Sowing Tears Reaping Joy

Good Evening, its good to be with you tonight, I want to share something with you that is on my heart. Just earlier this week a couple of friends and I were talking about this subject, they are pastors and we all agree this is something that our people need to hear, it is something that is crucial for us to understand as followers of Jesus Christ.

So tonight I would like to speak with you on this subject sowing tears and reaping joy. Sowing tears but reaping joy.

(Let’s pray)

In the early 1800’s a presbytirian pastor by the name of Robert Murray Mcheyne had a brief but powerful ministry, he served in a difficult region and yet 700 people would come to know Christ personally. He used to tell people and other pastors especially that they should preach to their people as though they were on the brink of eternity.

He died after a fruitful ministry at the age of 29 from typhus, his ministry affected Scotland so greatly that for years to come, people would refer to Robert Murray MCheyene in fact British expositor John Phillips in one of his commentaries told a story that after the death of RMcheyne that another pastor was so deeply concerned that his own ministry wasn’t bearing any fruit for Christ that he decided to visit the church where mcheynne had pastored and just walk around and meet some folks he had pastored.

He went there and sure enough there was a janitor hard at work in the building, and he asked the custodian in the building if he knew RMM and he said yes in fact I was the janitor when he was pastoring here, and he asked him would you give me a little tour of the church and he shook his head gladly.

While they were walking along the pastor asked him would you by any chance know some secret to his effective spirit filled ministry?

This elderly man nodded his head again and said come with me, and he took this pastor to RMM study for the most part it hadn’t changed. This janitor told this young pastor to sit down in RMM chair. He did, he said now put your elbows up on his desk.

He did, he said now put your face in your hands and he did. He said now, weep.

Weep for your congregation, weep for your community, and your world.

The psalmist writes in

Psalm 126:5 ESV

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

Psalm 126:6 NKJV

He who continually goes forth weeping, Bearing seed for sowing, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves with him.

Now the immediate context of that psalm is the return of Israel from exile, their tears are being replaced with shouts of joy, they are once again planting a harvest in their land. I find it interesting that the idea of sewing and weeping is found in the NT in fact Jesus will talk about sewing the seed of the word .

Paul uses the same analogy with sewing the work of God and bringing fruit in fact earlier in he tells the Corinthians that the letters that I wrote to you they have been bathed in my tears. Paul tells the Ephesian elders that he taught them and he ministered to them with tears and through trials. ()

A little later on he says I admonished you for three years with TEARS and you think hey I wanna be powerful in the spirit like Paul but I don’t wanna cry over people for three years that would be a sign that God wants me in another ministry. But for three years I bathed my ministry among you with tears. Now in Paul’s day there were many false gods and they were unmovable they cared nothing for people, they cared nothing about people’s pain or grief, they were called in Paul’s day by the greek word Apathea which we have translated into the word apathy.

The false gods were apathetic they didn’t care.

So this idea in the psalm to bear seed and minister the word of God and bathing your ministry in tears, i mean to serve Jesus with that kind of emotion and passion doesn’t seem to be Godlike. It certainly wouldnt have been in the first century.

But has it ever occured to you that we never read in the NT where Jesus laughed? Now I believe he did, I can see humor in many things he did and I believe Jesus being fully human laughed but were never specifically told that. What would shock the early believer is that the Son of God would weep openly.

That He wasn’t like the other so-called gods who were apathetic and didn’t care. In John’s gospel in chapter 11 you remember when He arrives at the tomb of Lazarus, lazarus has been for four days, and Jesus has intentionally waited before coming. When he shows up and stands near the tomb, the Bible tells us He was deeply moved in His Spirit and agitated, or troubled. So He is obviously not apathetc to people who are hurting.

The verb translated “troubled” was used in Paul’s day of a horse straining under the harness breathing heavily. Phillips translates it, He was deeply moved and visibly distressed.

Then of course in verse 35

JESUS WEPT

GOD CRIED

When you study that word it actually reads, Jesus BURST INTO TEARS. Even knowing what He knew He joins with us in our suffering. They taught in Jesus’ day that the soul of the dead hovered over the body for three days hoping to renter it and once they saw the decay of the fourth day they would go on to sheol believing now that they could not resuscitate the body. So what is happening here is that it is not a coincedence that Jesus intentionally waits four days.

Lazarus wont be resuscitated from nearly dying in their eyes he will be raised from the dead. Jesus will then shout that awesome shout LAZARUS COME FORTH!

Literally Lazarus HERE is what it meant, outside. Lazarus here outside.

If Jesus had not called him by name then everyone in the cemetery would have immediately risen. But Jesus confines it to this one man for now. So resurrection fruit life, followed tears of sorrow. The writer of Hebrews tells us in the days of his flesh Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears.

We have no idea of the burden that Christ carried over His mission and over the world.

What Do You Weep For?

What have you cried over?

What is it that you want so badly that it brings you to tears?

I wanna do something a little different tonight I wanna take a biography and tell you a story a true story of how this played out in the lives a one couple you may have never heard of, but I pray you never forget them.

This couple illustrates this psalm.

It all begins in 1921 David Flood and His wife Savannah and their little two year old son leave sweden for the interior of Africa they traveled with another couple the eriksons they served together in the local church, in fact Savannah was the violinist and music minister. They had committed their lives to the gospel in the interior of these unreached tribes and now they are filled with enthusiasm, and excitement and optimism as they literally hack their way through the congo and they dont have a village planned they are just gonna show up and start ministering.

To their surprise, when they come to the first village the chief wont let them in. They are afraid that these individuals will upset the tribal gods and they wont let them in.

So after weeks of hacking through the Congo, they come to another village and they are turned away again, and to another they are turned away again, and again, and again. Months of carrying their own supplies hunger and weakness, they prayed as they reached one more village that God would open that door and allow them to begin ministry.

But this chief was more hostile than any other they had come across yet, he demanded they leave. Their biography reads:

“They struggled to carry their supplies to the summit of a little hill nearby. Putting up thier tents they knew they were too weak to head out again. So they decided to clear away the brush from the top of that hill and build mud huts, and do their best to reach this hostile people.”

During the next agonizing weeks and months David and Savannah struggled to learn swahili, along with the eriksons. They did everything they could think of to do, but the chief would not change his mind and they would not be allowed in. Both couples wept as they prayed out with loud crying for God to open the door for gospel. But no door opened, in fact villagers weren’t allowed to go up the hill to visit them only one little boy was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs once a week.

David was amazed at his wife because she insisted that while they may never reach that village that they should focus their efforts on winning this child for Christ. So everytime this kid would visit them she would shower him with love and attention sewing the seeds of the gospel into his little heart and the other missionaries watched one afternoon months later as Savannah and that little boy kneel on top of that hill and with tears coming down her cheeks she heard this little boy praying in belief and repentence to Christ.

But he had to keep it a secret or else he wouldn’t be allowed to return to his village, or worse....

But to the others the eriksons this mission was a complete failure. So they decided to leave David and Savannah Flood and return to a little established mission many miles away and even though the Floods continued to battle malaria and crude conditions they decided to stay.

Sometime later Savannah announced that she was expecting their second child, now she is already weak and struggling physically and David is fearing the worst. It was really too weak and weary to travel through the jungles of the congo, without risking her life and the babies. So the baby is gonna be born in this mud hut.

The young native boy who had become a Christian carried the news back to the village and to their surprise and joy the chief allowed a midwife to come and spend time there and help her when the delivery time came. By the time it was time to have the baby Savannah was already weak with Malaria, she is in pain suffering from higgh fever and their little girl is born.

Savannah whispers that she should be called aina classic swedish name. 17 days later Savannah Flood died.

Hopeless filled with a sense of rage and bitterness David her husband digs a crude grave and buries his 27 year old wife and how he thinks can he possibly take care of a 2 year old son and now a sickly little girl without assitance and he hires a villager and several others and he takes his two children down the mountain and to that mission station, he is finished with the ministry and the gospel and he is finished with God.

As far as he is concerned God has taken the life of his bride and his ministry, refused to answer his prayer this has been nothing less than a tragic waste. The problem now is this how does he get back home, how does he get back to Sweden. This is a huge task it is difficult enough to care for a 2 year old boy out in the congo much less feeding and caring for this newborn baby girl. Well the Eriksons at that mission station have been unable to have children and he offers them the chance to adopt aina and they gladly welcome her into their family.

With that David leaves never to return again, he never even looks back. Before Aina turns 1 year old Joel and Bertha Erikson have thier food poisoned by some of the locals and within days of each other die an agonizing deaht. Aina is once again without parents, she is soon claimed by another missionary couple who choose to raise her as their own.

When she is 3 years old that adopted missionary couple leaves the mission field of the congo and settles in minneapolis minnesota.

Her swedish name will be changed to Aggie she would later write that even as a young girl she was different, she became known as the daughter of the missionary who died on the mountain, and the title of her biography is “A GIRL WITHOUT A COUNTRY” Eventually she comes to faith in Jesus attends North Central Bible college in Minn. and meets and marries a Godly young man, who was going into ministry.

The decades just fly by, she has no info about her father, she knows very little of her past. She knows her parents names David and Savannah Flood, she doesnt know the language of her homeland and really knows noting else, she has a husband a family a busy ministry, she doesnt really have time to think about it. In fact her husband Dewy Hurst has become the president of a Bible college in Seattle Washington where they move and continue in ministry into their 40’s.

Then one day, unexpectedly and she will never know how, a swedish religious magazine shows up in her mailbox, she has no idea who sent it and she can’t read it! She has no idea of the language, but she turns the pages over and their is a picture that arrests her attention. It is a picture of a grave and a small white crodd planted in the Earth.

On the cross is the name Savannah Flood.

She jumps in the car and she races to the college, there is a Swedish professor who knows the language she gives him the magazine and she stands therew breathlessly as this professor begins to translate the article. It talks about 2 missionaries as they push through the african jungle they are camping in the congo and across this burial plot and they take this picture.

Then they begin to ask around and they begin to find out that this was a missionary mother who died not long after delivering a baby, but not before leading one little boy to faith in Jesus and then the father leaves and leaves the girl in the hands of other missionaries and you know the rest of the story.

Well the article continues that Savannah flood didn’t live long enough to know that that little boy who came to Jesus was allowed to start a school and he became the teacher and he shared the gospel with his students and they all came to faith in christ then they evangelized the their parents and they came to Christ, and now that village had 600 Christians and a virbant church.

All because of the sacrifice of the tears and the sewing od David and Savannah Flood, Aina can’t believe the news she thanks God for letting her learn the truth of her parents and the history and the harvest and then that sort of the end of the story. Well for their anniversery the Bible college gave the couple a trip to Sweden where Aina could trace her history and maybe even find her father.

It wasn’t hard to find him, David Flood had remarried and now had four kids but his wife had already died, he now as an old man was wasting away as an alcaholic, and a professed agnostic who dared anyone to mention the name God to him.

After an awkward and emotional reunion with her half brothers and sister Aina brings up the idea of meeting with her father and they dont think thats a good idea and they try to discourage her from doing that. They say he is bitter he wont have anything to do with god he hates God. They tell her if you do see him, just know that whenever he hears the name of God he flies into a rage and then gets drunk again.

She was determined to see him, and eventually makes it to his apartment, the door is answered by a part time housekeeper who wasn’t very good at her job, she writes there are liquor bottles on every window seal, the table is covered with more bottles and in the far corner there is a small wrinkled old man lying on a ruffled bed his head turned toward the wall, diabetes and a stroke had crippled him to only that room for the last three years.

She writes

“I walked over to his bed and I took his hand and I said Papa, he turned and looked at me and immediately began weeping Aina, I never wanted to give you away. She said it’s alright Papa God took care of me, with that he stiffened and his tears stopped and he spat out GOD GOD FORGOT US ALL! I WAS IN AFRICA ALL THAT TIME ALL OUR EFFORTS ALL OUR PRAYERS ALL OUR SUFFERING only one little boy THEN I LOST YOUR MOTHER DONT TALK TO ME ABOUT GOD!

She writes:

“She said Papa I have got a story to tell you, you didn’t go to Africa in vain, mother didn’t die in vain. The little boy you won grew up to win that whoe village to Jesusand now 40 years later in that village there are 600 people in that village serving Christ because you followed the call of God on your life and you planted that seed God wanted you to know even today it was not in vain.”

David Flood turned slowly around until his eyes met mine, hopeful eyes longing to believe, longing for the turmoil of his tortured life to be redeemed in some way. Aina said Papa it’s a well known story now. We have a great God. The tears returned and he began to talk and by the end of that day she writes the kindness of God brought him back the prodigal to repentence and restoration.”

Aina and her husband eventually returned to America and a few weeks later David Flood her dad went home to be with Jesus.

Aina would learn that in the final moments of his life, in his delirum he had begun speaking in swahili, you think thats the end of the story, let me give you one more thing . It would be a few years later when Aina and her husband would attend an evangelism confrence in London England and some presenters were giving their reports and on report was given from a missionayr in Africa and he spoke eloquently about the spead of the gospel in Zaire and he said we have 32 mission stations a 132 bed hospital several large Christian schools and our church now have 110,000 baptized believers.

Afterwards she rushed up to him to ask him some questions. Sir could you have met a young missionary couple they were on a mission field all I know about that mission station was that it was known as Iona Hill.

OH YES! He said

I used to sell them chicken and eggs once a week, It was Savannah Flood who led me to Christ and who are you?

She said I am Savannah Floods daughter I was born on that mountain. He immediately embraced me and swayed as he held me sobbing and he said I have so often wondered what happened to that little girl whose mother died for us.

Then he said you must come back with me to the congo, she is the most famous person in our church history, and she agreed. It took months of planning but they made the long journey to the place where she was born. They finally arrived at the outpost where she lived as a toddler by the age of 3 already speaking swahili.

She visited the graves of her adoptive parents who were poisoned to death, and eventually they drove the miles back into the bush,to the village where her parents cried out to God to reach, only this time she writes there hundreds of villagers lining that dirt road as they came into view cheering and smiling and laughing they had built arches covered with flowers for her reception.

Aina writes eventually the pastor of that churchmet me up the hill followed by these believers where there was this flat place where the grove of trees and the pastor said that is where your parents hut stood. That is where you were born.

He then turned and pointed at a simple grave framed in cement and over it stood a tall beautiful palm tree that looked out over the valley. There was a cross marking the grave and the name Savannah Flood 1896-1923

Aina writes I was standing where my mother had stood, I was standing where my mother knelt and I now knew the harvest of the seed she had sewn in the heart of one little boy/.

Don’t ever overlook one little boy.

The pastor opened his Bible and he read one line

Psalm 126:5

Psalm 126:5 HCSB

Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.

Let’s Pray

Father would you lead us to cry for eternal things would you teach us to weep for a spiritual harvest for just one person, but fruit that will praise you forever in Jesus name amen.