Do you think God’s grace will show up tomorrow?

Steve Brown:
Do you think God’s grace will show up tomorrow? Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you’ve suffered too long under a do more, try harder religion, Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captives free. Steve invited Matt Heard to teach us this week. Find more from Matt at ThriveFullyAlive.com he’s a speaker, teacher, writer, pastor, coach, and author.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hey Matt. What a great week.

Matt Heard:
It really has just been.

Steve Brown:
This is the basic stuff of Key Life. We’re about grace, radical grace, radical freedom, and surprising faithfulness. And If you’re just joining us you missed, you can go back into the archives and you can catch up on this program. We’ve been looking at Psalm 126. Let me read it to you, and then I’ll let Matt set it up and tell us where we’re going now. This Psalm goes this way.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed, only dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us; and we are filled with joy. Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy! Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Matt Heard:
It’s awesome, isn’t it? It’s about grace. Word grace doesn’t appear in there, but as we’ve talked about, the whole Bible is about grace. And we’ve been doing the life math, Steve and I have been joking, we’ve come up with the phrase, the math of grace. And looking at this Psalm, the math equation, hate to put it in that way, but just think of a whiteboard, you’ve got me, desperation is the first ingredient, added to intervention equals amazement. And then one other thing that we’ll get to today, but it’s going back to it. It’s me owning my desperation in verse one of this passage. They’re just, they said it was so bad. The only way out we thought was by dream. Verse two, God intervenes. And so, they embrace their desperation, but also God’s intervention. And then in verse three, they celebrated, they were filled with joy because God had done great things. But now we’ve got something that goes along with that amazement and it’s the rest of the Psalm. Those last three verses that you just read about do it again. And he’s saying.

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.

So, there are aspects of the song that are past tense. They saw God do it in the past, but they’re also in a situation that they’re needing them to do it again. And they’re making the statement that he’s going to. And so often, you know, what’s that phrase?

Don’t forget in the dark, what God taught you in the light.

And so often we forget, we’re forgetful and the Psalmist talks about remembering, we remember God’s goodness. And we repeat that. So, it’s dealing with tomorrow. Will there be enough grace tomorrow and amaze, the sister of amazement is anticipation that I’ll be amazed tomorrow as well. Now, I’ve got to keep owning up and being authentic about my desperation.

Steve Brown:
It’s not something that stops.

Matt Heard:
Right. And continue to delve deep into God’s intervention, you know, where he reveals it in his word. But it’s that rhythm back and forth that fuels my amazement, but then equips me for having a sense of confidence in our anticipation about tomorrow.

Steve Brown:
Most of us are worried about tomorrow. I have a friend, his name’s Cleve Bell, and he’s the head of Riverside Ministries, one of the most creative prison ministries in the country. But Cleve was in jail up for first degree murder when grace intervened, changed his life, made things good. And he kids about sometimes looking at people be bopping. And he’ll say, Lord, could you put $20,000 in my bank account? And God says, Cleve, how much do you need? And he said, well, that ain’t the point. You know, it’d be nice to have $20,000. And then God says, where did I find you, Cleve? And he said, be bopping, and he said, you’ll get it when you need it because I was faithful in the past, I’ll be faithful in the future.

Matt Heard:
I love that. You know, I’m going back to verse four.

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

Basically, in the Hebrew, I think that means do it again, Lord. You did it once. And the Negeb is this just barren desert, but not always. There are those rainy seasons when the waters come and the floods happened. And then the barrenness is turned into beauty where the flowers bloom and crops bloom and then it goes away. But they know, okay, the rains will come again, restore our fortunes. Do it again, God. And having therefore a sense of, okay, anticipation about tomorrow. And part of my deal is when I’m not anticipating tomorrow with hopefulness, it’s because I’m forgetting my amazement today, which means, okay, I’m either not embracing my desperation or I’m not embracing God’s intervention, you know, which is when I do both, then I can say, okay, I’m going to trust him for tomorrow. I’m a huge Auburn football fan, which I’m in counseling over it. But I’ve grown up the, you know, a whole family were Auburn people. And so, Auburn games especially the Auburn Alabama game. But a lot of them,

Steve Brown:
I just wanted you to know I’m in Alabama fan.

Matt Heard:
Yeah, whatever. That doesn’t surprise me at all. But you know, grace reigns. But there are times I can’t see the game, but I DVR it, I record it. And there are people every now and then, they know I’m an Auburn fan. In fact, it’s happened a couple of times in church where I’ve been speaking somewhere on a Saturday night and people, they’ve been playing on Saturday. I don’t know the outcome, but I’ve recorded and somebody comes up and either says, I’m sorry about the game or congratulations about it. And I hate both of those, but when they say, Hey, that was awesome how Auburn pulled that out. I don’t like it because it takes away the surprise, but at the same time I do like it because then when I watch the recording and I just watch it the whole way through and Auburn fumbles and they go behind 10 points and they throw an interception and a pick six and they get behind by another three or whatever. I’m sitting back eating my popcorn and,

Steve Brown:
as you know

Matt Heard:
because I know, okay, I know the outcome. And that’s what they’re saying here is, you know what? He showed up yesterday. He’s going to show up tomorrow.

Steve Brown:
You know, there’s an Old Testament passage where memorials are made out of rocks.

Matt Heard:
Standing stone.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. What are those?

Matt Heard:
It’s

Steve Brown:
It’s kind of, when your children ask, what’s that about? It’s a memorial where you can say that’s where God intervened and made a difference. And you know what we need to be doing with today’s grace, making a pile of rocks just to remind us, so when we look to the future, we don’t get unduly upset.

Matt Heard:
Yeah. And it’s not just, those standing stones are not just a rear view mirror thing. They are saying, okay, this is what God did in the past and therefore we could trust that he’s going to do the same tomorrow. And it’s, I mean, often what our rear view mirror gets bigger than our windshield, but usually it’s in the form of regret or sadness. But even when God has done something great, it’s amazing how quick I forget

Steve Brown:
Oh, me too.

Matt Heard:
how God showed up. And I’m thinking, Oh, but God, and then I come back to the Psalm and think, Oh, okay, I can look at tomorrow. What is the Psalm in, Psalm 31 where it describes the woman that is, she says.

She’s clothed with strength and dignity and she can laugh at the days to come.

Steve Brown:
That’s us.

Matt Heard:
How do we laugh at the days to come? It’s your book, Laughter and Lament. I mean, we lament and then we laugh because God shows up.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And we can trust him to always show. I mean, if he did it in the past, he is a God who will do it in the future. And we’ll never leave.

Matt Heard:
But the danger is me then assuming that tomorrow, my anticipation just is about his intervention. Here’s the encouraging thing is what Jesus said.

In this world, you will have trouble.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Right.

Matt Heard:
And so, okay, this is not a statement that says, okay, there’s not going to be anything difficult tomorrow.

Steve Brown:
Oh no.

Matt Heard:
It’s going to be, I’m going to, I’ve got sin past tense, but also future tense. But what I can anticipate is not being free of the difficulty, but I can anticipate what did Jesus say in John 16:33, he says.

In this world, you will have trouble.

By the way, in Greek, that means in this world, you will have trouble. Don’t try to get out of it. Don’t think the gospel is a get out of jail free card.

But take heart, I’ve overcome the world and therefore you can approach tomorrow with anticipation.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so good. You know, and we need to hear that message as Americans and Canadians because sometimes Christians begin to think we’ve lost this battle, it’s over. Or maybe personally we think we’ve lost this battle, it’s over. And we think that we might as well just sit in a corner and whine, stop it. Because the anticipation that God gives you is enough to get you through the darkness, to the light. You think about that.

Matthew Porter:
Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank you Steve Brown and Matt Heard. Our theme this week was Amazed by Grace and Matt sure delivered the goods. Remember to re listen to this series or maybe you just want to share it with a friend. Be sure to swing by keylife.org and don’t forget tomorrow we have Friday Q&A with Steve and our good friend Pete Alwinson. One listener called in with this question, can we really do greater things than Jesus? That is actually a really great question. Tune in to hear Steve and Pete give you their answer. Well, we do live in dark days and you might be wondering what am I supposed to do? Steve spoke about this in a message called We Will Be Restored. Can we send you that sermon on CD for free? If so, call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. Or to mail your request, just go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Just ask for your free CD called, We Will Be Restored. Finally, if you value the work of Key Life, will you join us in that work through your financial support? You could charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or you can give safely and securely by text. Just text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Just text that to 28950 Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.