When Love Don't Love You Back

The Waiting Place

Church, we gather here on this last Sunday of Advent, standing in that holy space between promise and fulfillment. We've been waiting—waiting like our ancestors waited, waiting like Mary waited, waiting for Love to show up and show out.

But let me ask you something this morning: What do you do when you've been sowing love—planting it, watering it, tending it—and it seems like love don't love you back?

The Tears of the Sowers

Psalm 126 opens with a dream: "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed." Our people knew something about dreaming while in captivity. They knew about singing the Lord's song in a strange land. They knew about loving a God who seemed silent, praying prayers that felt like they bounced off the ceiling.

They went out weeping, carrying seed to sow. Can you imagine? Crying while you're planting. Working while you're wondering. Believing while you're barely holding on.

That's the thing about sowing in tears—you're doing the work of faith even when your heart is breaking. You're putting love into the ground even when it feels like love has walked out on you.

When Love Don't Love You Back

Some of you came in here this morning, and you've been loving hard:

Loving children who won't call you back

Loving a community that's turned its back on you

Loving a church that's hurt you

Loving a God who feels far away

You've been sowing seeds of kindness, seeds of forgiveness, seeds of hope—and the harvest seems like it's never coming.

You're struggling just to keep believing. The weight of unreturned love is strangling the hope right out of you. You're fighting to breathe, fighting to stay faithful, fighting to keep planting when you can't see the harvest.

But the psalmist says something powerful: "Those who sow with tears WILL reap with songs of joy."

Not "might." Not "maybe." WILL.

A Song of Deliverance

This psalm is a song of deliverance, church. It's the testimony of people who were delivered from Babylon, brought back from captivity, liberated when they thought they'd never see home again.

And I came to tell you this morning: God is still in the deliverance business.

The same God who spared their lives, who broke their chains, who brought them home singing—that's the God we serve today.

So let me share with you a word, a poem, a testimony of what deliverance looks like:

Come Celebrate With: A Song of Deliverance

Come celebrate with those whom the Lord has brought back—

From captivity to freedom, from darkness to light,

From the chains that held them to the songs in the night.

Come Celebrate With...

Come celebrate with the mother

Who was struggling to breathe under bills and despair,

But God made a way when there wasn't no way,

Spared her life from the strangling grip of anxiety—

Now she's breathing in freedom, exhaling in praise.

Come celebrate with the father

Who battled addiction's chokehold on his soul,

Every day a struggle, every night a fight,

But deliverance came like the morning light,

God broke the chains and spared his life.

Come celebrate with the sister

Who was drowning in depression's dark water,

Struggling to survive, strangling on sorrow,

But the Lord reached down and pulled her up—

Now her mouth is filled with laughter,

Her tongue with songs of joy.

Come celebrate with the brother

Who was trapped in the prison of unforgiveness,

Strangling on bitterness, struggling with rage,

But liberation came when he learned to release,

And God spared his life from the poison within.

The Testimony of Deliverance

"When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dreamed."

We were struggling—

Struggling to believe, struggling to hold on,

Struggling to see past the pain.

We were strangling—

Strangling on fear, strangling on doubt,

Strangling on the weight of what we carried.

But God...

But God stepped in like He always does,

Spared our lives when death was knocking,

Brought deliverance when we were bound,

Gave liberation when we were locked down.

Already and Not Yet

This Advent, we wait in the tension:

Already delivered, but not yet complete.

Already freed, but still fighting.

Already liberated, but still longing.

Come celebrate with the Israelites—

Delivered from Egypt through the Red Sea,

Yet wandering forty years to reach the promise.

Come celebrate with Joseph—

Loved his brothers, but they threw him in a pit,

Struggling in slavery, strangling on injustice,

But God spared his life and brought deliverance,

Made him second in command,

And he said: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."

Come celebrate with Daniel—

Delivered from the lions' den that should have devoured him,

God spared his life when the enemy meant to destroy.