Big Joy, Big Prayers

And if you would, please, for the Scripture reading, which will be our text for this afternoon, Psalm number 126, Psalm 126, this is one of the 15 songs of ascents, songs that were collected or written during the exile, collected for the exile from times past or written specifically for the exilic people, a song of faith, a song of hope, a song that, a psalm that believed that God would indeed deliver.

So they prepared it in advance to be sung as a return to Jerusalem from their exile. Psalm 126. Please stand with me as we read God's Word. When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we're like those who dream.

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. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad.

We store our fortunes, O Lord, like the 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.

This is the Word of the Lord. Please be seated. So what are you willing to risk in prayer? That's the question I want to answer as we go through this psalm. What are you willing to risk in prayer? What great things has God done for you that would so excite you, so make your heart swell with joy, as to entice you to risk much in prayer?

What are we willing to put forth in our prayer? Do we feel enough joy to pray really big prayers? To ask God for the impossible, believing Jesus Christ at His Word when He said, but with God nothing shall be impossible, even the salvation of sinners, even the creation of the world by a word, even the resurrection from the dead.

Has God done great things for you personally? I don't mean just the things in the Bible, that sometimes we look at from afar. We go, look what God did then, as if we're just reading a storybook, and we forget that God is working in you, and me, and this church, and all the true church, now, today, by His Holy Spirit, and powerfully.

God didn't stop doing great things when He stopped the sun for 24 hours so that Joshua could finish the battle against the Amalekites. God didn't stop doing great things when He slew 185 Assyrians who had attacked Jerusalem.

God didn't stop doing great things when He raised Jesus from the dead, though that is the greatest of the things that God has done. But He didn't stop, not for you, not for me, not for this church. I announced this morning, God did a great thing in this church, this small church.

We, few, and by the grace of God, and His answer to our prayer, we knocked on every door in this neighborhood. God has done great things. Is He done? No. Thank you. What are you willing to risk in prayer to this God who has done these things?

This is the question I would have us to answer in this psalm. I want to think of this people, this people of this psalm. We've been kind of going through these, you know, a year or so ago, I started a series in the Songs of Ascent, these 15 psalms, number 120 to 134.

And I look back, I did number 120, 21, 22, and I sort of stopped for several months, and I picked up again several weeks ago. So we're going through them, these 15 psalms, written either during the exile or collected from other times and brought into these Songs of Ascent, prepared for their return, preparing themselves for this great thing that they trusted God would do.

Think of who they were, the Jews, the smallest of all nations, Deuteronomy 7 and 8, the least of all peoples. And here they are, captive to the most powerful, perhaps the most cruel and violent but militarily successful nation on earth, Babylon.

There they are. And then Babylon is conquered by Persia. Cyrus, the king of Persia, no less violent, no less cruel, no less a pagan than Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And what do they have come to their ears?

What happens to this people who sang this song, this psalm? You know, at the end of 2 Chronicles and the beginning of the book of Ezra, you've heard this before in these Songs of Ascent sermons. God stirred up the spirit of that very king, Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon.

He stirred up Cyrus to make a decree that all the Jews in exile who wanted to go back and restore the temple and engage in proper worship, they get to go. Are you kidding me? Cyrus said that? Wait a second, God made Cyrus say that?

Wait, there's more. It sounds like one of those commercials you see on the subchannels on TV that made for TV offer. And they tell you you can have two of these but you get one more for free. And wait, there's even more because if you buy it now.

But wait, there's more. Cyrus, that violent pagan king, said not only do you get to go home, you get a safe conduct pass, you're funded, military escorts if you need them, all the utensils, all the holy implements of worship that Nebuchadnezzar took are returned to you.

Are you kidding me? That's what this psalm is about. That's the great thing the Lord has done for them. The joy of what God had done led this joy-filled throng to boldly approach the throne of grace and do what?

Let me ask you before I tell you what they did more and then we'll go into these verses. What do you do when God has done a great thing for you? Have you known a deliverance from God for you personally?

I don't mean something that you read of in the Bible, true as it is, as much as we are that people that's in the Bible, we are them, they are us, we're all connected as through the strain of redemptive history.

But I mean you personally, when you prayed to God and you received an answer to prayer, a healing, a restoration, a job that could only have come from Christ, what do we do next? Well, we come to the church, we tell our brothers and sisters, you encourage me by telling me what great things the Lord has done for you as Jesus told the man what great things he had done, go tell.

We heard that this morning from Pastor Brian. What else do we do? According to this psalm, these people I want us to join with this afternoon when God has done a great thing for you, ask for more. Go to the throne of grace and say something like, and I mean this reverently, that's good Lord, praise Jesus for what you have done for me.

I want more, give me more. Not health, not prosperity, not money, more of Jesus, more of your deliverance according to your word as I pray and you answer. I want more. I want to join them in this journey and when we're done, I want to join them in these shouts of joy and I want you as a church, as an individual and as a church, to be willing to risk much in prayer.

Sometimes we pray these little prayers. My house, we go into my house, you go to Mission Boulevard, a four-lane, 45 mile an hour Mission Boulevard and you turn right on Pickering. Now you're on two lanes, 25 miles an hour and that kind of is one of the main ones in the neighborhood.

Then you turn left onto Christ's home, go about a fourth of a block and turn left onto our street, Lowell Place and there you are. So I ask God for deliverance. I'm halfway down Pickering, almost ready to make that left turn into the little part of the neighborhood.

Oh God, deliver me and I get to my garage and I'm safe. I'm talking about big things. I'm talking about really risking something in prayer. Now that I got to my garage safely, praise God and I mean that in all sincerity.

I want us to risk much in prayer. We need to understand what this restoration of fortune actually was and I mentioned it already. I said that in the introduction but let me say again what had Yahweh done for these captives in Babylon?

He released them by the word of this terrible pagan king. Don't believe the Disney movie that makes the Persians look so civilized. Well they were bright, they had a lot of advancements, they did a lot of things.

They may have been the inventors of crucifixion and whether they inherited it from some other civilizations or not, this man Cyrus was a great advocate of crucifixion, rose a rose of it for punishment.

This is where they were when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion were like those who dream. Have you ever had those dreams that are just so real it's like you can't believe when you wake up at least for a few seconds that it wasn't real.

You know, oh you bump into your dresser. That's what I do when I bump into the dresser. Oh I was asleep, that wasn't real. When I was a kid, 16, 17 years old, Ferrari came out with the Daytona. Who remembers the Ferrari Daytona?

After class you can look it up, put it in Ferrari Daytona, you can see one of the most beautiful Ferraris ever made and today the convertible model of that is very rare and it's worth millions of dollars.

Well I had a dream that in the driveway of my house was a Ferrari Daytona and I was going to get to drive it but the thing was locked and then I woke up and it became a serious dream and the next time the door, the window was down but there are no keys in it and it goes on and on.

Finally I got to sit in it but it wouldn't start and with the clutch wouldn't work. Just went on and on and on. I never got to get the thing out of the driveway but every time I woke up I felt like I really had a chance to drive a Ferrari.

It wasn't real and I haven't had the dream since and don't look up on your phones, Ferrari Daytona now, but look them up later. It's a beautiful car, that was my dream. Well theirs was no dream. They said we're as if it's a dream but it was no dream.

Their fortunes were restored by God's grace by way of this pagan king and verse 2 says how they responded that our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue was shouts of joy when they realized that they weren't dreaming.

The Cyrus really did say that. This time for joy, do you remember the 137th Psalm? By the rivers of Babylon we wept. Wept because they were there in Babylon and not home in Jerusalem. They're in Babylon for their punishment and not home in Jerusalem where they should have been obeying the Lord.

They're in Babylon because of theirs and their father's sins against the Lord and it's all over. They get to go back. Laughter, shouts of joy, a time for joy. This word shouts of joy means to sing with this ringing cry, a ringing cry and it's used especially to express the Lord's acts of salvation for his people.

Let me give you a few examples, just a few of where this word is actually used. I want you to understand what it means to have shouts of joy, to really acknowledge that God did this, that Christ showed himself real to me in this new and palpable way by answering whatever that prayer was that you brought to him that only he could have answered.

Isaiah 14 6, the whole earth is at rest and quiet. They break forth into singing, shouts of joy. Psalm 30 verse 6, weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes with the morning. And just one more, pardon me.

The Lord your God is in your midst. This is from Isaiah chapter 30. A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing.

And there's our word again, God's acts of salvation. He's doing the same thing here himself over his own acts of salvation that Israel does in Psalm 126, these shouts of joy. This is God singing, exalting over what he himself did.

Now think about this for a moment. The Lord God, he exalts to see his own saving act played out in history. You know, Christ our Lord, he exalts over his people, even knowing as he himself said that all whom the father has given him will surely come to him.

Did he not say that in the book of John? But this is no dry, dusty, formal, repressed acknowledgement of God's sovereignty. Oh yes, that sinner came to God. That's what Jesus said would happen. The Bible is true and correct.

Now let's get on with our worship. No, this is God himself, the one who decreed that you would come to Christ. The one who predestined you for salvation in Christ. Exalting over you, over the church when you do what he predestined you to do.

Come to Christ who died for your sins. God singing over what he himself ordained with loud singing. The apostle Peter writes to us, though you have not seen him, that's Jesus, you love him. Though you do not now see him, again that's Jesus, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

Rejoice over what does Peter say? Over Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done for his people. Over Jesus Christ who says to you, you were once not a people but now you are a people, a holy people to God, a kingdom of priests calling out his praises drawn from darkness into his marvelous light.

That Jesus causes us to rejoice in him with joy inexpressible, filled with glory. A joy that's a light that shines from a mountaintop. A joy that nations cannot but wonder and admit at what God has done for his people.

Then they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The nations looking in. Maybe these nations who when the Jews were being led captive, stood on the side of the road and said, raise it, raise it, r-a-z-e, raise it, tear down the rest of it.

Punish these people more. Hurting them all the more. Sort of like the Pharisees wagging their tongues at Jesus as he stood, as he hung on the cross. Perhaps a precursor to that. Maybe it's even those nations who see this and say, we must admit the Lord has done great things for them.

Who would ever have expected Cyrus to release them with funding, with escorts, with all those valuable gold and silver implements of worship. The Lord has done great things for them. They admit that the one in whom we trust has done great things.

Now Israel could no more have swayed Cyrus to have done what he did than you or I could go to President Biden or Governor Newsom and convince them that abortion is wrong. How many of you think you would win that debate against either of those men?

We'd be right, but you'd lose the argument. Who would have expected? But nothing shall be impossible with God, said Jesus. Jesus told Nathanael, you remember that in John chapter one or two, that he would see greater things than this.

Do you believe now because I knew that you're under that tree? Jesus says, you're going to see greater things than this. I ask you, greater than seeing the Messiah, greater than recognizing him for who he is, as we all did when we came to salvation, but for Nathanael in the person.

And Jesus is saying something greater than seeing God in the flesh, in the flesh, in person, you're going to see greater things than this. Let's not let the nations look in at the church and say the Lord has done great things for this people.

Look at them. The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad. So the nations say the Lord's done great things for them. That's from a side that's watching, that's saying, you know, that thing we did as they were going into exile, we might have some payment to make for that.

And now they're coming back and instead of razing at them, the Lord's done great things for them. Look where they're going. And the church responds and agrees the Lord has done great things for us and we are glad.

And I tell you again, the Lord is not done doing great things for his people, not for the church at large, not for his church right here, so we cannot stop here. Their fortunes were restored, their exile was at an end, great things so great that even the unbelieving nations have to admit that it was God and there's gladness and there's shouts of joy.

Again, have you ever had such a deliverance? Or if you've had such a deliverance, did you praise him with anything near this kind of enthusiasm, this kind of devotion? You see, too often we know it was Jesus who delivered us in mind only and the spirit somehow remains sort of silent.

We rejoice with a nice, quiet, dignified, stoic, reformed stance, folded arms, impassive face, lips pressed together tight like those street performers who are imitating a statue. You seen them? One comes along, a Jew comes along and says, what you doing there, Mordecai?

He says, I am rejoicing in the Lord. I don't mean to put down people who can't wave their hands and I'm not one of those either, but I am talking about some lack of restraint, some joy in the Lord, some acknowledgement that he did something that just sort of breaks those bounds of self-consciousness within limits, all things decent and orderly.

I don't want to put God to the test, but we need to be knowing that we're overflowing with good things that he has done, overflowing him with great thing after great thing after great thing, meaning Mordecai, meaning his people.

God will do more and more and more. So what does Israel do after this great thing the Lord has done for them? After he restored their fortunes, what is Israel's response? Let me ask again, what is your response when God delivers you, when God answers your prayer?

What should this church's response be now that we've knocked on every door? We get no credit for it, God gets all the glory for it, but it is something that we planned here, and it is something we held up to God in prayer, and it is something as a church we said this should be God's will for us, that we knock on every door and tell them that there's a church that proclaims Jesus, and we did it.

I would say church that that is a great thing that God has done for us. Can we not join with the Jews in Psalm 126 and say God has done great things for us just in that one? Can we not? What if I gave you permission to not have that be a rhetorical question?

Can we not say that that is a great thing God has done for us? And the church says amen, thank you, yes. What do they do in verse 4? What must we do? They say restore our fortunes, oh Lord. Wait a second, we started out when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion.

I spent a lot of time explaining what that restoration was, how incredible it was, and what did they do just a few verses later? Restore our fortunes, oh Lord. They asked for more. They believed in the fount of every blessing.

As the Baptist said, God gives a spirit without measure. When God proves himself to you and shows himself to you, when according to Romans chapter 12, and you learn what is good and acceptable, the will of God, that perfect will of God by testing it, by doing it, by living it, and you grow more in the image of Jesus Christ, and you learn more and more about your own sin, and you repent more deeply, and know more of the forgiveness that you have.

He's giving you the spirit without measure. This is a great thing that God does. And also the events, the events that everyone would look and say that God has done a great thing for this one, or this church, or this people.

God gives a spirit without measure. So when he delivers, what do we do? Thank you Lord, praise God, praise Jesus. Yes, all of that. And we ask for more. Restore our fortunes. I did restore your fortunes.

Restore our fortunes, oh Lord. What, isn't Cyrus enough? Restore our fortunes, oh Lord. He gave you money. Fortunes. He gave you the implements back. Restore our fortunes. Military escorts, safe conduct passes.

Lord, restore our fortunes. It's not that you haven't done enough. It's just that we don't ask enough. It's not that God's hand has become tighter. It's an open hand. We don't ask enough. You know, we used to go to a dairy in Oregon, a place called Bandon.

I can't remember the name of the dairy, but it was an independent dairy that made just the best cheese and ice cream and stuff like that in the world. Well, they've been long closed, but it was a place we'd always stop.

And you know, you go on the line, there was a long line, it was really, really good. You get to sample. It was little squares of cheese with the toothpick in it. No, south of Tillamook. It was in Bandon, Oregon.

I don't remember any of it. But it's like Tillamook with the little squares of cheese, and you get that little taste of cheese with the toothpick, and you throw the toothpick out. You ever been there?

You get just enough taste of cheese that you want to buy a bigger block. What I liked about this one in Bandon, unlike Tillamook, is that they didn't kick you out of line after one tour. But you get these little samples, just enough to make you want more.

God's not like that. When God did this deliverance, it wasn't just a little piece of cheese on toothpick that made them say, hey, that was pretty good. I wonder what God's really like. He showed them.

This was big. The deliverance of Cyrus, knocking on 180 doors with this church, with so few of us, so few faithful members who were faithfully going out, who were able to walk those sidewalks, though some of us are less mobile and couldn't.

And yet, we accomplished it. In the name of Jesus Christ, he gets all the glory. When Israel saw their fortunes restored, they asked for more. And now we have my title, Big Joy, Big Prayers. How much are you willing to risk in prayer?

How much joy do you have when you know Jesus' deliverance of you? To have the joy in the Lord like they do is to confess that whatever brought you that joy was from him. You are a child of God, most high by faith in the Son, Jesus Christ, who was given for us.

He died for us. He's our sacrificial lamb, set forth by God in order that he might have, at last, a sacrifice for sin that actually answers our sin. Is that not a great thing? Of course, we'd all say yes.

But don't say yes from a distance. Don't look at those words and say, yes, Paul is correct there. Say, this is speaking of me, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me because God predestined me to be in him.

Paul says it this way, he did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Brethren, do you ask for all things? I asked before, what do you risk in prayer?

Prayer is a risk. You see, when I'm driving through the neighborhood and I'm just getting ready to get off Pickering and into that little street which is called Chrisholm and then left onto my quiet court, I'm pretty sure I'm going to make it.

Oh, Lord, deliver me. I made it the last block and a half. I'm not trying to make fun of small prayers. But we need to risk big prayers. We need to look and say, God delivered us. He gave us the ability to knock on 1 ,800 doors, pray for my wife to tolerate the chemo.

But I need to pray big prayers that God would heal her. Like I told you a week or two ago, the oncologist made sure that I understood because it was hard to get through to me the difference between something treatable and curable.

They can treat it, not cure it. And now as I prepare this message, I say, God has made deliverances before for me. And I pray for her to be healed of this cancer that she has. This is a big prayer. And this is a joyful prayer.

This is one, even though with me it's tears and it's getting, I'm getting better holding them back, even saying my wife's name and cancer in the same sentence. And yet there's joy in the Lord because I know God hears me and he hears you.

And I thank you all. Sue thanks you all for your prayers. But for everything else, for all the rest of us, what are you willing to risk in prayer? What are you willing to say? I ask God for this, not just get me two and a half blocks the rest of the way home.

Something big. In our last business meeting, members meeting, we presented the beginning of an inkling of a vision for expanding this facility. It's not a plan. We're not voting on it yet. We don't have the blueprints.

Nothing like that is going forward until we've deliberated and presented it all to you. We're not there yet. But just thinking in that context with me, in the context of Psalm 126 and the things God has done, do we want to pray that if we go forward, that we get enough members to be able to handle that big mortgage?

That'd be great. And God would get all the glory. And we could fall down on our face and say, look what Christ has done for us. Should something like that be the case, should we go forward? What if we prayed big prayers like John Knox?

Give me Scotland ere I die. Give me this whole nation, Lord. Not for him personally. He meant converted to Christ. Give me Scotland ere I die. Give us a facility, Lord, for the glory of Christ ere we die.

Not just to be able to handle a big mortgage. Maybe even to raise the money. Is that a big enough prayer? Can God do something like that? I'm not trying to sell you on the idea of the expansion should it ever come about.

It just came to my mind, that would be this kind of a prayer. That would be a big prayer. We're not trying to expand in order to grow. We're growing. Therefore, we see the need. God is answering prayer.

And let there be joy in the answers that we have. And let that joy give us a confidence to risk much. The Jews were delivered by Cyrus the pagan. And they said, Lord, restore us more. Give us yet more.

He will give us all things, said the Apostle Paul. God, who for the sake of his son gives us all things. What measly prayers does he hear from us, from me? He sent his son. God, the son became flesh. And then he died.

And then he rose. Then he gave you and me faith to believe that you too will one day rise. And Paul says, for by grace, you've been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift. The faith to believe is a gift.

Faith is a gift. It's the gift of God. Jesus told the disciples that they would do greater works than he did. John 14, 12, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these he will do.

And in our psalm, in the next verse, is it verse five? Verse four, excuse me. They asked for their fortunes to be restored, restored like the streams of the Negev. They asked for more and more. Yahweh has done great things and now do more.

The Negev is this dry, arid region in the south of that land. And there were wadis there, and there were dry, like riverbeds. And then when the rain came, because there's nowhere for the rain to be stored, there'd be these flash floods.

It would just be filled with water rushing down. Very dangerous if you got into it. But there was all of a sudden this rush of water. And this is what they're asking for. They're asking to be overrun with blessings from God, that the Lord would overwhelm them with a flash flood of blessings, that the water would pour down for parched spirits that they asked, and they would ask for more and more and more.

And they go on, 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 them. Now why would they sow in tears?

Well, later for your homework, before you look up the Ferrari Daytona, read Haggai chapter one. There's a drought there. The Lord said, you sowed and you got little. You put money in your wallet and it became a hole in your pocket and you lost it all.

Why? Because I blew it away. They sowed in tears, for so long there'd been no reward for the farmer, for the sower. God blew it away. Yet they sowed and they kept trying. I think it was Albert Einstein said, insanity is trying the same thing three times, getting the same result, but expecting a different result.

But here they are, insanely sowing again and again. May we be so insane as that. We need to pray three times or 300 times, or like the unfortunate widow in Luke 18, who could never have expected justice and yet she kept going for justice.

Do you have needs that God has yet to provide you? Is there a great thing that only he can do that you've been waiting and waiting and waiting for, or that you won't risk in prayer? And say, I drew this line in the sand.

God give me this. You've done great things for me. You gave me your son. Pray 30 times. Pray 100 times. Pray. Pray believing. Pray because of the joy of the deliverances that you've known. Jesus said, whatever you ask of my name, that I will do for you.

He will do great things for you. He will fill our mouth with laughter, our tongues with these shouts of joy. Trust that the tears of your prayer will be transformed into shouts of joy. If your prayers are sown in tears, he who sows in tears will reap with shouts of joy.

He'll bring in sheaves. He'll bring in a great crop. Our Savior sowed with tears, did he not? Hebrews 5, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.

Then from tears and cries and supplications to this. What does he go on to say in Hebrews 5? And he was heard because of his reverence. Sweat like drops of blood become the source of unspeakable joy as Jesus Christ went to the cross and then rose again.

He rose from the dead. For the apostles, Luke 24, 41 says, and while they still disbelieved for joy, in other words, this is a dream. This cannot be. Jesus is alive. What joy. But can I believe it to be real?

And while they are marveling, he said to them, have you anything here to eat? He's real. It wasn't a dream. It goes on while Jesus blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with what?

With great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. Brethren, it is no dream. Jesus Christ came. God in the flesh dwelt among man. God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, the man died for your sins and God raised him from the dead.

We really did knock on 1 ,800 doors. Some of you have seen friends healed, loved ones restored. Some of you have known that yourself. God really does these things. As you fill our mouths with shouts of joy, even as God has shouts of joy overseeing his people, exult in him.

Let me just end with this from John 16, 20, where Jesus himself says that big joy brings forth big prayers and let us have that joy. That joy comes from a confidence that it was God in Christ and he alone who did whatever it is that you can put your mind on.

Have joy in that and have a joy that brings forth these big risky prayers. Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

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. In that day, you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you.

Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive. And here, these last few words from Jesus Christ with which we close, and now you see the reason for the title of my message, Big Joy, Big Prayers.

Jesus Christ says, you will ask in my name, you will receive. Why? That your joy may be full. May our joy in the Lord be matched by our prayers to him. Amen.