It was all a dream - The Lord of my story.

Big idea:

Trust the Lord with your story.

Intro:

Good morning church…

Today, we’re starting a brand-new sermon series titled, “It was all a dream.” If I was better prepared, I would’ve walked up to Biggie-Smalls playing in the background, but I’m not…

…Some of yall are like, “Who is biggie-smalls, don’t worry about it. It’s not worth it…

I also kinda had a busy week with our Youth at Camp Berea, more on that in a little bit. Maybe needless to say, I didn’t have much time to prepare for anything extra this week. In fact, I finished this sermon a couple of hours ago. So, if it’s terrible, I apologize. Blame it on the Youth…

Nevertheless, this series is based on Psalm 126, which starts off…

Psalm 126:1 ESV

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.

Now you see where the series title comes from! There are five more verses to this Psalm. And we’re going to spend 4 weeks digging into these 6 verses.

Maybe you’re thinking, how can we spend so much time on such a small passage? Let me remind us about 3 beautiful things when it comes to God’s word…

God’s Word is alive. Hebrews 4 says, “The Word of God is living and active…” That means each time we approach God’s word there is a freshness - a newness. And over the next four weeks, we get an opportunity to experience that first-hand.

There is a blessing for those who meditate on Gods’ Word. Joshua 1:8 says, “you shall meditate on [God’s Word] day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” That word “meditate” means to sit on a truth, even repeating it over and over again, as you think about it. Much like we do with a lot of our worship songs. Many people criticize modern worship for being simple and repetitive, but it’s actually very biblical to worship this way. It helps plant God’s word deep in our heart.

There are deeps wells in this Psalm. As we dig into these verses and approach them from different angles, we will see God’s word has a lot to say to us. More than that, they will help us learn how to follow “Jesus as Lord,” which is our 2024 Vision - what we’re focusing on this year as a church.

Before we go any further, let’s actually read the psalm together…

Psalm 126 ESV

A Song of Ascents. When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were 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; we are glad. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negeb! 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.

Again, so much here! So many directions we could go. But here’s what I’d like to focus on today…

Jesus is the Lord of our story.

Body:

For the past four years, we’ve been taking our Youth to Camp Berea for Summer and Winter Camp.

Side Note: We also use Berea for our Men’s Retreat, which is called Man Camp. That happens in November. Men - if you don’t have this on your calendar, save the date now: November 8-10. Jesus, meat, and fun. What more do you want?

Anyways, Berea has been such a blessing to us. Some of you know I start off as a Youth Pastor back in California. I understand the importance of reaching the next generation.

When we planted this church 8 years ago, there came a moment when we started getting more and more teenagers. And though we didn’t have anyone to help with Youth, I couldn’t ignore their spiritual needs. So, we started a Youth Group. And with my full schedule, Berea has been an amazing resource for our church to give our Youth experiences that help them follow Jesus as Lord.

And this past Monday, during free time, I sat on top of the hill (near my cabin), and started reading Psalm 126. The weather was perfect. And the view of the lake was immaculate. In the words of the Psalmist, “it was like a dream.”

When I was younger, I only dreamed of coming to lakes like the one at Camp Berea. Yes, I grew up in San Diego, which has it’s own beauty, but I’m not really a beach person. I have always been drawn to the beauty of lakes. And as I looked out at the lake, it really did feel like I was dreaming. Like I was living the dream…

Don’t get me wrong. Youth ministry is hard; especially when you’re trying to pastor a church too. But I was overwhelmed with gratitude at the opportunity to be at Berea with these kids, as their pastor.

I thought…

I love this place.

I love these kids.

I love my church.

I love my life.

…and I also thought, “How did I get here?” I know I didn’t do anything to deserve this life. Sure, I’ve been trying my best to follow hard after Jesus for 20 years, but for most of the first 24 years of my life, I wanted nothing to do with God.

I lived in sin. And the Bible says the consequence of sin is death and destruction. And I experienced that in my life. I consistently hurt myself and others because I was only interested in following my own sinful desires. Maybe this has been your story too?

It’s a pretty common story. Honestly, it’s humanity’s story. From the beginning, God created Adam and Eve (the first humans) for an incredible purpose. But they chose to live in sin instead, and destroyed their lives. And we’ve been following in their footsteps ever since. And this human-story is the background to this psalm too…

Again, verse 1 says…

Psalm 126:1 ESV

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.

But, if we look at the NLT, it gives us a little better understanding of why this is being written…

Psalm 126:1 NLT

When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!

You see, the context for this Psalm involves the Babylonian exile. A quick journey through Bible history…

God creates humans for a life of perfection. They sin and destroy that purpose.

But God loves us so much that He promises to fix the story that we’ve destroyed. And that restoration begins when He selects a group of people who become known as the nation of Israel.

The Jewish people are His special people who would help Him reconcile (save) the entire world. But - their human too - so guess what they did instead? They chose to pursue their own sinful desires.

And eventually God disciplined them by allowing the Babylonians to destroy their land, even the holy city of Jerusalem, and take them captive to Babylon.

But their story wasn’t over yet. The prophet Jeremiah told them…

Jeremiah 29:11–14 ESV

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

And after 70 difficult years later, God made good on His promise. He brought His people back to their home in Jerusalem. And it was like a dream! And that’s the story surrounding Psalm 126.

And in a similar way, that’s the story surrounding my thoughts while I was at Berea. My sin ruined my story. I deserve death and destruction. But by God’s grace, He saved me. And now, I’m living the dream. My story is a story of restoration.

And here’s the good news, God wants this to be your story too! But here’s the challenging part… you must let the Lord write your story. That’s challenging because, all too often, we want to write our own story. So…

Why let God write our story?

I got three reasons to share with you that are sourced from meditating on Psalm 126. Here’s the first one…

Because God’s a better author.

When I meditate on verse 1, I’m drawn to this idea of dreaming. And creativity seems to connect to dreams. And God, being the Creator of all things, is the most Creative Person we can know.

We see this in nature. In places like Berea. The beauty of this lake. The surrounding woods. How the sun rises over the mountain each morning and shines off the lake. All of this, God spoke it into existence with just a word. Before creation, nothing existed. No template. No example to work from. He simply spoke from His divine creativity. And when He did, it all worked.

Psalm 33:6–9 NLT

The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born. He assigned the sea its boundaries and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs. Let the whole world fear the Lord, and let everyone stand in awe of him. For when he spoke, the world began! It appeared at his command.

But His creativity didn’t stop at our landscapes, but also extended to our lives.

I love our Youth group. They are a diverse bunch of amazing young people. But being a teenager is hard. Because many times you don’t recognize differences as a gift sourced from God’s creativity. Instead, you can believe the lies sourced from sinful comparison. And the result is, you want to be like someone else instead of flourishing in how God created you.

But here’s the thing…

While God created some kids athletic, which can sometimes be the desired gifting…

He also created others to be sensitive and caring…

Or, he creates others to be musical…

We had a new kid invited to camp this year. From outward appearances, not necessarily your typical athletic teenager. But as I walked by the building at Camp known as the “A-frame,” I heard someone killin it on the piano. It was the new kid. And apparently God has gifted him with the ability to play anything he hears by ear.

And God does that (intentionally create diversity)… on purpose. Because He’s creative. He’s a better Author than we are. If it were up to us, we’d write a boring story with people who all look the same…

Actually - and biblically - it’s kinda gross. In writing to the Corinthians, Paul teaches on the importance of a unified diverse body of Christ. And how that is good. Otherwise, if everyone is the same, you’d just have a giant eyeball - and that’s gross…

…But here’s another thought I had when I was meditating on the word “dream.” We’ve forgotten how to dream.

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

I believe there’s a sense where this verse tells us God has a destiny for us. He’s got a plan for our lives. And it’s better than we can imagine. We can’t even imagine or dream what He has in store for us… AND…mostly because sin has broken us.

We’ve been beat down by sin in this world.

It’s often imprisoned us, including our ability to dream - to believe God for more.

And it’s only when we surrender our story to the Lord - the Better Author - that we experience life the way God planned it.

In fact, there is a sense where the Hebrew word that’s translated “dream,” speaks to this. It can mean to be “restored to health” or to “live again.” Sin breaks and limits our ability to dream. That’s why when we write our own story, instead of letting the Lord be the Author, it gets so messed up. We’ve forgotten how to dream.

Therefore, I don’t know about you, but I want Jesus writing my story… I want to dream again. I want the life Jesus has for me.

Here’s the second thing I thought regarding why we should let the Lord write our story…

God’s got a better process.

To those who have been around The River Church long enough, it’s no surprise that I like Hallmark movies. Don’t judge me. It’s just the way God wrote my story!

Even recently, there was this slight hope in my life that I might get the chance to be a background character in a new Hallmark movie coming out that was filmed locally. It didn’t work out, but it would’ve been like a dream come true!

But here’s the thing about Hallmark movies - as much as I love them - they’re all the same. They are super safe. Feel good. Comfortable stories. And honestly, when we write our own stories, they’re the same way.

I know that’s true when I think about my own expectations each year at Camp Berea. And usually, each year of Summer Camp, is the same story…

The Youth are hesitant the first couple of days at camp.

Many of them are coming off a full year of zero follow through on all of last year’s camp promises. Meaning they all left camp last summer promising to live on-fire for Jesus. Yet, they get home, get distracted, then for-get about Him.

But after a couple of days of camp (and no phones), their hearts soften as they are immersed in an environment focused on taking next steps towards Jesus.

…btw…

Matthew 6:33 NLT

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

In many ways, that’s what Summer Camp is. It’s exposing Youth to this kind of lifestyle. And the truth of this verse. That if they (and we) took this verse seriously, our story would seriously begin to change too!

And that’s what happens every year at Summer Camp. There seems to be this steady incline towards the end of the week, where, by the end, these kids are worshiping Jesus like never before. A mountaintop experience. And, honestly, that’s my expectation of how the story of Summer Camp will go.

But the Better Author has a better process…

In the first part of Psalm 126, the psalmist writes about a past event about when God made everything right. But in verse 4, there’s a shift in the story…

Psalm 126:4–6 ESV

Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negeb! 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.

Once again, the psalmist is asking God to restore. To bring water to the desert. And then he speaks faith-filled declarations of uncomfortable promises… that, sometimes, God’s process includes seasons of tears in order to receive seasons of joy.

And when I hear this, it makes me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t write that into the story. It doesn’t even make sense.

Why not just skip to the harvests of joy.

Or why repeat seasons of tears?

I understand tears being present when God begins to restore (and maybe some of that is at hand), but why write a story where sowing in tears is repeated?

I’m not sure I have a good answer for that. At least not yet. But here’s what I do know. The prophet Isaiah says this…

Isaiah 55:8–11 ESV

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

What this tells us is the BETTER AUTHOR has a BETTER PROCESS for writing…

It’s not always a process we understand or like, but it’s a process we can TRUST.

Again, I experienced this at Berea. God did so many good things this past week, but for real.. this was the hardest Summer Camp so far. Mostly because the story was different than years past. Instead of a straight incline to a mountaintop, it was filled with ups and downs.

Now, there were definitely more ups and than downs. But what made it challenging was the ups were really high, but the downs were really low. And as I was processing all that was happening, I was hanging onto this verse…

Psalm 126:5 ESV

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!

THIS PROCESS BECAME REAL TO ME. A lot of hard things that happened this past week that hurt my heart. I don’t understand why they happened this way. I wouldn’t personally choose to write this way, but regardless, what I do believe is…

God’s writing a better story

We need to trust the Lord with our story. It’s a story of salvation and victory, even when we don’t like or understand some of the chapters of tears included…

The greatest story in the world is the gospel. But I’ve also heard it explained this way before…

If God invited us to heaven and asked, “Can you help me solve this sin problem that’s happened in the story I’ve written?” And we said, “Sure, here’s what you should do… You should have Jesus (Son of God; 2nd Person of the Trinity) put on human flesh, live a perfect life, then die on the cross for our sins,” the angels who were present in the throne-room would cover their ears in blasphemy. Like, “How dare you suggest that story!!!”

But that’s exactly the story God wrote. And it’s better than any story of salvation we could imagine. It’s a story that results in…

Psalm 126:2–3 ESV

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; we are glad.

Maybe today, you’re in a difficult chapter…

Here’s my encouragement, don’t take the pen away from God. Open your hand and worship instead…

When we write, the best we can do is change a few temporary circumstances. But when God writes our story, He changes our destiny. And not only our destinies, but also the story of others too…

In the book of Acts, the apostle Paul is telling his story of salvation. How Jesus changed his destiny. And he includes an interesting detail…

Acts 22:20 ESV

And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’

If you don’t know, Stephen was the first martyr in the Bible - he was the first person to die for following Jesus. And here, Paul says, “Part of my story is I was the one who approved Stephen’s murder.” But then Jesus radically changed Paul’s life. And I believe God used Stephen’s story to change Paul’s story.

Because this is what God does…

Not only does He write dream-like stories…

Not only does He write better stories…

But He also uses our story to change other people’s stories…

And in the end, He gets all the glory.

In Psalm 126, God changed Israel’s story. And that story impacted the nations. They looked at what God did for Israel and said… “The LORD has done great things for them!”

God is still writing stories like that in you and me, even when we don’t understand or like the chapter. He’s writing a better story that matters. And if we will let Him, our story will impact others and also glorify God.

That’s why the apostle John wrote…

Revelation 12:11 ESV

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Sometimes people’s stories include dying for Jesus. But thru these difficult chapters, through the sowing of tears, comes victory - abundant harvests of joy.

Response:

So, as we close, let me be clear: TRUST GOD WITH YOUR STORY. Let Him be Lord over it. Meaning, He gets to write it, and we SIMPLY trust Him with every chapter - even when the paragraphs hurt - because He’s a Better Author writing a BETTER STORY.

This year at Summer Camp was a hard chapter. It was a summer of sowing with tears. But I’m believing that a harvest of joy is on the way. And God allowed me to experience a glimpse of that…

As we were driving home, I felt led to play worship music. And many of the songs we sang all week came on. And as they did, I heard teenage boy voices singing the lyrics behind me in the van. And it was like God was telling me, “See my word (my story) doesn’t return void. It accomplishes what I sent it out to do.”

One of the songs is a personal favorite by Cody Carnes called “Firm Foundation.” And the lyrics go like this…

Christ is my firm foundation The Rock on which I stand When everything around me is shaken I've never been more glad That I put my faith it Jesus 'Cause He's never let me down He's faithful through generations So why would He fail now? He won't

My brothers and sisters, we can trust God with our story. He won’t fail us. Put your faith in Jesus.

Let’s pray…

Father, You are Lord of my story. I trust You with the pen. Write whatever You want and give me the faith to sow in tears, so I can reap with joy. And in the end, my this world’s story be changed because of Your great salvation. May the world declare, “The Lord has done great things!” In Jesus name, amen.