Psalm 127 (Unless The Lord)

Well, as Kendall said, when we first came together here this evening, and although he wasn't here with us last week, it is just good to see everyone again.

You forget sort of how special it is that we're able to gather every week as a community when we haven't been able to do it in so long.

So it's really nice to see everyone again just seven days after seeing everyone, just most people here last week.

So, again, it's good to see you all here. Last week, for those of you who were here, we spent some time discussing a psalm that has been a favorite of mine for quite some time.

It was Psalm 73, and it's been a favorite because, and I shared this last week again, because of the ways that it really encompasses,

I think, so much of the life of the believer. There's a great comfort in God's care that we see for Asaph as he journeys through those 28 verses, but also a great crisis over God's promises.

There's also a comfort in God's faithfulness to those promises and a celebration ultimately of God's salvation and then a commitment to God's kingdom.

He says at the end that he's going to go and tell of all your works. So, again,

I really love that psalm for the way that it encompasses so much of our lives. And this psalm, again, it teaches us the importance of resting in the promises of God.

It starts with that great promise of God's goodness to Israel, and again, that psalm teaches us it's important to remember that as opposed to getting caught up looking around at the world to see the circumstances that we have or the circumstances that others have and being convinced that those things have something to say about who we are or where we are.

Psalm 73 also teaches us that, again, God is truly good to his people no matter what the temporal things might have them think themselves.

And this week, I wanted to spend some time considering another psalm that has also been quite impactful for me.

Not quite as long as Psalm 73 has been really hitting me, but this particular psalm,

Psalm 127, has become a favorite as of late. If you've been joining our weekly gatherings while we run to the stay -at -home orders, while we're doing things virtually, then you've likely heard me actually make reference to this psalm a couple of times, you know, as we're all sort of bearing through a difficult time, an uncertain time, you know, some of us seeing people that we care about, people that we work with, people that we know and love getting sick, even dying, some of us losing our jobs or seeing people that we know and love lose their jobs, and some of us, and this is a group that I fall into, you know, really feeling the pressure of potentially losing my job due to the economic impact of the coronavirus shutdowns and all that came with it, you know.

And as we were living through this time, I actually, I heard this psalm, Psalm 127, being sung, and I was truly gripped by the words, and I still am to be honest.

And it's funny, it was a testimony to me of the living, of the way that God's Word is so living and active.

You know, I've read Psalm 127, I don't know how many times, you know, several times, and yet it never hit me quite like it did when

I heard the words being sung over me. I was laying in bed, you know, a few weeks ago listening to the song and thinking about what

I would do if I got laid off, you know, how we would get by as a family, we just bought a house, you know, this, that, you know, what if the roof springs a leak and, you know, we're not ready to pay to replace it.

But again, hearing this psalm being sung over me, God's Word was like a balm to my soul in that moment.

I immediately realized just the folly of my thoughts. You know,

I don't want to build things up too much for tonight, what you're going to hear me share with you tonight, because it will pale in comparison to what the truth of the psalm has for us as Christians.

So before I go any further, let's open up our Bibles to Psalm 127, and I'm going to be reading this particular passage,

Psalm 127, from the ESV translation, although everything else that will, each of the other references will be from the

New American Standard, which we typically use, and there's a reason for that, which I'll share a little bit later on.

Psalm 127, starting in verse 1, hear the Word of the

Lord. It says, Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.

Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word. God, we thank you for the great truths that are certainly bound up in these five verses here in Psalm 127.

God, we pray that as we consider these verses this evening, that you would make clear to us the things that you would have us to learn.

God, you would make clear to us what it is that you intended for your people to know about you, to know about who you are as our

God. Lord, we pray that you would clear our minds of distractions.

Lord, help me to get out of the way as well in this time. Lord, help me to speak faithfully and speak rightly of you,

Lord, your character and your Scripture. Father, we thank you that we can trust that the work you've begun within each of us, you will see through to completion.

And so we celebrate that this evening. You will continue that work in us as we learn from your

Word. In Christ's name, amen. A friend of mine was recently recounting to me of a time when he was invited to share a little bit about his career with his child's homeschool co -op group, kind of like a class, and it was similar to like a parent's career day.

And he told me how he was excited and really honored, actually, to share some of his story, give the kids a glimpse into what the future may hold for them and how enjoyable it is, he's an engineer, how enjoyable an engineering career can be.

But even more importantly to him, this was an opportunity to share with this group of homeschoolers and their parents the real possibilities that exist for them professionally.

He's been very successful and he didn't want them to think, as it can be commonly thought, that they're somehow going to be limited in what they can do someday because of the nature of their schooling, right, that they didn't go to public school or private school or anything like that, but that rather they were homeschooled.

He was also obviously homeschooled throughout his education up until he went to college.

And after he shared with the group about the success that he's been able to have professionally, he told me a woman from the class, one of the mothers of the children, came up to thank him and she just noted how amazing it was that God would bless him in such an amazing way, that God would direct his life toward such success.

And as I was sort of nodding along with the story, adding, that's right, you know, people who know me, that's how I normally would nod along to a story, that's right, that's right.

And as he's recounting the words, I said the same thing and he kind of stopped and he revealed that he was actually offended by the idea that this woman, that I could agree with this woman or that she could even say that to him, you know, he was offended at the thought that his success was not actually his success but that it was rather the gift of God.

You know, this idea that the success that he had achieved was not the product of his own ability or the choices that he had made.

It wasn't one that, at least at that time, he was willing to be convinced otherwise on. He'd worked hard, certainly, made a lot of difficult choices, made sacrifices, and yet somehow now someone was going to tell him that those things that he did, they had really nothing to do or they weren't the reason why he had accomplished or why he's accomplished in his life what he's accomplished.

And I think that this position is not really surprising, right? I mean, especially in our culture, it's not a surprising thing to want to take pride in and where we've gotten to, right, the things that we've achieved.

I mean, almost all of us are told from a very young age that if we just set our mind to something and we work hard enough, then we can do or be whatever we want in life.

I know I was convinced very early on that if I worked hard enough, I was going to be a professional football player.

And I bet if you even ask Lena, she'll probably tell you that I still think there's a chance I'll be suiting up for the Patriots someday. But certainly if you ask my dad, he'll tell you there's a shot.

But you know, we're taught this from a very young age, right, that it's ingrained in who we are as individuals and probably more broadly in our

American culture as a whole, you know, that most of us have grown up and that we can really earn our way if we just work hard enough and we really want it bad enough.

But what does the Bible have to say about this idea, right? As we already read, unless the

Lord, right? So let's take a closer look now at Psalm 127, and we'll see if we can pull out a few applications here of this idea, unless the

Lord. So we'll start again in verse one, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Now it's quite clear here at the outset that Solomon, who's the author of this Psalm, he's making a claim about God and man, namely, he's claiming that ultimately man, despite man's efforts, it's

God who controls outcomes. He's claiming that God is sovereign. And this term sovereign is a word that gets thrown around a lot in Christian circles.

You know, people want to make an effort to make a number of points about God and the nature of God, but most often we'll hear it as people debate the idea of God's sovereignty and salvation.

That may be where you have heard the term before, if you haven't, or if you're unfamiliar with it, excuse me. But what does the term actually mean?

John Piper defines sovereignty, I think, well and very simply and clearly as God's sovereignty as his right and his power to do all that he decides to do.

So his right and power to do all that he decides to do. And so when we say that God is sovereign over something, we mean that he has the right to do whatever he wants with it, and he also has the power to do whatever he wants with it.

And it's important that both of these aspects, right and power, are included in this definition of sovereignty, because one without the other is an entirely insufficient sovereignty.

You know, imagine a God who had the right to do something, but he lacked the power to get it done. Or a

God who was able to do what he wanted, powerful enough to do it, but didn't have the dominion or the right to do it when he wanted to.

And so here in verse 1, we have the claim from Solomon that God has the right and the power to determine the fate of a home, not the man who builds it.

God is sovereign over the home, not the man. And with the word house here, obviously we can't assume that he's just referring to the actual building of it, the construction of it.

With the word house, he's really encompassing all of domestic life, the family, its livelihood, its physical and relational health and safety, its longevity.

Unless the Lord is building these things, anyone else can try, but they labor in vain.

Similarly, as we continue in verse 1, it says, unless the Lord watches over the city, unless God protects and provides for the city, the commonwealth, the nation, the world, then the men and women who labor to protect it, they do so in vain.

The watchman watches over the city in vain. Now, it's not hard, obviously, in our moment in history to believe that the efforts of politicians are ultimately in vain.

It seems pretty clear oftentimes, but this was an interesting idea to consider as I sort of sat with this this week.

Because I was curious, I took a moment to research the party platforms for the two major political parties in American politics today, the

Democratic and Republican parties. And I found these statements, I'm going to read to you, that sort of summarize their platforms and they were kind of the summaries to the preambles of the platforms.

These are from 2016, the last time that they had their conventions. For the

Democrats, the kind of summary statement of what they are about, their party is about, says what makes

America great is our unerring belief that we can make it better.

We can and we will build a more just economy, a more equal society and a more perfect union because we are stronger together.

And for Republicans, it wasn't too different, to be honest. It says this platform is many things, a handbook for returning decision making to the people, a guide to the constitutional rights of every

American and a manual for the kind of sustained growth that will bring opportunity to all those on the sidelines of our society.

And so both sides, they have goals to improve the society, they both want to move in the direction that they each believe is the right direction for the people that they govern.

They both want to build in a certain direction. Democrats even use the word build. And yet God says that unless he watches over the city, unless he blesses their endeavors by using them as instruments to do his will, then they'll actually achieve nothing of the progress that they're desiring.

You know, we can dream as people, we can dream, we can work to build. But unless the

Lord builds, it's a vain attempt. That's what we're reading here in Psalm 127.

And so again, this is a pretty jarring realization to my friend, right, who

I was having that conversation with, to each of us even. It's the ideals that most of us grew up with that we can accomplish anything that we set our minds to and nothing can get in our way.

I think that's because, you know, the reason why this is pretty jarring, I think it's because the fact that God is sovereign can be a scary thought to wrestle with.

I think it scares us into thinking that if this is true, if God is the one who has the right and the power to determine the course of a household or the course of a life or the course of a commonwealth or an institution, then what is it that I am actually in control of?

What is it that I'm actually working towards even? Why am I even bothering to do it? And so if we submit ourselves to this belief, it can be a scary road to head down of wondering why we do what we do.

And we see this struggle in verse two as we continue. It says, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.

It's in vain that you work hard. It's in vain that you get up early and stay up late.

It's in vain even that you're frugal. This phrase eating the bread of anxious toil is a way of saying that you eat anxiously.

You know, you eat with care and prudence. You don't indulge or gorge yourself by eating presumptuously, you know, that you're taking your next meal for granted.

And what's strange that these are actually really good things, right? These are good habits to have, good ways to live your life, you know, working hard throughout the day, you know, taking care to provide for your family and being a good steward of what you do have.

And yet even doing these things, doing the right things is futile. It's in vain unless the

Lord is in it. And so my friend, he did all the right things. Obviously not all the time. He's a sinner just like anybody else, but he did the right things, made the hard choices, made sacrifices.

But if it weren't for the Lord blessing the endeavor, it's in vain. Why? Why is this?

Why is it in vain? At the end of verse two, it says, for he, God, for he gives to his beloved sleep.

I love the dichotomy that we see here, that Solomon sets here. It's in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest.

You're losing sleep, right? And it's in vain that you eat anxiously. You're worrying about what's to come. Because only

God can give true sleep. Only God can give true rest from worry.

So seeking to build up one's life or one's society, no matter how hard we might work, no matter how many sleepless nights we might have or how much sacrifice we make, it's meaningless unless the

Lord builds the house. And if you're familiar with Solomon and some of his writings, and a lot of this probably reminds you of Ecclesiastes, it certainly did for me.

And I went back this week again and took a look at chapter one, and particularly verses 13 through 15 stand out.

Again, it's a Solomon writing about life and man's work, his labor. And these are the wisest man in the history of the world, his thoughts on the life of man.

Verse 13 of Ecclesiastes chapter one, and I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.

It is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted. It's all vanity,

Solomon says, striving after wind, something we can never capture. So then what, when we're faced with the reality that our own efforts to build and our own efforts to sustain successful homes and communities, you know, that they're futile, that they're vain, what do we do?

Do we just shut down? Do we give in to whatever our destinies or our fate might be, so to speak?

We just stop trying. Of course not, right? I mean, Solomon also authored much of the book of Proverbs and we know there that he has a lot of wisdom on how to live our lives.

He doesn't reject the idea of hard work. He doesn't dismiss being a conscientious steward or taking time to carefully plan for the future of yourself and your family.

God would have us to use these gifts that he's given to us. Rather, Solomon would have us to see and God would have us to see that the idea that the building of the house or the watching over of the city was our labor to complete.

Let me say that again. God wants us to see that the idea that the building of the house or the watching over the city is our work to do is wrong.

That's why it's in vain. You see, it's in vain because it's not your work to do. You're doing someone else's job.

God would have us to see that anxious toil is not a means of earning the life that God wants for us or earning a righteousness somehow for ourselves.

But it's a product, actually, of the curse. This anxious toil is a product of the curse. You know, we remember in Genesis 3,

Adam and Eve, they fall in sin and God's curse for Adam was that in toil, same word that is used in Psalm 127, in toil and labor and work, you will eat of the ground all the days of your life.

This toil, this labor, this work to build ourselves up, to watch over ourselves is not a labor that God calls us to do.

God calls us to trust and to rest. He gives to his beloved sleep.

And so this text, Psalm 127, doesn't call us to give up and stop working or to stop being wise.

It calls us to approach our work with the right posture and the right attitude. That rest isn't found in what my work can earn for me.

The rest is found in a God who has promised to provide for me. Even if that provision is maybe different than what

I would hope for, what I would what I would want for myself, Psalm 121, 4 says,

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Rest for the

Christian is in the knowledge that God doesn't rest on our behalf and that he has the right and the power, he is sovereign, to care for us in the ways that we need.

Jesus in Matthew 6, 25 and 26 says, For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns.

And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much, are you not worth much more than they?

This psalm is such a beautiful psalm. There's so much weight to the words that are being used here.

But that is our only our introduction to the psalm, right? These first two verses, that's only our introduction to it.

As we look at verses three through five, things seem to take a pretty strange turn.

I'm not going to lie to you, as I was preparing for this message, I tried to figure out where is

Solomon going here? What do children have to do with this? But anyways, we'll talk about that in a second. But things take a pretty sharp turn when we look at verses three through five.

But I'll introduce it simply by saying that we see one of the means or one of the methods by which

God shows that he's in the work. That God shows that he's in it, the building of the house or the watching over of the city.

Verse three, Psalm 127 says, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.

He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Now, within our culture, obviously, there are a wide range of beliefs when it comes to children.

What are you supposed to do with children? How many kids are you supposed to have? So on and so forth. There's a lot of things that people think about children.

Two of the more prominent ones I wanted to share, and just very briefly, but one is that many people look at children as an accomplishment in life, similar to getting married or buying a house.

Having kids is something that you do when you get to a certain point, something that you sort of check off your list.

Many others will look at children as a burden. They're little needy people who are going to take away from and distract me from the things that I really enjoy about life, going out to really nice restaurants or traveling, things like this, living in the city, whatever it might be.

And what we learn here, Solomon tells us that children are a heritage from the

Lord. And the NASB actually translates this phrase as a gift of the

Lord. Interestingly, the word heritage or gift is the Hebrew word,

Kendall, let me know how I do about this later, nahala, pretty good, which more literally means the property or possession of.

Right, so again, more literally, this verse, verse three is telling us that children are not an accomplishment, nor are they a burden, but that they belong to God.

They are his. And they're given as a reward, it says, or as wages as he builds your home, as he builds your family, your livelihood, and they're given as he watches over your city, your neighbors, your community, your institutions.

To be honest, as a newly minted father of three boys under five, it's a pretty difficult one to sit with sometimes,

I'm not going to lie to you. I know that I struggle, you know, when the kids don't listen, you know, when they won't go to bed or they won't let me put them down, you know, that's the one that gets a little tiring, especially.

You know, it's not easy, you know, by any means, I don't know if I ever thought it was, but I certainly know that it's not now, to balance everything that you have to deal with in life, you know, with the demands of children, particularly young children,

I hope, I hope that this is the worst part. No, it's great. And yet, in part, you know, isn't that part of the point of this psalm, right, that if only

I'd rest in the knowledge that God is working on my behalf to provide for my every need, wouldn't

I have more love and more patience and more kindness for my children? John Calvin actually comments on these particular verses saying that when parents acknowledge that their children are a gift from God, they will undertake more conscientiously the privilege of providing for them and will be encouraged to bring them up rightly.

What a challenging concept, concept that, again, you know, can only truly be obeyed and followed when we, when we live with a humility of station, right, that God is the one who has the right and power over my life.

I do not have that right and power over my own life. The house and the city, again, to be able to look at it in this way, to reframe ourselves, our minds in this way, is vital here.

But the house and the city will not be built nor maintained by us alone because it's not even for us really that we strive to build a home or maintain a commonwealth.

I mean, you ask anyone why they work so hard, it's because they want something for their kids. They want to be able to leave something for their kids, why they want to be able to leave something for their grandkids.

It's not for us that we strive to build a home or maintain a commonwealth. We do these things for posterity, for those that would come after us.

And so it stands to reason, when you really sit and think about it, that it's going to be by posterity, by the fruit of the womb, that the home will be built.

It's not going to be by my efforts, it's going to be by God's provision. And this fruit, these children, again, being the gift of God, are given to build and to preserve a home, given to build and preserve a city, a community.

It's not about accomplishing our goals or leaving our mark, it's about humbly submitting to the sovereign will of God and being content with what he gives according to his purposes.

And his purposes are not relegated, they're not restricted to our lifetime. They span the course of all of human history, all of eternity.

And so if I could summarize these five verses in Psalm 127, I would say it like this, that our plans and our hopes for this life, no matter how hard or honorably we work to achieve them, are all vanity unless they are blessed by God because they serve somehow his eternal sovereign plan.

That's the only house that he'll build with a purpose. That's the only city that he watches and preserves with a purpose.

Everything else, all the other schemes of men, are vanity. Now, while I hope

I've been clear to this point, I recognize that I may not be being super clear here, so we can always chat afterwards.

But while I hope I have been clear, there is an interesting interpretive challenge that presents itself as we try to understand

Psalm 127 holistically, taking all of scripture into context here, bringing that into the light here.

We can all agree, I think, that the Lord at times will choose to bless the efforts of men through the gift of posterity, right?

That's kind of what we just talked through. And he does this to accomplish his purposes. But a problem arises, again, an interpretive challenge arises when we consider how the

Lord will bless sinful people. He will bless them according to his sovereign purposes we've discussed, that's established.

But how does a holy God give blessings to sinful people without violating his holiness in his own commands?

Consider this, that in Deuteronomy 27, God adds 12 commands for the

Israelites to obey as they enter the promised land. And then he says immediately afterwards in chapter 28, in verses 1 through 9,

I'm going to read, it's just incredibly striking, the black and white way that God deals with humanity.

It says verse, excuse me, chapter 28, verses 1 through 9 of Deuteronomy, now it shall be, if you diligently obey the

Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments, which I command you today, the

Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the

Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.

Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.

The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways.

The Lord will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and he will bless you in the land which the

Lord your God gives you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the

Lord your God and walk in his ways. So if you obey, then all of these blessings will come upon you.

And the connections between Psalm 127 and Deuteronomy 28 are clear and they're striking,

I think. Blessed shall you be in the city, it says in verse 3. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body.

We just talked about how that is the gift of God. Children are the gift of God. Your enemies will be defeated, it says in verse 7.

We also see that presented in verse 5 of Psalm 127. The blessing upon your barns and all that you put your hands to, this is about building your own home, right, your work.

That's in verse 8 of Deuteronomy 28. And so the Lord has promised blessing for those who keep his commands.

But we know, based on the testimony of scripture, that Israel does not keep

God's commands. And we know, based on the testimony of our own lives, that we today do not keep

God's commands. And if we look again at Deuteronomy 28 and go a little bit further down, verses 15 through 20, we actually see the consequences of this disobedience.

Verse 15, but it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, with which

I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.

Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.

And so again, there's a pretty clear problem, I think, in our belief that God is going to bless the efforts of sinful men, even if it is serving his eternal purpose, because in doing so, he would be violating his own word.

In Deuteronomy 28, that all who disobey his commands will be cursed and cut off from blessing. That all that they do, all that they undertake to do, will be cursed.

And it's not to say, as we talked about last week, that God doesn't build up wicked men for a stark fall, right, when we talked about Psalm 73.

But God, the idea that God would bless into posterity wickedness is something that is totally against his character and nature.

And again, as we know, all men have sinned, all men have disobeyed the commandments of God, and therefore are to be cursed for their transgression.

And so then how? How do we reconcile these things? A holy, immutable

God who curses sin and will not violate his own word, and a sovereign

God who has promised to bless and establish sinful men generationally. There's certainly not, you know, some sort of bipolar thing happening here with God.

Somehow these two things reconcile and we have one righteous, holy, immutable God. And the answer to how these things reconcile is of the

Sunday school variety. It's Jesus. Galatians chapter 3, 13 and 14.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the

Gentiles. So in order to bless us, God has placed the curse that we have merited upon Jesus and has given us the blessing that only

Jesus has ever earned. Philippians 2, 8 says, being found in appearance as a man, so obviously talking about Jesus, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And because Jesus was obedient even to death, he merits the promised blessing of Deuteronomy 28 and all the blessings that we see in the

Old Testament. But blessed shall you be in the city and the country, blessed shall be your offspring, blessed shall be your barn and your work and all the blessings therein.

According to verses 9 through 11 of Philippians 2, for this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. Because of Christ's obedience, all the blessings of God are bestowed upon him, the perfect son.

For what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Jesus says this in his ministry.

Imagine if your children were perfect, would you ever refuse them? We can't even picture it because our kids are so imperfect.

But Jesus, the perfect son, the perfect son, the

Father would never refuse him. He has been obedient unto death, even death on a cross. The Father has now placed him above the heavens.

He's the name above every name. And so when we consider how

God then blesses sinners like us without compromising his holiness, we look to Christ.

Because the Father would in no wise cast out or cast aside the appeals of his own perfect son.

And those of us that are in him, in Christ, by faith are now the recipients of the blessing that Jesus has earned.

The Bible says that the children of God need not be afraid or worry in life. Jesus says, for your father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.

And so while we rightly wonder how we, as sinful men and women, can have any hope that the

Lord will build our house or watch over our city, we can take heart in knowing that because Jesus has been highly exalted, due to his obedience unto death and the labor of our hands, can and will be blessed of the

Lord as it serves his sovereign will. Doesn't mean we won't lose our jobs, right? Or that life isn't difficult, but that the work is blessed into posterity because God is building his house, which we are in.

He's building Christ's house, and we are in him, in his home, in home with him.

And so when fear grips us, as we kind of pull to a close here, when fear grips us because the plans that we've made in life might seem threatened, whether this is for our families, for our communities, for our country, for our church, you know, when we rest in the promise of God to provide for and to preserve and to bless, when we rest there, that he will do that for the obedient, that is where we, when fear is gripping us, that's where we need to go.

That God, the promises of God are alive and well for the obedient.

And this hope that we have, this rest that we have, is unwavering and ever present with us because it trusts in Christ's unwavering obedience, not our obedience.

And when things are going well, you know, again, when fear grips us, that's where we go to, we rest on Christ's obedience.

That because of that, God, we are, we are still, we still belong to God. But even when things are going well and we don't fear, you know, where our next meal might come from or might, what might happen tomorrow or in 50 years, it's not because we've insulated ourselves with all the things that we've accumulated in life, you know, because we've worked really hard.

These, these are deceptions of the world, right? And if we are thinking like this, that if I only do this, this, and this, then

I'll have that. We should fear in that moment. If that's what we're thinking, then we should have fear. We need to humbly acknowledge that we are what we are and have what we have only by the sovereign grace of God and his blessing through his son.

So he is the one to be praised, not ourselves, not our own efforts. We are blessed through the son.

He's the only one who deserves it. And so this psalm, more than anything else,

I think it points us to these two things. A right, a rightly placed hope and a rightly held humility of station.

Our hope is in the Lord and it's unwavering because he is unwavering, right? And we have humility of station because we acknowledge that it is

God's right and power. It's up to his sovereignty, to his right and his power to give us what he will.

We don't believe that we are our own gods with the right and power to do whatever we like.

Let's pray. God, I thank you for your word and Lord, again, thank you for the great truth that it is that we can rest upon the work of Christ, his work on our behalf, his perfect obedience, even unto death and death on a cross.

God, and I thank you that for the joy that was set before him, he fixed his eyes on heaven,

Lord, and was willing to bear the shame and the burden and the weight of all the sin of all the people that he would die for.

God, you did not, certainly did not owe anything to us and yet by your grace and your love and your mercy for your people, you gave all that we might know you,

Lord, and that we might now be able to look ahead with the same joy, not because if we die as martyrs that we're somehow earning the same type of death that Jesus died,

Lord, but we can approach life and all of its trials, all of its good, all of its bad, all of its difficulty with joy because we know that we will be blessed by you for what

Christ has done. Lord, may we rest in that, may we have humility of station, humility of our mind and thought,

God, to know that you are worthy of being the sovereign over our lives, the one who has the right and the power to do whatever you would decide to do in our lives.

God, may you give us faith and a joy that submits to that truth joyfully, whether we submit to it or not or do it joyfully or not, you are still sovereign,

God, but we pray that we would have the faith and understand to do it with joy, knowing that you are trustworthy and good to your people.