Psalm 127, these are God's words. A song of a sense of Solomon. Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless Yahweh guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed. but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. Amen. That ends this reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. This being a song of ascents, one of the songs that they would sing as they went up to Jerusalem for feast, it takes a marvelous truth that they were about to witness as they went to Jerusalem and it gives to them to make application of that bigger truth in themselves and in their own life. One of the ways that we know that it's a marvelous truth is When we see, unless Yahweh builds the house, we may think of the building of a physical house, which with the language of city and the rest of the verses is definitely part of what's in view here. More than that, we may think of household. which is most often how the word house is used in the Old Testament. But in light of the fact that the Hebrew superscript, the first verse of Psalm 127, or this Psalm in the Hebrew, identifies it as of Solomon, we think especially of the house that Solomon built, the house of God, the temple. And here then, where David wanted to build the house, he couldn't, wasn't permitted by God, and so he provided all sorts of things, wood and stone, gold and silver, and then furnished even Levites, like we were thinking about last night, for the uniquely temple worship. Those whose part in the worship was an indication that there was a new phase in God's work among his people. Just as the Lord Jesus comes and there's a new phase, the worship also changes then. But David couldn't build the house, but Solomon was given to build the house. And so this was especially the great task of Solomon's life. was to build the house. And that really helps us, I think, think about, unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. So here David had accumulated all these things, and here Solomon oversees all these things, and here all these workers each plying their skill and their trade are doing all these things. And yet all of those people putting forth all of that effort, exercising all of that wisdom, Unless it's Yahweh, unless it's the Lord who superintends by His providence, makes it effectual, then they do it all in vain. They do it all emptily. It's for nothing. This is, for us in our service in the Church, especially for me and my colleague, a reminder that whatever, however much the Lord calls us to do in the Church, He is the one who must make it effectual. Unless Yahweh is the one who is doing it, unless the Lord is the one who is doing it, they labor in vain. They labor emptily, unto nothing. who do it. And this should take on the front end, take off all dependence on self. It should take off all anxiety. And then on the back end, it should take off pride and add thanksgiving. It should also help us to be grateful about what is being done since our great hope is what the Lord is doing. And is the Lord doing his job well or poorly? He's always doing it well, isn't he? That's what we've been learning in Matthew 13. Even though there are tears in the field, even though there are bad fish in the net, even though the tree seems small at first, or you can't see the leaven working. And if it's Yahweh who is building the house, not only is it not in vain, but it is certainly successful and effectual. Not just going according to plan, his plan, not our plan. Is his plan better than ours or the same or worse? Of course it's better. So what we cannot see with our eyes, we ought to see by faith. It is going gloriously. Well, unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless Yahweh guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Now, builders build houses. It's real work. It's necessary work instrumentally under God's providence since He has appointed means. We don't refuse to do our part or be lazy about doing our part and say, well, the Lord is the one who does it anyway. Yeah, He is, but He has appointed to do it through means. And if we don't do what He has given us to do, thankful for the privilege of doing it, out of love for Him who loved us with zeal, diligence that's commanded by His word, then we're not really trusting Him, are we? We're using the language of trust in Him. to excuse an irresponsibility in perhaps ignorance or even worse, denial that he is the one who has appointed means. People will sometimes ask foolish things like, if God already knows, why pray? Well, first of all, because prayer is an act of worship and he is worthy of worship. And second of all, in prayer, we come and have fellowship with God. It's one of the nearest times that you have to the Holy Spirit. He helps us in our weakness because we do not know how to pray as we ought. So whenever you pray, you enter into a special fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Prayer comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there's this wonderful fellowship and prayer. But also, The Lord commands us to pray, and He says the effectual praying of a righteous man works, and it's working. He says things like, you have not because you ask not. He has ordained to work through prayer. And so to say, if God only knows why pray, is utterly ridiculous, because the right way of thinking it is, because God, who already knows, says to pray, and He'll work in response to the prayer, therefore pray. The knowledge of God is not a hindrance to prayer, it's a motivation to prayer. And so Yahweh building the house, Yahweh guarding the city, ought not hinder us from laboring, ought not hinder us from staying awake or watching if we're the watchman. but he has appointed to use the service of his people. How great then is the privilege of these house builders that they are co-workers, co-laborers with Yahweh in the first part of verse one. How great is the privilege of these watchmen that they have as it were on their shift or on their team, in their crew, Yahweh who is the one who ultimately guards the city. What a blessing to live our life then, not just in dependence upon him for our work, but in fellowship with him in all of our work. One of the things then that verse two points out is that if we are pushed to folly, denying the way that the Lord has designed us, staying up later than is healthy, getting up earlier than is healthy, and then in between time, when you are awake and laboring and getting the fruit of your labor, doing it with sorrow and anxiety, those are all symptoms of trusting in yourself. Those are all symptoms of operating as if it is the extent of our zeal and our effort that must produce the result, rather than responding to the Lord with zeal and effort that is worthy of Him, that is a right response to Him. And you know what else is a right response to Him? To go to bed at night. and to get a good night's sleep. Verse two says, for so he gives his beloved sleep. Is labor that we do assigned by God a love gift from God? Yes, he gives his beloved work. Is God helping us in our labor and making it effective so that we don't worry about how our school is going, or how our chores are going, or even how the work in the church is going, But we do what the Lord has given us because not only is the task a love gift from Him, but the effectiveness of it is a love gift from Him. Yes, absolutely, we should do that. But sleep is also a love gift from Him. And taking a whole day of refreshment, spiritual refreshment in Him is a love gift from Him. How silly. people who are given a Sabbath, and our flesh, of course, wants to spend all this effort in figuring out what is the minimum requirement of the Sabbath. And yet, we ought to be not just like Exodus 20, in six days Yahweh created the heavens and the earth. But in Deuteronomy 5, that when they were slaves in Egypt, they didn't have a Sabbath. They had a hard taskmaster. The Lord gives us rest. He also gives us not just the spiritual refreshment for the soul in him on his day, but he's built into his creation, hasn't he? Recreational refreshment, exercise is important. Eating well is important. You have all of these things that he gives to his beloved. And if we don't receive them as love gifts, we are missing the point of verse two. Well, you know what else is a love gift from the Lord? Children who turn out okay. How much the bulk of many people's lives is spent trying to have children turn out okay. But the children, beginning of verse three, who end up in verse five, being the ones who have grown up and are mature. Notice, happy is the man, singular, who has a quiver full of them, plural. They shall not be ashamed, verse five. The ones who are not ashamed in verse five and who speak in the gates are the children. Verse five is a picture of the children having become the next generation. having come to be the ones of maturity and standing who go to the city gate, who engage in the court system and in transactions, et cetera, and who have such integrity and such influence and such maturity and clarity that when they speak, it's effective. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. The enemies are the ones who are on their heels because of the faith and godliness and wisdom and knowledge and courage and dignity of these children. Every parent wants their children to grow up, to be mature and effective and thriving and flourishing in this way. And yet, just as with Solomon's building the temple or setting up a guard for the city or for anyone building a house or keeping watch. So also with the bringing up of children, the rearing of children if Yahweh is not the one who does it. They parent in vain, who parent. This is why the language in verse three is that of gift or even wage. The word translated reward is often translated wage, but still, it's not something that is accomplished by the parents. There's not a mechanical, if you do it well enough, it automatically produces. Rather, whether you're talking about the language of inheritance, which is a gift or reward, which still comes from the Lord and not from us and not mechanically or magically effected, caused by what we do, then you see that it's the Lord who gives it. And the Lord then is the one who not only gives the children, but he gives to the parents themselves to be skillful. For all that we have said, the idea that the Lord is the one who must do it doesn't mean that diligence and uprightness and wisdom are not important in parenting. Notice in the illustration in verse four, not only are the children arrows in the hand, but in whose hand are they or in whose quiver from verse five are they? They're in the hand or the quiver of a warrior. And so just as it's God's grace that produces or gives the effect in the life of children, so also it is by God's grace that the parent is skilled and knowledgeable. A warrior is someone who knows how to wage war. and who has skill in waging war. And so we don't just depend on him to produce the effect, we must look to him and his words to teach us. And we need his word to teach us because we need that Psalm 119 effect of being wiser than many who are agent, or even than many who would be our teachers. Because the biblical value is to have children in one's youth. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Remember in chapter five of Proverbs recently, we saw rejoice with the wife of your youth. The Bible values marriage early. Malachi again, God was furious with them in Malachi chapter two, because they had betrayed the wife of their youth. Well here, the children of one's youth, even a young parent, May hope in God, and by his grace, be skillful. It comes by his grace, and that removes, I think, the biggest obstacle. We're very American. Never has a people had so much money and worried so much about not having it. as Americans in the circles that I grew up in. And I don't know so much now. Our church, praise God, is very different than much of the broader church culture. But the conversation about when you should get married or when you should start having children was often a stewardship conversation. You have to be established financially. Well, there is folly in bringing someone into a situation in which You are unable to care for them currently with what the Lord has provided, but you never know what providence will bring. And so that's a little bit of a mistaken idea, but the greater hindrance is not, are you financially ready? The greater hindrance is, are you, do you have the wisdom in order to be a parent? And again, if you are not already living a life of dependence upon the Lord, diligence in your callings, self-sacrifice, preferring others to yourself, you know, having, you know, each child is, 20 year or so commitment to preferring someone else to yourself, because they literally will not survive if you don't do that. If you haven't developed these things already, then it would be folly for you to marry, let alone to have children. But if God working in you, you have this dependence upon him, not trusting in yourself, but attempting to do things according to his word, then you don't worry that you are not yet wise enough to make the children turn out well. Because as you probably heard while I was saying that, there is no such thing as being wise enough to make the children turn out well. And what wisdom you need As you walk in dependence upon the Lord and in fellowship with Him, He gives grace according to the day. He gives grace and wisdom according to the circumstance. He even gives us to have others instrumentally from whom, through whom He gives us wisdom. Even when you are done being a child in your parents' house. You still have parents. You have the older people in the church. You have especially those who he is assigned to minister the words to you, to shepherd and teach, not just in public, but everything profitable from house to house, lest your blood end up being upon them. As Paul said, he was innocent of the Ephesians blood for having done that. So the Lord is your great resource, capital R. But in proper dependence upon him. He's given you many resources so that you may be happy That's over against the Soros in verse 2 how many? come into parenting not parenting by the promises of God and dependence upon him and so it is bread of Soros all of that labor rather than happy with the full quiver because they're being received as heritage from the Lord and reward from the Lord. And it is their trusting Yahweh to build the house. And this ultimately was the greater task of Solomon. Not that he would build the physical temple of which he said, even heaven and highest heaven can't contain you, much less this house that I have built. But you remember when David originally wanted to build Yahweh a house in 2 Samuel 7, and the Lord told him no, the Lord also told David that he was going to build for David a house. and that there would be a king who would come from him, that there would be no end to his reign. And so the greater task of Solomon was not the building of the temple structure. It was to be the first descendant of David in the line that would lead to the forever king. Can you imagine the parenting pressure, especially if you end up marrying a thousand women and your son who ends up being the heir is Rehoboam. But can you imagine the parenting pressure of knowing that the Christ has to come from your family, from your line? And yet, it is Yahweh who builds the household. Praise God, we follow his word in thinking multi-generationally. In Psalm 78, among other places, well, even in 2 Samuel 7, as David prays for the generations that come from his family, or as Jesus prays for the spiritual generations that will come from those who believe through the words of the Apostles in John 17, we think multi-generationally, but it becomes an occasion in which either you are thinking multi-generationally in terms of Yahweh building the house, so that you do it as a happy warrior, or you have all this pressure like, you know, we have to turn the tide, we have to raise up the generations, we have to outbreed the pagans, not difficult because they're all murdering their children now. You know, we have to, we have to, we have to. No, that's opposite the happy warrior trusting in Yahweh who's the one who makes it effectual and gives it not mechanically, but as a heritage and a reward. So may the Lord give us resting in Him to do everything He has called us to do. And resting in Him, may He give us not the bread of sorrows, but rest and rejoicing in Him. And then let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this psalm. Thank you for how Clearly and pointedly, it corrects so much of where we go astray in our minds and our hearts. Forgive us, Lord, for that. Help us to see when our anxieties and our sorrows are revealing that we are not truly functioning in dependence upon you. Grant us joy. I do pray for my children that they would be as arrows and that once they come from the quiver and are shot into the world, that they would be like those who speak even in the gates and are not ashamed. Give to each of them a greater dependence upon you than their parents had, a greater delight in you and doing things your way out of confidence in you than their parents have had. and grant that we would all enjoy this happiness of a life lived in fellowship with you, of labor done in concert with you. For we ask it all through your son, our Lord Jesus himself, the house that you built through David and Solomon. And so we pray in his name, amen.