Sow in Tears, Reap in Joy

I. Introduction
A. Psalm 126 is a wonderful Mothers Day gift for moms. It hits the nail on the head with regard to the life and calling of a mother.
B. The center of the psalm is a request in v.4: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!”
1. This is not an urgent, desperate prayer, like we find in some other psalms.
2. This is the kind of prayer a Christian will pray hundreds and even thousands of times during life. Something is going wrong and we ask God to intervene.
3. The trouble is that it is easy to pray only this: help, Lord, fix this please. Often our present problem obscures our ability to see anything else.
4. But there’s so much more to add to our requests for help.
II. The psalm begins with remembering elation from the past.
A. 1-2 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. 2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
1. The psalmist is remembering back on a recent spectacular deliverance in Judah.
2. Whatever it was, this elation came at the end of a long struggle, and a long time of yearning and crying out to the Lord. And finally God answered in a big way.
3. If we had to guess, we would guess that the elation the psalmist refers to here is the elation of the Jews returning to the promised land after the Babylonian exile. But we don’t know for sure.
4. You can think back on times of elation, some of which have come after enduring a long season of need and lack.
a. Your wedding day
b. The birth of a child
c. A great sports victory
d. Finding something lost
5. But there’s an important lesson for us here about prayer: The psalmist has come to God to ask for something: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!” But before he gets to that, he begins by reflecting on ways God has restored fortunes in the past, ways God has answered prayers in the past, ways God has done in the past the very thing the psalmist wants Him to do now.
6. He sums this up in v.3 with an expression of...
III. Gratitude
A. 3 The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.
1. This is so precious and so important: His present distress hasn’t drowned out His gratitude for what God had done in the past.
B. This is the way God has taught us to pray:“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known to God.” – Phil.4:6
C. It is so important for us to be able to say this when we are praying for divine intervention.
D. It’s not just a matter of being polite, or giving thanks to whom it is due. It’s a matter of recognizing Who we’re coming to, Who we’re petitioning. True prayer is not problem-centered, it is God-centered! When we’re really praying, we are more gripped by the God we’re addressing than by the need we’re bringing to Him.
IV. The petition
A. 4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb!
1. If you’ve traveled enough or watched enough nature documentaries, you know that there are areas of the earth which look like deserts for much of the year, they are dry river beds, but once a year the rains come, and they are replenished. The area turns green, and life flourishes again. Overnight, it is remarkably transformed, from barren wasteland to lush garden.
2. By the time this rainy season comes, the animals and the plants and the people are desperate for water. And when the rains come and the streams flow once again, everybody is so happy!
3. This is what the psalmist is asking for here. Right now things are barren and dry. But the psalmist knows that all it takes is for God to shower down His blessings and everything will come alive again.
4. It’s the same thing in our lives. It doesn’t matter what problems we’re facing in our lives. We often have need of the Lord to restore our fortunes.
5. Think about the kind of struggles moms endure:
a. It might be a need for sleep.
b. It might be a need for healing.
c. It might be a need for strength.
d. It might be a need for joy.
e. It might be a need for wisdom.
f. It might be a need for a change of heart.
6. And we know that God can snap His fingers and bring relief in any area of need. And so we pray.
V. The psalm concludes with reflections on the meaning of all this: 5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6 He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.
A. Here the psalmist reflects on the nature of life with God: Those who sow seeds weeping, will in the future be harvesting with shouts of joy.
B. He speaks of three ingredients of a life lived with God:
1. Tears
a. There is hardship, there are tears.
b. Moms know this very well: there are tears of frustration, tears of exhaustion, tears of heartbreak, tears for no known reason, even tears of joy.
c. This “weep now, rejoice later” doesn’t mean we should try to be sad, though there are times when we should do that (e.g. Rom.12:15 “Weep with those who weep.” and James 4:9 “Be wretched, mourn and weep [over your sin].”)
d. It means that life contains pain and produces tears, and we must learn to handle the tears/pains/sufferings of this life in light of the coming joy.
2. There is sowing. This, of course, doesn’t speak only to farmers. It refers to our working, the doing of our job, investing ourselves in what we’re supposed to be doing, fulfilling our divine calling.
a. In spite of the tears, in spite of the inner pain, God calls us to keep sowing.
b. The pain tempts us to give up. The pain tempts us to panic. The pain tempts us to get angry/bitter.
c. Imagine a scene of a sower with his bag of seed walking through his field. He’s in pain. Maybe the sower has just had a very painful altercation with a spouse. Maybe the sower has just received some heart-breaking news about a loved one. Maybe the sower has just been yelled at by a neighbor. Maybe the sower was up all night taking care of a little one. What’s the sower look like?
(1) Is the sower screaming and kicking the ground and ripping the bag open in anger?
(2) Is the sower sitting down sobbing while the field goes unsown?
(3) Is the sower in a tizzy of worry, fear and panic?
(4) Or is the sower continuing to sow while tears streak down the cheeks.
d. I don’t mean there’s never a time to be overcome by emotion. I don’t mean there’s not a time to go have a good cry. I’ve done it a number of times myself.
e. But in terms of big picture, the weeping sower is a picture of what God wants us to be like when we’re in pain. And it’s a great picture of our moms here: serving even when exhausted, caring for others even when it seems like no one is caring for them, loving even when they don’t get loved in return.
f. Pain is real and it hurts. But God is still on His throne. And His call on our lives hasn’t been revoked. There are prayers to be prayed. There are duties to fulfill. There are spouses to love. There are others in pain who need to be encouraged. There are kids to love. We have jobs to do. We have responsibilities to tend to.
g. Does this mean we are stoic, and just shove our pain aside and go on like everything’s OK? Not at all. That’s not what it says. This sower is weeping while he sows! Tears are flowing.
h. But the sower knows that there are some things bigger than the pain!
(1) The sower knows that God is bigger than the pain.
(2) And that the calling to sow is bigger than the pain.
(3) And that the divine purpose of the pain is bigger than the pain itself.
(4) And there’s one other thing which the sower knows is bigger than the pain. The sower’s future exhilaration is bigger than the pain. (“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” 2Cor.4:17)
i. Because the sower knows these four things are bigger than the pain, he keeps sowing and sowing and sowing, even while in pain:
(a) “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” – 2Corinthians 4:8-9
3. The coming exhilaration
a. Envision another day. It’s now harvest time. The same sower who sowed in tears now beholds a rich, abundant harvest, a harvest resulting from all that sowing done in tears.
b. 5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6 He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.
c. The words “shouts of joy” here are the translation of one Hebrew word (RINEH, pronounced like the name Renee). It refers to a spontaneous outburst of exhilaration. It is used three times in this psalm: once in v.5 and once in v.6 (above), but also in v.2 referring to the elation of the past: “Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
d. This is a glimpse of what awaits those of us who willingly sow in tears today.
(1) Visualize your future joy. Imagine him looking deep into your eyes with total love telling you how precious you are to Him. This is what you've always longed for, what you've always dreamed of: to receive His enthusiastic approval, to find His total acceptance, to know His unconditional love. (By the way, if you find the love you've always dreamed of in your husband, your dreams are too small.)
(2) We can have some of that joy right now, even in the midst of our tears, can’t we? The joy of knowing that the joy is coming.
e. Who does this great joy come to? It comes to those who sow in tears, those who trusted in the Lord’s purpose in their lives, and kept honoring Him even through times of distress.
C. Sow in tears, reap in joy. This theme resounds through Scripture like a beautiful symphonic melody.
1. Our tears are not wasted. God takes note of our tears, records them upon His scroll, and collects them in a bottle (Ps.56:8). And one day, there will be a great reversal of fortune: the last will be first, the low will be raised up, those who mourn will be comforted, He will turn our mourning into dancing.
2. “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” – Psalm 30:5 (The word here for joy is the same word as we saw in Psalm 126:2, 5 & 6) There is weeping through the night, but in the morning, exuberant shouts of joy.
3. This is the pattern Jesus taught in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are the persecuted, for they will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will receive the kingdom, they will see God.
4. But this theme reaches its climax in the atoning work of our Lord. He suffered unimaginably for our sake, and as a result was exalted to the highest place.
5. And the promise of our salvation and of His Father’s glory is what kept Him going: “...who for the joy set before Him endured the cross.” – Heb.12:2
6. And this expectation of future joy is what gives us strength to keep going, to keep sowing, as well.
7. The path to glory is through the cross. Sow in tears, reap in joy.
8. You who have birthed babies know what this is all about. As Jesus said, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” – John 16:21–22

VI. The Lord’s Supper
A. There’s another piece of truth which makes our sowing and weeping even better than what Psalm 126 tells us. Not only will those who suffer in faith find great joy, but during the process of their suffering they will have the presence and comfort of Jesus through the HS.
B. “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” – 2Corinthians 1:5
C. This is one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit in our lives!
1. Jesus spoke about this on the last night before the cross in John 14:16–19:
a. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.
b. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
c. 16-17 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.
2. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. The Spirit testifies to us on behalf of our Lord Jesus: “You are mine. I love you. You are my precious possession. I have good plans for you. Your tears are temporary, your joy is eternal.”