Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / Psalm 126 - God Cares About Your Business

Transcript

Psalm 126 - God Cares About Your Business · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

• 0:00
  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
• 0:03
  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
• 0:10
  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
• 0:14
  others. Let's dive right in.
• 0:15
  Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Today we are in Psalm 126, Psalm
• 0:20
  126, and this is a little bit shorter, Psalm, only 6 verses.
• 0:24
  And it's another one of the song of a sense.
• 0:27
  And these were the songs that Israel sang when they were going
• 0:31
  to Jerusalem for one of the three annual feasts there to
• 0:35
  remember what the Lord had done. And so this is one of those road
• 0:39
  trip songs that people are singing as they journey to
• 0:42
  worship the Lord. I'm going to read through these
• 0:45
  verses and we'll see what the Lord has for us today.
• 0:48
  Verse #1 When Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion, we were
• 0:52
  like those who dream. Our mouths were filled with
• 0:56
  laughter then and our tongues with shouts of joy then.
• 0:59
  They said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for
• 1:03
  them. Yahweh had done great things for
• 1:05
  us. We were joyful.
• 1:08
  Restore our fortunes. Yahweh like water courses in the
• 1:12
  Najeev. Those who sow in tears will reap
• 1:15
  with shouts of joy. The one goes along weeping,
• 1:19
  carrying the bag of seed. He will surely come back with
• 1:22
  shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves.
• 1:27
  All right, well, I like this. This Psalm has kind of two
• 1:31
  portions of it. One is God, here's what you've
• 1:33
  done in the past. And then God, here's what we're
• 1:35
  asking you to do in the future. And I love this kind of
• 1:39
  positioning because so often I can hear from, you know, people
• 1:45
  online that maybe have some difficulty understanding why
• 1:50
  Christians would believe in God. They wonder about faith and what
• 1:56
  faith means. And so sometimes they can say,
• 1:59
  well, how in the world can I just go?
• 2:02
  I have belief for the future in this thing.
• 2:08
  And for me, so much of that answer is because I've seen God
• 2:11
  do it in the past in my own life.
• 2:13
  As I look at Scripture, as I listen to the testimonies and
• 2:17
  stories of people that have been around the Lord for decades,
• 2:22
  that I'm able to say, I know God can save and do miracles because
• 2:26
  God saved me. Because God saved my friend
• 2:30
  Roger, or God saved my friend Dakota, or God worked back here
• 2:36
  in Israel and he saved Saul and he saved, you know, his half
• 2:41
  brother James and his half brother Jude.
• 2:45
  And so because God saved these people, I believe that God can
• 2:50
  save my cousin Bailey or my cousin Ian.
• 2:53
  And I firmly believe that based on what the word of God says,
• 2:57
  that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved based
• 3:00
  on millennia of people accepting the Lord, based on the fact that
• 3:06
  I have experienced salvation and that people that I know have
• 3:09
  experienced salvation. And so all of that together
• 3:12
  tells me that God can be faithful to work.
• 3:15
  And so I can have belief not just based on, Oh, well, I think
• 3:19
  God can do stuff. It's he said he was going to do
• 3:23
  it. He's done it for a very, very,
• 3:25
  very long time. He's done it in my life.
• 3:27
  And so I believe that he'll do it in the future.
• 3:29
  Faith is more a belief in the consistency of God then it is a
• 3:36
  shot in the dark. It's not just like a jump off
• 3:39
  into nothingness. It's, I have seen person after
• 3:43
  person after person show that God is faithful.
• 3:48
  And so I'm going to believe it too.
• 3:50
  I'm not jumping into something that no one else has ever seen.
• 3:54
  I am following the path of these believers in Jesus that God is
• 4:00
  the same today that he was yesterday or that he was, you
• 4:04
  know, back here 2500 years ago. And so I, I just love how that's
• 4:11
  framed for myself as I look at here's what God has done, here's
• 4:16
  what I'm asking him to do in the future.
• 4:18
  So let's begin now in verse #1 when Yahweh restored the
• 4:21
  fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed here.
• 4:25
  Israel had been in a very difficult circumstance, if you
• 4:30
  will. They had, they'd lost out on
• 4:32
  life. And yet God came back through
• 4:35
  and he rescued them. He restored them.
• 4:39
  At least one commentary that that I've been looking at
• 4:42
  indicates this may have been talking about when Israel came
• 4:46
  back from the Babylonian exile. And so that would have been, you
• 4:50
  know, around ish the 70 year period from when Babylon had
• 4:55
  destroyed everything in Jerusalem that then the children
• 5:00
  of Israel came back. You can read about that in Ezra
• 5:03
  and Nehemiah. We're actually going to be
• 5:06
  learning more about that time period about the Babylonian
• 5:10
  exile in about the one 30s in in Psalms.
• 5:15
  I believe it's Psalm 137 in particular that kind of has one
• 5:19
  of the most jarring Psalms that will read.
• 5:22
  So Israel has come back from the Babylonian exile.
• 5:26
  There's joy. God has restored the fortunes of
• 5:28
  Zion. And here the psalmist says we
• 5:31
  were like those who dream that it was like waking up from a,
• 5:37
  you know, a great nap or a great night's sleep.
• 5:40
  And you go, wow, reality is now back to what it ought to be,
• 5:46
  that everything was, you know, topsy turvy, everything was
• 5:49
  wonky. But now God has made everything
• 5:52
  back the way that it should be. And verse #2 says our mouths
• 5:56
  were filled with laughter, then in our tongues with shouts of
• 5:59
  joy. There ought to be joy for those
• 6:01
  that profess faith in Jesus Christ.
• 6:04
  Is joy one of the words that people would use to describe
• 6:08
  you? Happy, glad, joyful to be
• 6:13
  around. They're, they're just a delight.
• 6:15
  When you're around them, you're going to smile.
• 6:19
  I'm thankful for so many of those people in my life that to
• 6:23
  be around them is to be around the joy of the Lord.
• 6:26
  I'm thankful for my buddy Myron. He's always got, you know, some
• 6:30
  funny joke or something that he's doing.
• 6:33
  And so I want to be one of those people because the people of God
• 6:37
  are meant to be rejoicing, glad people, because God has done
• 6:43
  things for us. He has done the good things that
• 6:46
  we have needed. He has purchased our salvation.
• 6:49
  He has given us life and breath. He has given us our our
• 6:53
  clothing. He has given us shelter.
• 6:55
  He's given us his family and his Holy Spirit.
• 6:59
  He's given us an eternity that we will get to spend with him.
• 7:02
  And so we have every reason to be glad to be filled with joy.
• 7:08
  Then I love it. The end of verse 2 he says, then
• 7:10
  they said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for
• 7:14
  them. As we experience the goodness of
• 7:17
  God, may we be faithful to tell other people about it.
• 7:20
  Let's tell other people about when God provided for our needs.
• 7:23
  Let's tell other people about when God helped us to overcome
• 7:27
  sin that he made us new. And let's tell people about the
• 7:33
  incredible things that we see God do in the lives of those
• 7:37
  around so that other people can say God has done great things
• 7:43
  for them. Let us be the proof for other
• 7:46
  people that God is trustworthy and He is faithful because they
• 7:49
  have heard it from our lips. Then the end of verse 3, which
• 7:54
  is kind of the end of this first section, Yahweh has done great
• 7:58
  things for us. We were joyful here.
• 8:01
  There's the echo that yes, it's not just that the nations are
• 8:05
  saying this, we are saying this as well.
• 8:07
  Don't suffice it to be that other people praise the Lord and
• 8:11
  other people are thankful and other people are joyful.
• 8:14
  May you be personally thankful and joyful.
• 8:19
  May you praise the Lord as much as you think that he is worthy
• 8:23
  of. When you wake up in the morning,
• 8:25
  thank God for another day. Thank him for the food that you
• 8:29
  have. Thank him for the clothes that
• 8:30
  you put on. Thank him for the loved ones
• 8:33
  that he has given to you. If you have a job, thank him for
• 8:37
  that. Thank him for your church.
• 8:39
  Thank Him for the the country in which you live, that you're able
• 8:43
  to experience the the freedom that you have where live.
• 8:50
  Let us personally thank the Lord.
• 8:52
  Now I noticed in verse #3 the the phrase from the nations at
• 8:58
  the end of verse two said Yahweh has done great things for them.
• 9:02
  Then verse three they say Yahweh had done great things for us.
• 9:06
  We were joyful. Not all of the Christian life
• 9:10
  will it always be easy to be joyful.
• 9:12
  There is now sadness that has come, and we see this even in
• 9:16
  verses 4 through 6 to say God, we were joyful.
• 9:19
  God did great things for us. He brought us back from Babylon.
• 9:23
  But now we're in a time of difficulty and sadness.
• 9:27
  And so, God, we need you to move again.
• 9:30
  We need those new morning mercies.
• 9:34
  As Paul, David Tripp has a devotional that has that title.
• 9:37
  It's every single day. We need God to be good to us
• 9:42
  again. And we can be very thankful for
• 9:44
  the ways in which he was good to us.
• 9:46
  But each day is going to have, in the words of Jesus, its own
• 9:50
  trouble, or as he puts it, I believe it's in the Sermon on
• 9:53
  the Mount, probably Matthew 6. I think every day has enough
• 9:58
  trouble of its own. So don't worry about tomorrow.
• 10:03
  And so for the troubles that we go through today, here's the
• 10:06
  prayer that we can have here now in verses 4 through 6, Verse 4,
• 10:10
  restore our fortunes. Yahweh, God, what you did back
• 10:13
  in verse one when you brought us back from Babylon and you undid
• 10:17
  what the enemy had done. God, would you do that again
• 10:20
  today in my life? Would you provide for the crops
• 10:24
  that I really need there to be some rain so that I can feed my
• 10:27
  family God, I really need to be able to sell you know this
• 10:31
  saddle that I spent time creating that you know, it it
• 10:37
  the height of it came from this cow or this horse or whatever
• 10:41
  you might be like Brian, don't you know anything about leather?
• 10:44
  No, I I just know calfskin and goat skin and what goes on a
• 10:47
  Bible and I don't know a whole lot else about the process, but
• 10:51
  a person going I God, I need to make this sale today.
• 10:54
  Would you restore what has been broken?
• 10:59
  Even right now, praying in in my own life for people in our
• 11:03
  church that they need a restoration of health, people
• 11:05
  that need a restoration in their marriage, people that are need a
• 11:10
  are needing a restoration even in like business and vocation.
• 11:14
  I have some friends that are walking through that right now.
• 11:17
  And so God here is what we need. And then I love this word
• 11:20
  picture here that he says like watercourses in the najeev and
• 11:25
  I'm going to look up this verse. OK.
• 11:31
  So just to kind of let you guys know kind of behind the curtain,
• 11:36
  there are many wonderful resources that people can use
• 11:41
  nowadays. Many, many free resources that
• 11:44
  people can have as well. And one of the ones that I love
• 11:49
  using is the CSB Study Bible. And that can be a tremendous
• 11:55
  resource to you if you have not heard of that before.
• 11:59
  I also use the Faith Life Study Bible, among several others.
• 12:04
  I might do a Tabernacle Talk episode on that one day to just
• 12:07
  say here's some free resources if you want to look at a
• 12:10
  commentary. You have some questions, maybe
• 12:13
  you don't want to wade through a whole, you know, 30 minute
• 12:17
  Tabernacle talk episode to figure out an answer.
• 12:20
  Here's an easy place that you can go to find that for free,
• 12:23
  but wanted to throw that in there.
• 12:26
  So CSB study Bible says this. The water courses in the Najeev
• 12:32
  refer to seasonal streams or waddies which occasionally
• 12:36
  blessed the land with a sudden overabundance of water along
• 12:40
  with providing sudden bounty like a waddy.
• 12:43
  God, sorry, God also made use of meth.
• 12:47
  Oh my word, God also made use of methodical processes and hard
• 12:52
  labor like agriculture. The person who remains humble
• 12:55
  before God will surely enjoy God's blessings in the land.
• 12:59
  I apologize, got totally tongue tied there.
• 13:01
  I did think that that was what those water courses were given
• 13:05
  some other portions of scripture that I knew about.
• 13:08
  So here these water courses, it would be during very particular
• 13:12
  seasons of time throughout the year, you would get a ton of
• 13:16
  water and then you would be able to have enough water for your
• 13:20
  crops. It would get them to the point
• 13:21
  where they would grow and you'd be able to harvest.
• 13:25
  But it wasn't year long rain. It was just during some
• 13:28
  particular time periods that these riverbeds would overflow
• 13:35
  and it would be good for very short periods of time.
• 13:38
  And so here the psalmist says, God, I need you to come in just
• 13:43
  the right time. Lord, you're not providing, if
• 13:46
  you will, you're not providing a round, you know, all around the
• 13:51
  year time period where you are providing for my needs.
• 13:55
  I am at the mercy of your instant involvement in what is
• 14:02
  happening in my life. And maybe that might be you
• 14:04
  today that you go, OK, God, I am working Commission and I don't
• 14:10
  have a salary. And so my existence is
• 14:14
  predicated on you providing the right thing at the right time,
• 14:18
  because otherwise I'm toast. And my, my dad has worked in
• 14:24
  Commission work for almost all of his life.
• 14:27
  And so I know even from growing up, I've experienced this kind
• 14:32
  of life of God giving just the right thing in the right time
• 14:37
  through the right people. And you can ask the Lord to do
• 14:40
  that for you, if God, yeah, you haven't, you know, given me a, a
• 14:44
  salaried job, but you have given me just moment by moment grace
• 14:49
  and opportunity and clients and, you know, a job.
• 14:54
  And so God, would you continue to do that for me.
• 14:56
  Verse #5 Those who, those who sow in tears will reap with
• 15:00
  shouts of joy. The one goes along weeping,
• 15:04
  carrying the bag of seed. He will surely come back with
• 15:07
  shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves, if you will.
• 15:11
  As you are crying, as you are pouring out your heart to God,
• 15:15
  as you are doing the work that you know that you need to be
• 15:20
  doing, then you can know that God is going to take care of you
• 15:24
  and I. I love this thought.
• 15:27
  You pray as though it all depends on God because it does.
• 15:32
  And then you work like it all depends on you that you say, I
• 15:37
  am fully believing that God will bless the work that I am doing.
• 15:44
  And so I'm going to, you know, make the calls and follow up on
• 15:48
  the leads. I'm going to do, you know, these
• 15:50
  cold calls, I'm going to go to this, you know, market or
• 15:55
  whatever to sell my goods. And I'm just going to believe
• 15:59
  that as I put in the work that God will bless it.
• 16:03
  And that is in faith that you, you don't have any guarantee
• 16:07
  that that will occur. But I love this, this Psalm, and
• 16:13
  the hope that it brings, that frankly, I probably need to
• 16:18
  believe a little bit more in my own life.
• 16:22
  There's a song that comes from this passage of Scripture and
• 16:25
  old hymn called Bringing in the Sheaves.
• 16:29
  And it goes something like bringing in the sheaves.
• 16:32
  We will come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves.
• 16:36
  And there it's talking specifically about soul winning
• 16:40
  is the old phrase for it, leading other people to faith in
• 16:43
  Christ through evangelism. And certainly that is as I'm a
• 16:48
  pastor, that's a large part of what I want to do in and through
• 16:53
  my life is to see people come to faith in Christ.
• 16:57
  I want you to think with me just for a second.
• 16:59
  This will kind of be our last thought.
• 17:00
  And then we'll we'll be all done for today, but for your life.
• 17:04
  What might this look like? I'll give the example of of how
• 17:07
  I feel like the Lord's speaking to to my heart even as I'm
• 17:10
  reading this. But in verse 5, those who sow in
• 17:13
  tears will reap with shouts of joy.
• 17:15
  Do I care about? Do I deeply love other people
• 17:19
  and want them to experience new life in Christ?
• 17:22
  Do I want them to go to heaven? Do I want them to experience
• 17:27
  God's indwelling presence? Am I passionate about it?
• 17:31
  Is it something that I am putting not just work into, but
• 17:35
  am I putting my heart into it? And as I'm putting my heart into
• 17:40
  it, do I believe that I will reap with shouts of joy?
• 17:44
  Do I believe that God will bless that effort and that work that I
• 17:47
  am doing? Verse 6, the one goes along
• 17:50
  weeping, carrying the bag of seed.
• 17:52
  He will surely come back with shouts of joy, carrying his
• 17:56
  sheaves. Do I believe that when I put out
• 18:00
  Tabernacle talk that it might bless and minister to someone
• 18:05
  who is downhearted, who needs direction from the word of God,
• 18:08
  who needs to be told about perhaps sin that they are
• 18:12
  involved in in their life and that through this God will be
• 18:16
  glorified, that people will be helped?
• 18:18
  That even as I proclaim the gospel on here that someone
• 18:21
  might come to faith in Christ? Do I believe that through my
• 18:24
  ministry that every Wednesday, most every Wednesday, I'm over
• 18:30
  at the Denny's, stone's throw from my church?
• 18:34
  Do I believe that as I'm consistently there, as I seek to
• 18:40
  be kind and be a picture of Jesus to the waiting staff that
• 18:43
  are there, or to people that come for counseling or
• 18:46
  encouragement or prayer or advice?
• 18:49
  Do I believe that God can do amazing things as I preach week
• 18:52
  in and week out at Tabernacle? Do I believe that God can use
• 18:57
  what I am doing to accomplish His work, or do I just go
• 19:03
  nothing might happen? Do I believe that as I go out
• 19:06
  and I put in the effort and my heart is in it, that God will
• 19:10
  work? Can I tell you probably, you
• 19:13
  know, six months ago, I would have been much more likely to
• 19:18
  go. Yeah, I I don't really know if
• 19:20
  anything's ever going to happen. But over these last six months,
• 19:24
  even as I've poured out my heart to God, as I've lost sleep, as
• 19:28
  I've cried, as I've, you know, just tried to be faithful to do
• 19:32
  what God has called me to do, I've seen God answer prayer
• 19:36
  after prayer after prayer. I've seen him work miracles in
• 19:40
  people's lives and in our church.
• 19:42
  I have seen him begin to have some fruit that's been coming up
• 19:48
  from work that people have been doing for years, some of them
• 19:52
  for decades. And so God is at work.
• 19:55
  And so I want to continue to believe this, that God, I'm
• 19:58
  going to do the work you have called me to do.
• 20:00
  And I am going to believe that as I go out with tears and I'm
• 20:05
  sowing in the field, that I will come back again, rejoicing,
• 20:11
  bringing in the crops, bringing in the harvest.
• 20:14
  That I did and so it is for your life, whether it's for, you
• 20:18
  know, evangelism, for your family, your friends, your
• 20:20
  coworkers. Do you believe that God can use
• 20:24
  you? Believe that as you go out with
• 20:26
  the seed, with weeping, with feeling, with passion and care
• 20:30
  that eventually you will reap. Or maybe it's for your job that
• 20:35
  here, just as with these people, this Psalm is directly talking
• 20:39
  about your business and, and your financial provision, that
• 20:45
  as you go and do the work, you can believe that God will take
• 20:48
  care of you. And I think we could end this
• 20:51
  with the portion of the Lord's Prayer where you're, he says,
• 20:54
  give us today Our Daily Bread. And I'm thankful that we have a
• 20:59
  God that cares about us, that cares about our provision.
• 21:02
  And so because God has worked, because he's promised that he
• 21:04
  will work, we can go forth with passion, with weeping, knowing
• 21:09
  that joy will come. Thank you for tuning in today.
• 21:13
  I know it was a little bit a little bit scattered.
• 21:16
  I got tongue tied at some points.
• 21:19
  I even had to record this in, in three sections because my
• 21:23
  daughter came at one point. My, my wife had called at one
• 21:26
  point and saw this is my third video through this.
• 21:30
  But I'm incredibly grateful to have you along for this journey
• 21:34
  and looking forward to next episode with Psalm 127.