? When it comes to our joy, how should we think about this? Well, God doesn't owe us anything. That's a good place to start. Including joy. He doesn't owe that to us. But having said that, God loves to pour out joy into our hearts. When we are in seasons of a drought, waiting for the harvest, we must still do the work in hope, knowing what God has promised. So practically, we might say don't give up. The work that God has given to you. Meaning don't give up the means that God has given to promote joy in your life. You might think about it as God doesn't owe us this, but he has given us the practices and the means by which we can put ourselves in the place where God pours out his blessing and joy. So don't give up. We might say the spiritual disciplines of reading, studying, meditating on the Bible don't give up your discipline of prayer, of intentional prayer. Don't give up your time with the people of God. Don't give up singing to the Lord. Don't give up talking with others about the Lord. Trust that God will, in his time, bring the harvest of joy. If we persevere. So there's that. It's like that heart chilling work. Doing the work in your heart of stirring it up by the means that God has given. You might think about it. Take the farming illustration and think, okay, if I was going to farm this field, what would I need? All I need some tools, right? Maybe you have some advanced tools like a tractor, but maybe you just have the simple tools. And you've got to go out there and stir up the soil. And you've got to fertilize and you've got to put the seed in. And you've got to do all these different things to promote the growth. And that's work. It's a discipline. And yet you must depend upon the Lord to bring growth, to bring rain, to make the seed germinate. And so there is work to be done. So there's a lesson here. We ought to desire joy. We know it comes from the Lord. And yet it is not as though we should just pray that the Lord zaps us, but we should give ourselves to the regular disciplined ongoing work of plotting and sowing in our hearts the seed of the Word of God. And expect the Lord and trust that the Lord will bring about joy through that. It's no mystery that low levels of Bible intake, Bible meditation, communion with the Lord in prayer, time with God's people, all these different things, low levels of that produces low levels of joy. In the Lord. Lasting joy. But when we give ourselves consistently to those things, the means that God has given us, God is often pleased to pour out joy because our minds are saturated in Scripture. We're constantly talking with the Lord about our problems. We're refocusing our perspective. On a moment by moment basis, as we face life. And notice what the Psalm promises. It says 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. Here's a promise. Farming involves this consistent work and waiting on the Lord to work. And yet here's the promise that it will come about. It shall. Paul said, I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the growth. First Corinthians 3:6. So we persevere in the work God has called us to do with the assurance of the promise that he will bring joy in time. First Corinthians 15:58. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Or Second Corinthians 4:17. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. And First Timothy 2, Paul uses three illustrations for Timothy about just the discipline of the work of ministry. And sorry, Second Timothy. 2. And he says, verse 4, no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. And athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is a hardworking farmer who ought to have the share first share of the crops. So an athlete or a soldier, an athlete and a farmer, these are like three action figures that he has for us to consider. And the farming illustration is just an apt one for ministry at our own personal lives. That there's this constant work of sowing, tilling the soil, doing the work, and trusting that the Lord brings about the result in his due time. There's a famous or just memorable statement of William Carey, the missionary and just an incredibly hard worker over the long haul. And someone once asked him about just his perseverance in ministry and how he was able to accomplish all that he did, translating the Bible, ministering, seeing churches planted. And a very difficult region. And he famously just said, "I can plod." I can plod. In other words, I can plod. I can just do the simple daily tasks over and over and over and over and over again. Discipline trusting the Lord to bring about the result. So just have that mentality. Lord, help me to just plod. Help me to just be faithful in the daily work of the Word. To be daily in the Scriptures. To be daily communing with you. To be daily renewing my mind in the Scripture. To not think the world's thoughts after it, but to think your thoughts after which you have said. And in that way, the Lord will just continue to feed us and restore our joy. So there's work to be done, but we depend on the Lord to bring about the result. Though you may be overwhelmed with grief now, there is a harvest of joy coming in the future when God will wipe away every tear. Now, we can fast forward to the future and think, when does this restoration like ultimately come? And we can locate that beginning in the millennial kingdom and then continuing on into the eternal kingdom. This is often spoken of in many places. For instance, Acts 1:6, the disciples ask Jesus, so when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And of course he said, well, it's not for you to know those times, but you have a task now to pursue the evangelization. But then in chapter 3, we have similar language. In verse 20, 19 and 21, repent therefore and turn again. That your sins may be blotted out. That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. So God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets in the Old Testament about a restoration, a restoration of creation, of humanity, under the rule of the Messiah. Earlier in Matthew, in Matthew 19, verse 28, Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, in the new world," the idea here is in the regeneration, speaking of the cosmic regeneration, "when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel." It's the same word that's used in Titus 3:5 for our personal regeneration. But here it's describing a cosmic regeneration. Where God regenerates the creation. Taking the old things and renewing them, making them new. There's a parallel between God's restoring and regenerating work in our lives personally and his intentions to do that for the creation so that we will be restored and the creation will be restored so that we might rule over it under Christ in the future. And of course, we know the well-known, well-used promise by us in Revelation 21, speaking about the new heavens and new earth, that he will wipe away every tear, and he will comfort us forever. In his presence. So until then, we have three practices to implement when joy seems to be fleeting. These are simple. But they are tried and true. Ponder what God has done in the past verses 1 to 3. Pray, knowing what God can do in your present. Verse 4. And persevere with the promise of what God will do in the future in verses 5 and 6. Alec Motier, in his commentary here on the Psalms, puts it like this, "Here is the whole of life in one succinct principle. We long for the transition from tears to joy." Or as verse 4 pictures it, "From drought to abundant waters." The journey from the one to the other is the long pathway from sowing to reaping. That's life. So may the Lord give us discipline, and energy to continue to sow, and continue to do the work that he's called us to do. And for our own personal lives to the spiritual disciplines, calling out to him to restore, to us, joy. A restore our fortunes, looking to the future, looking to the past, and praying in the present. And the Lord will, in his perfect timing, give us joy, sustain us until the end. Father, we pray that you would truly help us to rely upon you to look to you in faith, to remember your past works, to look to your future promised works in your kingdom. When you wipe away our tears, when you restore all things, for your glory, and Lord, give us a disciplined pursuit and intentional pursuit of you through the means that you have given to us. Lord, it is no mystery how we can be strong Christians. It is just hard. We are sometimes lazy. We are sometimes distracted. We set up other priorities. And so, Lord, would you restore to us a clear-eyed focus upon what matters most, that we would give ourselves to what you have said is the pathway to joy. Lord, you don't owe us these things, but you've been pleased to show us the way to get in the stream of where your blessings flow. The means that you have given us. And Lord, give us a discipline in them so that we might regularly enjoy the closeness of fellowship. We no doubt will have seasons where our it seems like our pilot light is about to go out. And we'll have other times when you just turn up the flame and so in each of those, would you sustain us and fulfill your good work in us until the end? In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. All right. You are dismissed.