Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - The Last Four, Part 2: Psalm 126:5

Episode Date: July 16, 2016

In this series, Pastor Craig Groeschel unpacks four of his favorite verses—powerful passages from Psalms and Proverbs. Great for small groups or a teaching session, these short videos let you take a closer look at these well-known verses. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, I'm really glad to have you back again this week. Thanks for joining in, hopefully every week for different kinds of teaching that we do through Life Church. Interestingly enough, a lot of people always ask me, you know, can I watch this message again on the weekend? And normally, if you're watching or listening right now, this would be the weekend message. But it's not for a four-week break. Last week was the first week. And then we have two more weeks. on the weekends right now at life church we're doing a message series called at the movies and what i do is i actually let uh movie clips illustrate teaching from the bible and because we're using uh movie clips we're not actually allowed to archive those and so i'm going to give you just really some kind of different uh behind the scene thoughts maybe for 10 or 15 minutes a week

and i hope it'll um hope it'll be an encouragement to you uh if you would like to experience the at the movie's message, you can catch them live at any one of the 25 live church locations, or you can catch them at church online. There's about 75 or 80 different live church online experiences. Just go to life.church, and then you can click on the place that says church online, or it might even say live now, and go in and watch those movies. So we're allowed to show them when they're streaming live, but we cannot archive them. What we're doing right now is we're actually doing something different. I'm calling it the last four. Our church created an app called the U-Version Bible app. And this is a tool that I use every single day. And so I go through different

reading plans and then I highlight certain verses. You can just click on the verse and then you can put kind of like a color highlight to it. And then you can go back and see over the course of a year you might highlight, you know, 125 verses that you want to remember. And so I'm going back and I'm taking the last four verses that I highlighted, and I'm going to talk them through to you. On a real personal note, it's studying God's Word is the most powerful, life-changing thing that we can do, and I want to just encourage you to make this a daily part of your life. If you go and start a reading plan, it's really cool. You can actually invite friends to do it with you, or you can follow what other friends are reading.

So, like, I've got friends and family. I see what they read every single day. I can comment on it. They see what I'm reading. And to be real honest, it brings accountability like, oh, oh, oh, Pastor Craig didn't do his reading today. Oh, my gosh. So, you know, when people are watching, it really is a great tool of accountability.

So I want to go ahead and start in today and read a verse that jumped off the page and one that I spent a considerable amount of time just looking at, staring at, thinking about, and meditating on. I've probably read it, I don't know how many times, but it knows. never jumped out like it did this last time through. Psalm 126 verse 5 says this, those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. I want to explain it to you a little bit and show you kind of what God showed me. Here's something in my world

as a pastor that a lot of people may not have thought of. As pastors, we tend to interact with people generally in extremes. For example, if I'm meeting with somebody or involved in somebody's life, it's generally because something amazing happened. They just had a baby, they're going to get married, kind of a high point. Or on the other hand, it's a tragedy. It's someone had a car wreck. It's someone passed away. Someone's marriage has fallen apart. Someone just found out they had cancer. And so most of the time when I'm working with people, it's not in normal course of life. It's in real extremes. For example, yesterday I had an hour and a half phone call with someone whose marriage, they decided they don't want to be married anymore.

So there's all those, you know, tears and anger and fear and such. And then Amy and I are working with a single mom. They've given her about two months to live. And so, you know, we're trying to minister to her. So we're dealing with extremes. Lots of tears, lots of heartache. And so every single day I'm just aware of people that are hurting. And I'm aware right now that many of you listening are watching right now,

you're going through something really, really painful. And so I pray this verse would speak to you, those who sow with tears. I want to start with the word so. That's not a word that I use often, but it's a word that's commonly used in the Bible. Another word for it might be plant. In the New Testament in Matthew's Gospel, there's a parable where Jesus says a sower went out to sow some seeds. And so what is that? Basically a guy that takes a bag full of seeds and he throws them along some ground, hoping that there'll be a good harvest.

And quite honestly, there's a lot of teaching in the Christian world about sewing and reaping. And it generally refers to money. If you sow a seed, you reap a harvest. And I hesitate to teach that sometimes because sometimes it can. can be move into what we call the prosperity gospel. But the reality is the principle is true. When you plan a seed, you reap a harvest, what you sow, you reap. Galatians, Paul said, do not be deceived.

God cannot be mocked. You reap what you sow. And so here, the psalmist is talking about sewing with tears. And imagine this. Imagine if you're hurting, you're worshipping with your hurt, with your tears. Now, we're not exactly sure who wrote Psalm 126. There's some debate about it. But what we do know is the psalmist wrote it after the Babylonian captivity.

And so we're talking about generations of God's people hurting in bondage, and you can only imagine how many tears were sown. When you think about tears being an offering to God, God, I'm hurting and I'm hurting in your direction. God, I'm in pain and I'm in pain in your direction. And actually, I'm using this hurt to draw my attention, my worship, my focus to you. I'm sewing in tears. Now, what could tears do? What would that do? Well, just as a ground needs water for a plant to grow, you know, tears are moisture. And in a very sense, that could be a spiritual offering that would help bring growth at some point. You might shed tears over an injustice and when did to you over bad news, over some kind of hurt, some kind of wound.

You might actually share tears of repentance because you sinned against God. In fact, this is an interesting question to ask is, when is the last time you've repented so deeply before God for your sinfulness that you were moved to tears? When is the last time that you just said, God, I hate what I've done so much. I ask for your forgiveness. I plead with you to cleanse me from my sin. I don't want to continue to sin like this. And imagine if you take that and say, this is an offering to God.

God, I'm hurting and in my pain, in my disappointment, in my repentance, whatever, God, I'm coming to you and I'm using these tears as an offering. I'm sowing these to you. I'm giving you my hurt. I'm giving you my sin.

Then the next part of the verse is really powerful. Those who sow with tears will reap, with songs of joy, songs of joy. Whenever I meditate on scripture, I always look at every single word, songs. And this is what's interesting. It's like, I can't sing, but I love music. I love worship music with all my heart,

and I can't wait to get to heaven, and hopefully I'll be able to sing there. But imagine you're crying, you're weeping, you're hurting, and God turns that weeping into an act of worship, where maybe a week later, maybe months later, maybe years later, you know, really for God's people, it would have been decades later, they cry out, God, you are faithful. God, you were there. God, you are good. God, you heard our cries. God, you were, you comforted us while we were mourning. God, you've turned my tears

into laughter. You've turned my offering of hurts and grief into songs of praise. And then the psalmist says it's actually songs of joy. I love that word joy. So often in our world, the day people are pursuing happiness. I want happiness. I want to be happy. I want to be happy. Well, joy transcends happiness. Happiness is based on happenings. It's based on what life is like around you. But joy is based on the presence of God. Joy goes, you can have joy in the middle of something difficult because you recognize God is with you and God is for you. So if you sew in tears, you can reap with songs of joy. The amazing thing to me is how long it would have between the tears and the songs of joy.

Not just weeks, not just months, not just years, but for God's people, as this psalmist was writing about, it would have been decades. And yet, God proved himself faithful. The praising, the song wasn't immediate, but it was very, very real. So if you're hurting today, and the realities I know so many are,

I would just encourage you to think of it this way. If you're moved to tears, if you feel overwhelmed, if you feel unappreciated, if you feel like you're doing everything you can, there's not enough of you to go around, if you've gotten really bad news. If you feel like you're on the verge of tears, just let them come out.

Take them to God, say, God, I'm giving you this hurt. If you've sinned against God and you recognize it, say in a deep moment of repentance, God, these tears are an offering to you. I give my sin to you, I give my need to you, I give my grief to you. And this is what Psalm 126 says, and I pray it speaks to someone. Those who sow with tears, yes, you hurt today, but as you take it to God, as you give it to God,

if you let your hurting become something that drives you to God, those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. So if you're hurting today, I'd be honored just to pray for you. Father, I thank you, God, that perhaps you'd use your words today to minister to someone who's hurting. I pray, God, that they would do what your word says, that cast their cares on you, God, because you care for them. And I know there could be extreme grief today, God, where we don't even know how there could ever be a good day again. I pray that in that hurt, that our tears would be an offering to you, God.

And even though we may not see the harvest for some time, we trust you, God, that you're faithful, that you're a good God, that care of. for us, that you're indeed working in all things to bring about good, that you can turn our sorrow one day into laughter in songs of joy. So God, for those who sow in tears, I pray they would reap in songs of joy and be blessed by your goodness and your faithfulness. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.