I think I’m right in saying that we all face difficult times, right? Well, maybe you don’t, but I certainly do. And so this morning we are looking at Psalm 126. And I’ve entitled it trusting God’s faithfulness.  Trusting God’s faithfulness.

This Psalm is very short. It’s only six verses and the first three are very joyful.

There’s a lot of joy, a lot of happiness. Then come into the second three and it’s actually really quite sad and a bit depressing.

So I hope you are able to catch something of the spirit of the Psalm and the mood of the Psalm. This Psalm is one of about 15 Psalms that’s entitled the Songs of Ascent. If you have a hard copy Bible, probably the heading at the top of the Psalm will be a Song of Ascent.

They were probably sung during the three annual festivals when the procession would ascend to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was on a hill and they would recite these Psalms as they were going to their festivals and returning to Jerusalem. During the reciting of the Psalm, they would be reflecting back on the gracious acts of God and especially the release from the Babylonian captivity which they had been in for 70 years.

This release from captivity took place in 538 BC, so a long time, and it was in fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos. Now the Israelites knew about these promises that there would be a release but when it actually happened, it just happened so suddenly, it was like a dream. When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, it was as though we were just like a dream.  It couldn’t be real. It was like a dream. Overwhelming.

It came in such an amazing way and they were like those who dreamed. It had been a long and a very dreary 70 years in captivity. The heart of the returnees, they were just filled with such joy and happiness, shouts of joy for all that God had done for them.

Even the Gentiles who were looking on, they recognized that this could only have been accomplished by God. No other way could it have happened. Verse 2 says, then it was said among the nations, these Gentile nations were saying, the Lord has done great things for them. They recognized that it was God who had done great things for Israel. They were so ecstatic that the Psalmist adds in verse 3, the Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy. They were just so happy.

Can you get the feeling? They were just so overjoyed. However, the current situation that they were in was not so joyful. It was quite depressing.

They knew that if there was to be any change in their situation, God was going to have to step in, in an amazing way, just as he had done for the release from captivity. At the root of their confidence and their hope in their present situation was remembering this experience of the release of captivity, from the Babylonian captivity.

I believe that our takeaway from this psalm is God’s faithfulness in the past give us hope and confidence for the difficulties that we’re facing today.

God’s faithfulness in the past, thinking back to what has happened, it gives us a hope and a confidence that God can do it again. He can do it now. He can do it in the future.

Our early years as missionaries in Hong Kong were challenging for a number of different reasons, but one of our biggest challenges was finance. Now WEC, the mission organization I belong to, it’s a faith mission. One of the policies is that we do not ask for funds, either in person or in a newsletter.  We get down on our knees and believe that when God calls, he will also provide.

Well, our early years in Hong Kong were, as I say, challenging. Sometimes our monthly support was not enough to pay the rent, let alone to buy food for ourselves and for our one-year-old daughter.  Yet, God had very clearly and very specifically promised us that he would supply all of our needs. Now, I recall at one time, you could buy three eggs for one Hong Kong dollar. That’s about 25 New Zealand cents.  But when you don’t have much money, even to spend a dollar, you think twice before you spend it. I didn’t have any eggs. I wanted to give one to our daughter, but there were none in the house.

We were crying. We were praying to the Lord.  Lord, you promised that you would provide. Then the phone rang.  It was a retired missionary couple. The wife, Sally, she said to me, Eleanor, we’ve had these lovely Chinese visitors come and visit us. She said, they brought all these eggs.  She said, I just don’t know what to do with them. She said, could you use some? We saw God provide for us in many similar ways to that. However, this was to teach us that God is faithful and we can trust him, even if it’s for one dollar for an egg.

Now, fast forward 20 plus years. Back in Hong Kong, we felt the time was right to purchase an office. Now, we had been renting up until this stage.  We had a budget. We had saved a sizable amount for a deposit. We’d been in contact with a land agent, and we were looking at different properties.  We must’ve looked at over more than 40 different properties, but for various reasons, either it wasn’t suitable or there was something wrong. As we were coming back to the office after having looked at yet another property, our office administrator said to us, oh, Eleanor, she said, the land agent’s just contacted me. There’s another property that’s just come on the market.

She said, it’s in the block next to where we’re renting. And then she said, oh, forget it. She said, it’s over our budget.  Oh, I said, it doesn’t cost anything to look. Oh, okay. We made arrangements and we went and looked at the property.  As soon as I walked in the door of that 12th floor office, I knew God spoke and he said, this is the office for WEC. I knew clear as a bell. The challenge, the price was over 2 million Hong Kong dollars.

20 years previously, we were trusting God for small amounts. Could we trust him for this large amount? God’s faithfulness in the past gives us hope and a confidence for the difficulties of today. Well, we did.  But God had been training us over the years to trust him for every provision, whether it’s small or large. God is faithful and day by day, we saw his faithfulness and you can see the same too in your own lives. God taught us through these experiences and gave us confidence to keep moving forward.

And just as God had been faithful in the past, so he would continue to be faithful to us in the future. And this is what the Israelites were experiencing as they sang the psalm ascending to Jerusalem. They were reflecting back on the faithfulness of God, releasing them from the captivity of Babylon.

Could he do now for their current situation? The surrounding nations recognized that God had accomplished it and the Lord has done great things for them in verse 2. They were ecstatic and then they went on to say, the Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy. They were just so encouraged when they reflected back on the past.

What’s the challenge or the difficulty that you’re facing at the moment? Maybe it’s an unbelieving family member, maybe it’s finance, maybe it’s healing, maybe it’s a job or a difficult situation.

I just want to encourage you to think back over the past few months or years and remember the ways that God has been faithful to you and provided for you and answered your prayer. And just as he’s done it in the past, he will continue to do it. And let it be an encouragement to you as you reflect back on the past, just as God has been faithful, so he will continue to be faithful.

The joy that the Israelites were basking in, recalling all that God had done, it didn’t last forever for the psalmist and his generations. Because those first few years when they went back into the land, it was filled with hard work, trying to get established, trying to rebuild the temple, trying to rebuild a society that had just been totally destroyed. It involved unrewarding labour, hard work, even weeping.

And it was in this land that had been untouched for 70 years that they were trying to eke out an existence. And you all know what it’s like if you leave your lawn or your garden for a couple of weeks, what happens? I mean, the weeds and the grass, they just go crazy, right? Seventy years, this land had not been touched, pretty hard going. The returnees, their prayer, it reflects the harshness of their existence.

Though they were restored, nature was not smiling at them. And so they prayed for a restoration. They prayed and asked God to restore their fortunes.

Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. They were wanting another miracle, as what happened in the release from the Babylonian captivity. Now, the Negev is a desert area in the southern part of Israel.  It has gullies that were once rivers.  Now remember this is a desert area, so it doesn’t rain very often.  But on the rare occasion that there was any rain, the rain would come down in streamlets, and it would collect in these gullies, and then it would flow down. And sometimes it was so rushing, it could be devastating with the speed. But there was that beautiful, sparkling water, like streams in the Negev.

It was an amazing phenomenon. It wasn’t ordinary, as you can imagine. You don’t find rivers in the desert.  Go through the desert road, you don’t see too much in the way of green grass and rivers, only when it happened to rain.

And the psalmist who has felt his life was like a desert at the time when he wrote the psalm. And so the idea of this streams in the desert, it was a longing for God to step in with a miracle and to help them.

The way that the gullies filled up so suddenly, it was like the release from captivity. It happened so suddenly. These things just happened so suddenly.

God could do it. Lord, would you do it again? Restore our fortunes. And so it’s against the background of this assurance that the request is made to God, asking him to bring about a miracle in their current situation.

The streams in the Negev, it just reminded the people that they could expect nothing less than a miracle. In 1996, during our ministry with WEC in Hong Kong, new leaders had taken over the work that we had established of the base, the Hong Kong WEC base. So that left us free to develop a vision that both we had and our WEC international leaders had of starting a missionary training college of Asia.

Now WEC has six missionary training colleges around the world. There’s one in Gordonton, East West College of Intercultural Studies. And so we were able to start up a missionary training college in Hong Kong.

We got the college up and running. And again, that was another story of God’s leading and his provision. Well, four years into the program, we needed to move to larger premises.  Now, this is before the time that we had bought an office. So, we’re sort of in the middle phase there and we found a suitable office.  I mean, our library had about 6,000 books. We had equipment. We needed classroom space.  So, we found a suitable premise and we had to do renovations. And as often happens, the renovations cost more than we anticipated. And we had used up all the available finance, but we still had to pay rent the next month.

So, what were we going to do? Well, right at that time, the lecturer was the leader of the WEC college in the Netherlands. She was teaching a block course for us. And when she knew of our financial predicament, she said, don’t worry.  She said, we can loan you the money. We’ve got money in our account. We can put it in your account, and you just pay us back when you get the money.  Right? Simple answer. God’s provision, right? So, we said, well, could we pray about it? So, we prayed, but we felt a hesitancy that this was not right. And so we declined the offer.  I mean, were we crazy? But we just felt God saying, no, this is not my answer. So, we continued on day by day until the rent was due. And just at the 23rd hour before the rent was due, a large deposit was made into the bank account of the missionary training college of Asia, 120,000 Hong Kong dollars.  It came from outside of Asia. It was from a group that we’d never even heard of. And actually, I had such little faith.  I wrote to them and said, are you sure that this gift is for us? How did God, how did those people hear about the missionary training college of Asia? How did they know that we were facing a financial crisis? The God of heaven and earth, the God of the missionary training college of Asia, your God, my God, he knew of our need before we even called. And he was touching hearts to provide for us. Such experiences, they give us confidence that we can trust God for the challenge that we’re facing now, today.

The request is made in verse four, restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. And it’s followed by verses five and six, the answer. Now the first image, the streams in the Negev, it’s very quick and very fast.  But then the second image is much slower, more difficult. It involved a long period of slow and difficult work, ploughing, sowing, watering, reaping, and then bringing in the harvest, quite different to streams in the Negev. It was a very common ancient idea that the time of sowing should be considered as a time of mourning.

1 Corinthians 15:36 says, “you foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”  And there are many Egyptian examples that sowing was accompanied by the singing of funeral hymns, indicating that there would be a dying and a rising again from the seed. And I understand that there is a German proverb, “do not laugh when you sow, otherwise you must weep when you reap.”

And of course, we have the words in John 12:24 that Jesus himself said, “except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it will not bear much fruit.”  It’s faith in the miraculous life-giving power of God that transforms our difficulties now and brings God blessing. The divine law, sow in tears, reap in joy.

They’re inseparable. Suffering and death, they’re part of God’s work of redemption. Jesus being our supreme example, the death of Jesus and the wonderful work of grace that was brought through his death.

And so for us too, we need to keep remembering the past, be encouraged by it, keep praying, keep doing the work that God has given us, because he is the one that will send the blessing. Though the work may be difficult, laborious, even uncertain, the Lord is with us in our various endeavours to bring blessing to him.

At East West College out in Gordonton, one of our regular prayer requests is for student applications.  They certainly don’t happen like streams in the Negev.

So, we pray, and just three weeks ago, I sat across the table at lunchtime from a lady and I heard her story. Do you remember last year throughout New Zealand, an organization called The Send held meetings in various towns and cities throughout New Zealand, and they had both an evangelistic and a mission emphasis

And God spoke to this lady way back last year and challenged her about being involved in missions. Some months later, one of our WEC reps was holding a mission focused barbecue in her area and invited her to come. So, she came, she heard the missionary speaker and she was challenged again.  She was invited then to a five day mission orientation camp over in Great Barrier Island, and she went. She heard about East West College of Intercultural Studies. And the college has an offer if you’re seriously thinking about applying, but you’re not really sure, you can come for three days and stay for free and be part of the program and just really be seeking the Lord.  Is this the right place for me to study? So, she came and that’s how I was talking to her. She has now submitted her application to start studies in July. Now, God first touched her last year, right? It’s been a nine to 12 month journey in answer to prayer.

But our mobilizers tell us that’s fast. They were saying that on average, it takes five years when God first speaks to somebody about being involved in missions, to when they actually do something concrete, either to apply for training or to join a mission organization. Five years.

Mission mobilization is not like streams in the desert. It’s not overnight, but it’s like the farmer who goes out to sow and they must wait for the harvest.

There’s a special type of bamboo that grows in Asia.  It’s called Moso Bamboo. It’s amazing that it grows to very extraordinary heights and also amazing speed, something like 60 feet in six weeks. Amazing.  But before that growth spurt, the seed lies in the dark beneath the ground for five years. Five years, nothing’s happening. Well, it seems like nothing happening, but those farmers who make a profitable living from this type of bamboo, they know what it is to be patient.  They would have given up long ago and changed crops if they weren’t confident that plenty was going on under the ground. All the watering and the waiting and the perseverance is worth it for the profit that they get from this bamboo.

You see, the assurance of God’s blessing, it’s an encouragement for us to not sit idly and think, oh, well, God will do it all.  I’ll just leave it to him. No, we need to be there. We need to be on our knees.  We need to be praying, asking the Lord, Lord, what is it that you want me to be doing?  The same for the Israelites, they had to plant the seed, but what happened if it didn’t come to anything? They might not have enough seed to plant for next year. They might suffer even greater financial loss. This was the trust and the faith that they had to have in their sowing and their reaping.

The words of assurance in verse five bring us back to those songs of joy, which the Psalm opened up with. The Psalm began with expressions of joy and it finishes with expressions of joy. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.  Those who go out weeping, carrying a seed to sow will return with songs of joy, bringing in the sheaves. The Psalm concludes with the expectation of another miracle that’s going to happen. God is faithful and he will continue to be faithful.

His faithfulness does not stop today just because we’re facing a difficulty. No, God is faithful and this Psalm attests to God’s love and kindness and assures us that people in any age that our God is faithful. Remember our takeaway, God’s faithfulness in the past, it gives us hope and a confidence to face the difficulties of today.

What have you been praying for? A family member that hasn’t come to the Lord? A job, finance, health? What is it that you’re praying for? Remember God’s faithfulness. He is faithful and he will continue to be faithful. How can I be so sure? I know, I’ve experienced it, you’ve experienced it.

Trust God for the challenge that you’re facing today. God is faithful and he will answer your prayer.