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    Feb 16, 2025

    Singing of Restoration

    Passage: Psalms 126:1-6

    Preacher: Eric Lipscomb

    Series: Guest Preachers

    Keywords: hope, restoration, longing

    Book: Psalms

    Summary:

    As we long for the Lord's restoration, reflecting on and owning the truth of Psalm 126 enables us, regardless of our circumstances, to endure with defiant hope.

    Detail:

    Psalm 126 – Singing of Restoration (Grace Hamptons)

     

    Good morning again, as Mark said my name is Eric Lipscomb- I’m a pastor for college students at Columbia University over in Manhattan. And I’m grateful to count Mark as a friend, and it’s always such a joy for me come out and worship with you here at Grace… I love hearing the beautiful things Christ is doing out here on the East End, & experiencing more age diversity than I usually get in a normal week… it’s a privilege for me to be with you all again this morning as we open God’s Word together, thanks for having me!

     

    This morning we are going to look at Psalm 126… The biblical book we have called Psalms is a collection of 150 songs and poems, which served as the hymnbook of Ancient Israel… One of the reasons I love being here is worship & music is so rich & clear in expressing the beauty and truth about our God… very much what the Psalms do also: these are the Songs (“greatest hits”) that have been shaping the people of God for centuries.

     

    In these songs, God is giving us the words we need to be able to express ourselves to Him, and he’s inviting us… inviting you  to bring your full, honest, authentic self before him in worship… if you’ve ever had trouble naming what’s going on inside of you, search the Psalms and you will find God-given language to name your experience/emotions.

     

    But these songs don’t merely express adoration and devotion to God… singing & owning these Psalms were a significant means of spiritual formation for the people of God: remind us to go to God in any/all circumstances… teach us how to mourn, show us it’s ok to express disappointment & frustration with God… and they also train us to delight God and to treasure His Word. We need the Psalms to form us- they often serve like a spiritual chiropractor: they bring us back into proper alignment, shaping our hearts and desires… showing us what it means to live as properly and fully human.

     

    These songs shape us… Psalm 126 is no exception. It is one of the Psalms of Ascent (120-134)- unique function: Israelites would sing these songs as they went up to worship the Lord at the Temple up in Jerusalem. Throughout the year God’s people would gather to remember God’s past faithfulness, celebrate his goodness, and encourage one another to press on in faith clinging to God’s promises… what Psalm 126 enables us to do: as we long for restoration, we learn how to endure with defiant hope.

     

    Look at today: 1. Longing for Restoration, and then 2. Enduring with Defiant Hope

     

    Our longing for restoration… this is why we need this Psalm: because every day you and I are forced to recon with the world’s brokenness in some way… this is not a novel insight, but true for everyone (Christian or not)- maybe you read the news & are saddened by the state of the world: international wars, political turmoil and polarization… maybe you’re weighed down by work stress, or processing family issues… maybe you are longing for intimacy: for a friend, for a romantic partner to share your life with… Maybe you are longing for a sense of intimacy in your relationship with God- you’ve felt like you’ve been in a “dry place” spiritually for some time now. 

     

    Weighed down by brokenness, in some kind of dry place… this is where the Psalmist presently locates himself in v. 4 of our text… Vv. 1-3 begin as a flashback (we’ll look at later)… but the end of v. 4 brings us into the present context/situation using a metaphor where the Psalmist basically says “Here I am reporting to you live from the Negev

     

    Now, what is the Negev? Negev: reference to the southern part of Israel, which is a vast desert… Negev comes from a root word which means, “to be parched”- it’s known for being an arid, rocky, mostly lifeless area where it rarely rains… this is a dry terrain where new life and restoration seem improbable at best… there are few signs of hope.

     

    That’s where they’re at: the Psalmist is looking at the world, looking at life and seeing nothing but desert… no rain clouds on the horizon… on the one hand longing for restoration but on the other deeply tempted towards hopelessness because restoration seems so improbable…

     

    Ill: Over the holidays, I heard from a couple folks I’m close to who received difficult medical diagnoses… and in both cases there is not a clear plan for recovery: it’s basically palliative care and observing to see how things go… restoration seems improbable… and so I know for me, and even more so for my friends: we obviously long for restoration, and yet not seeing/knowing the way forward we’re deeply tempted towards hopelessness in these situations…

    What we feel and what the Psalmist is describing isn’t impersonal or detached: “yea, wow, stuff out there is bad”… this brokenness is hitting close to home, it is deeply personal.

     

    When you find yourself staring this down, it’s weighing on you… where do you go? What do you do? According to this Psalm, the first thing we do, the first place we go is we take it straight to the Lord… beginning of v. 4 you can feel how personal this is, and the desperation: “Restore…” but notice where, or to whom, this desperate energy is addressed: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord.” This is crying out to God to come and do something about these heart-breaking circumstances… in this calling to the Lord for His help and intervention, we see this Psalm showing us the “first step”, and modelling for us how we begin to address our longing for restoration: Go to God with it, start by seeking His mercy and help.

     

    This Psalm trains us to take our longing for restoration straight to God first… again, I realize this is not a terribly novel insight… and yet how often do I actually do this as a first resort? For me, the cry for help is more often a last resort… my first instinct (if I’m feeling insecure) is to either numb myself: scroll the phone, open the pantry for food… or (if I’m feeling self-confident) it’s to gameplan/strategize: What can I do? How am I going to fix it? I want to figure out how I am going to solve this thing…begin to act as if it’s all up to me, treat restoration as if it were DIY Project: “Do it Yourself”… figure things out on my own.

     

    -Numbing or DIY game-planning (as 1st order of business are both functions of self-focus… this keeps us from going to the Lord as a first response to our longing for restoration…

    Maybe that’s not you, maybe you just feel defeated: what’s the point of praying or planning… what we mentioned earlier: overwhelmed by the dry desert you’re walking through, the improbability of restoration has left you struggling to hope… I think that is so real/understandable… but I also want you to look at the Psalmist’s cry, he says: “Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev.”

     

    What the original audience would have known about that desert area is that it was full of wadis- dry, rocky little valleys in the desert… if you or I were to look at those wadis we would say this seems like an improbable place for water or life to be found… but what would happen there is that, in their annual time, the clouds would roll in and the rains would come… and those dry, cracked valleys would become rushing rivers… dormant plants would spring to life!    

     

                The Negev is an improbable place to find water… and yet those wadis are one shower away from the whole area teeming with life. This prayer: Lord, you can provide the rain… you can bring refreshment to the driest parts of our world and to our drought-stricken lives… God, you can bring restoration to this seemingly hopeless situation. It is calling on God to do what He alone is able to do.

     

    God can bring life and restoration into even the most desolate, improbable circumstances… and if you’re a Christian then you know that this is at the heart of everything we profess to believe- if you remember the Apostle’s Creed, succinct summary of Christian doctrine: “I believe in Jesus Christ… born of the virgin Mary (improbable birth)… suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried…”

     

    For those two days- Friday of Jesus’s execution and then Saturday… it was game over, Jesus had been put to death and sealed in a tomb… witnessed by hundreds if not thousands of people… none of them were holding out hope of restoration.

     

    Reminded of the 3rd verse of the song  “In Christ Alone” (if you’re famililar):

    “There in the ground His body lay, light of the world by darkness slain… [But then  Sunday morning came]… and bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again! And as he stands in victory, sin’s curse has lost its grip on me… for I am His and He is mine.”

     

    Reminder of whose we are, and therefore who we are: Christians are resurrection people… we believe that Jesus Christ overcame death itself, so there can be nothing that is beyond the scope of his restoration. Do you know that? Do you believe that?

     

    In your longing for restoration, go to Jesus first, the one who brought life out of death, and who promises the same for all who trust in Him… and then you can begin or continue to live and endure with defiant hope- this is the encouragement we get from the rest of this Psalm.  

     

     

    What do I mean by Defiant Hope? (Borrowing that phrase from another pastor, but so apt…) What does that defiant hope look like? I think it looks like vv. 5-6 – seeing through your tears to the ultimate restoration God will bring… it’s tracing the rainbow through the rain… your tears may continue to flow… but they don’t fully cloud your vision of what God is doing… Defiant hope is holding to what you know to be true—that God is in the business of restoration—even when your circumstances would tell you otherwise…

     

    Now in saying that, I know this kind of hope sounds to some of you like I’m advocating for something akin to either willful ignorance or wishful thinking-

     

    Willful ignorance = intentionally avoiding inconvenient truths/facts that would contradict my preconceived model of reality: “Have hope!”… just ignore the hard realities. “Don’t mind the man behind the curtain” (Wizard of Oz).

     

    Wishful thinking = I hope the weather is nice next weekend… I really hope I can save enough money to retire early… very wishful… this kind of “hope” is just irrational optimism untethered from reality.

     

    Defiant hope is not willful ignorance, it’s not blind to the brokenness… and it is not wishful thinking disconnected from reality… when the bible talks about hope it is legitimate, concrete, confident expectation of what God will do in the future… based on the faithfulness and work he has done in the past! Christian hope is a forward-looking assurance rooted in past experience.

     

    This is exactly how this Psalm goes- the petition of v. 4, the seeing through the tears of vv. 5-6… all of that is based on the memory of God’s previous work on their behalf in vv. 1-3… v. 4 “restore our fortunes” is pulling that exact language from the start of their flashback in v. 1: “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion…”

     

    Zion is shorthand for the nation of God’s people… looking back and saying: friends, remember when we were restored! And given the ensuing description of the people’s response to this restoration: “… we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy…” given those responses, it’s clear that the restoration God brought was something deeply significant… it wasn’t just, “I prayed that my hangnail would be healed and now I’m better.”

     

    They are remembering a time of elation over God’s deliverance on their behalf… “Oh my goodness, God showed up in a massive way… it’s why many scholars believe this is a reference to the Israelites being released from exile in Babylon… remembering: the Lord has done great things for us.

     

    Defiant Hope starts by looking back and remembering the Lord’s work and His kindness in the past- naming God’s track record of restoration, recalling a time of having been surprised by His grace… can you recall a time in the past when you’ve been surprised by God’s grace?... Do you ever go back to that touchstone?…

    Or do you allow your busyness to prevent you from returning to that beautiful truth?... Look, I get it, Remembering is hard… hope is hard, that’s why it must be defiant:

     

    Quote from one commentator, Christine Gordon, names our experience well:

    “We’ve seen God act in the past. We have stories about his faithfulness to our families and to us individually. But that was then, and this is now. And today the way forward looks intimidating, hopeless, overwhelming. We, like the psalmist, must remember how God has shown up again and again. And we must plead with him to amaze us with his mercy one more time… we cannot allow cynicism to creep in and tell us lies about God’s intentions for us.”

     

    -If you’re a Christian, part of this Psalm’s purpose now is to prompt you remember and celebrate the ways that God has been faithful to you… we can all be so caught up in the present stress and struggle that we forget how God has carried us in the past. 

     

    Enduring with Defiant hope starts by remembering God’s work in the past, His surprising grace towards you… and then it is holding to what you know to be true. If you remember, then you will be enabled to cling to the promises of vv. 5-6.

     

    “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying their sheaves with them.”

     

    3 parts to this promise here in these verses:

     

    -First: your tears aren’t the end of the story… earlier: look thru the tears, keep your eyes on the horizon… commentator put it this way [READ]:

    “We can focus our eyes on our own poverty, or we can fix our eyes on the one who can do all things… trusting that the way he has been kind to us in the past is a template for the way he will show kindness to us in the future.”

     

    -Second: sowing/reaping is a process… harvest is not immediate… if you were to harvest corn it would take months to go from seed to big stalk… we tend to have a “popcorn mindset”… we want immediate and convenient… put it in the microwave and in 2 mins it’s done… (NYT article = “Tyranny of Immediacy and Convenience”)… promise here is not one of immediate restoration, it is that God will ultimately right all wrongs, make all things new… and that you will know joy again even if things are still hard tomorrow.

     

    -Third: God does not waste your pain… seeds need water to grow, and it’s as if somehow your tears are what God uses… and through those tears God is working to bring this abundant growth…

     

    Reminded of Paul’s words in 2 Cor. 4:16-18 [READ]:

     “…Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen…”

    Closing Ill: Planet Earth (BBC Docuseries), episode “Deserts”- part of it highlights Death Valley, California- it’s rocks and dust… driest place in the US, lowest elevation in North America… and it’s the hottest place on earth: got up around 130 degrees last summer!

     

    In this episode, Planet Earth Narrator (spare you my attempt at a British accent): “Death Valley is the hottest place on earth… yet even this furnace can be transformed by water.”

     

    Hottest, driest, lowest place… yet even in Death Valley, in time, there is a “super bloom” where the rain comes and the desert bursts to life, covered with gorgeous wildflowers…

     

    This is what God does: In his grace, He brings life to the driest and most lifeless places of this world- the damaged relationship, persistent loneliness- nowhere and nothing is beyond the reach of his restoration-

     

    God can give rain to the Negev, turn a small seed into a bushel of food… he’s done it: Jesus Christ brought life out of death in his resurrection!

     

    What do you do with your longing for restoration? If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, what do you do… I hope you’ll consider Jesus’s death and resurrection isn’t a myth, isn’t just for others… his surprising grace is for you!

     

    If you are a Christian, here’s your homework: Take Psalm 126 with you this week- make this your “song for the road”- when you’re faced with hardship or brokenness make this your prayer: remember God’s love and faithfulness… ask for his help and restoration as your first resort not your last… and then cling to the promise that ultimately all who sow brokenness with tears will finally reap restoration with songs of joy.

     

     

    Let’s pray…