And as always, it's a blessing for me to be here with you and bring the word to you on the Lord's Day. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray today finds you well. Our text today is Psalm 128. I wanna read it, then we'll pray, and then we're gonna work through it verse by verse. I think you will find it quite a blessing. It's a beautiful psalm. So if you're able, why don't you stand with me and we will read this together. If you are able, you can stand. I'm gonna read from the ESV for this psalm. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, You shall be blessed and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, you gave us words of comfort in this psalm. You have told us that blessed is everyone who fears the Lord. And we can rest in that, we can trust that. Lord, as we spend the next few minutes together, working through this psalm, thinking about it, what does it mean for our lives? We pray that our hearts will be open to your word. You will guide us, direct us, and tell us what we need to do. We love you and praise you, and in Christ's name we pray, amen. You may be seated. This psalm has a special place in my heart, or in my family's heart. About 15 years ago, Leslie and I decided, hey, wouldn't it be great as a family, we had a Psalter, which is a song book with all 150 psalms set to music. Wouldn't it be great if we taught our kids one psalm a week, how to sing a psalm a week. We're going to sing it right out of the Psalter. All of our older kids, not these three. These are our second bunch of three here. We have an older bunch of three that are out of the house. So this was, wouldn't it be great if we taught these three kids, our older three, a new psalm a week, how to sing a new psalm a week. So we thought, hey, we could do it. About every three years, 150 psalms or so, we'd circle around and do it again. What a way to build a singing capability, ability to sing psalms and also learn some scripture. So we started with Psalm 128. That's the one we were gonna start with. Our church was singing it at the time. We already knew it. And so that's where we started, and guess what? 15 years later, we still sing the same psalm every Sunday. Psalm 128, we have never learned a new one in 15 years. It's literally just Psalm 128 every week. But we do sing it faithfully every week, and we know it really, really well. So the aspirations were great. Execution, not so much. But if you're going to be on repeat for decades, I don't think at this point we have any plans to change. So you three over there, you're going to be learning this psalm over and over again for a while. If you're going to be on repeat for decades, this is not a bad psalm to do it with. I mean, it's a beautiful psalm. There's a lot packed into these six short verses that I want to work through with you. So let's start by recapping together. I want to go through a quick summary, and then we'll look at each verse in detail. Recap, to fear the Lord is to revere him and walk in his ways. And when a man does that, God promises a blessing. That's verse one. That man shall be blessed in the fact that he will be able to provide for himself and his family. That's verse two. It shall go well with him. His wife will be a fruitful vine growing around his house. His children will be like olive shoots growing up around this table. That's verse three. This is the blessing that comes to the man who fears the Lord. Verse four. And this is the second time I want to point out that the fear of the Lord is mentioned. It's mentioned in verse one, and it's mentioned in verse four. That seems important. The blessing of the Lord will come out of Zion, and that man will see the good of Jerusalem for all of his days. of his life. That's verse five. He will see the peace of Israel. He will see his children's children and the blessing upon it. That's verse six. And that's the, that's the psalm in a quick recap. What I want to, what I want to do today is work through the psalm in three sections. And I've, I have this in your bulletin. There's a little outline you can follow. I know, and I put Bible references in there because I know my kids, They'll follow along, and then when they say, oh, he's referenced this Bible reference, they know where they're at in the sermon and how close we are to being done, so they can get to the snacks. So if you want to follow along, I'm going to follow that outline. The first two verses, I'm calling the personal sphere. The second two, verses three and four, the family sphere, and verses five through six is the church sphere. I'm not sure I love that word sphere anymore. I'm actually looking at it, I think, boy, I should have thought of a different word there, but what I'm looking at trying to convey is concentric circles. So we have our personal circle, and if you take one step out, it's your family, and then you maybe take another step out, it's the church. If that's helpful, use it. If not, you can discard it and you won't hurt my feelings. Let's look at the personal sphere or the personal circle, if you will, and read again verses one through two. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. You shall be blessed and it shall be well with you. Now, what's interesting about the blessed in verse one here is it actually is better translated happy. Happy. Blessed, we don't have, in English there's always challenges, right, with translation because we don't, we're not, our words, we don't have as many colorful words. But this word should be better translated happy, and blessed to me feels a little different than happy. Blessed feels like maybe a quiet, kind of reserved joy, right? More like a contentment, like you kind of sigh, oh, I'm so blessed, and that's not a bad thing, and you're content. Where happy implies like you want to get up and dance, big smile on your face. It's just different, it's a different, So just think, boy, that should almost say, happy is everyone who fears the Lord. So you should be happy. You should be giddy. If you're a child of the ever-living God, and if you trust in Christ you are, you're a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, you have everything to inherit. So why wouldn't you be happy? Why wouldn't you be giddy? But what is this fear of the Lord? That kind of seems like a downer, right? What is the fear of the Lord? You know, look again in verse one. Everyone who fears the Lord, that's what it means to be happy. So what is that? That seems like a downer, but let's start by what it's not. Let's start by what it's not. It's not a fear that has anything to do with punishment. It's not a fear of punishment. That's not what it is. 1 John 4, 17-18 says this, this is 1 John 4, 17-18, by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Because as Christ is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Fear, and this is all 1 John, I want you to reference this, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. So my command, not a command, my call to you would be, re-read that when you get home and think about it. What John's saying is, if you've been perfected in love in Christ and you have, you have nothing to fear. It's the fear that is being talked about here, it has everything to do with grace. It's a gift from the Lord to you. And what do I mean by that? Well, Hebrews 12, 28 through 29. And I like the New King James here. This is the New King James. Hebrews 12, 28 through 29. It says this, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably. Let us have grace. so we can serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Reverence and godly fear. So in verse one, it says, walk in his ways. Walk in his ways. Well, what does that mean to walk in his ways? Like, I mean, you read that, like, what does that mean? How do I walk in his ways? Anybody got any ideas? What's that? The commandments, right? By obeying Him. Obeying the commandments. By loving Him. You love and obey. You love Christ with all your heart. You love Him with all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. And then you love your neighbor as yourself. If you prefer something a little more nuanced, a little catchier saying, you talk the talk and walk the walk. You say, I am a Christian, I love the Lord, but then you actually have to go out and do something about that, right? You obey him. So you labor with your hands for the kingdom. You work hard. You build families, you build churches, you build schools, you build communities, you build nations. There's no time to daydream, there's no time to be idle. This is what you do. You work hard. And then as the Lord's called you to do, you also rest. Like with the Lord's Day, you come and rest with the saints and worship. You rest, you eat, you feast. Boy, a lot of feasting in the last couple of weeks, huh? Maybe too much feasting, some might say. And then you praise him with the saints. That's how you walk in his ways. That's how you walk in his ways. And if you do that, verse two, you'll eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, you will be happy, and it will be well with you. You will be happy, and it will be well with you. Now, let's look at verses three and four. This is the family circle. Of course, that was a comic, I think, from the 90s, family circle. I never found it funny either. Anybody else find family circle funny? Like, I read it, and I was like, this isn't that funny. But let's look at the family circle. Verses three and four. Read them with me. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The faithful man enjoys the warmth of his wife and his family around his table when he eats the fruits of his labors. It's a little poetic, but I like that. And he sees how the blessing extends to his wife and his children. And then his wife is compared to a fruitful vine, and his children are likened to olive shoots. That sounds pretty nice. And if we contrast this with the words of Psalm 127.2, which I'm going to read to you, Psalm 127.2 says this. It's in vain that you rise up early, and you go late to rest, and you eat the bread of anxious toil, for God gives love to his beloved, excuse me, for God gives to his beloved sleep. This man of Psalm 127, if you read the whole Psalm, it's a man who works hard. He works hard. Just like the man we read about in verses three and four, one, two, and three and four of this Psalm, what's the difference? He doesn't fear the Lord. He doesn't fear the Lord, so he eats alone in pain and anguish. See, the fear of the Lord is key. The imagery used in the psalm is really, really interesting. It's quite fascinating, actually. The vine in the Bible is a symbol of fruitfulness. It's considered a symbol of fruitfulness. The vine, wife, fruitfulness. And it's also a symbol of sexual charm. Wife, fruitfulness, sexual charm. This is Song of Solomon, chapter 7, 8, and 9. I say I'll climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit, or may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. The vine is also a symbol of celebrations. Judges 9.13, if you're interested, is one example. Vine, wife, fruitfulness, sexual charm, and celebrations. The imagery of the olive tree and the shoots is really fascinating as well. And the two main images here that are being shown are wealth and righteousness. Wealth and righteousness. And I'm going to look at wealth from Deuteronomy 6, chapter 6, verses 10 through 12. This is where all of the shoots are shown to be an image of wealth. in the Old Testament, and this is from Deuteronomy. When the Lord your God brings you into land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, We brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. So all of plants are an image of wealth. Now, we don't really, those of us who have had kids don't really think of children as making us wealthy. In fact, it's the exact opposite usually. They tend to make us a little poorer in diapers, cell phones, Big Macs, cars, things like that cost money. So we don't think of as children as a sign or a form of wealth, but maybe it's wealth of a different sort that they bring us. Maybe it's not monetary wealth necessarily, but a different wealth. What about righteousness? Hosea 14, five through six says this, comparing olive shoots for righteousness. I will be like the dew to Israel. He shall blossom like the lily. He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon. His shoots shall spread out. His beauty shall be like the olive and his fragrance like Lebanon. So remember my whole premise the last couple of minutes is olive shoots as an image of wealth and righteousness This snapshot from Jose has shown us Olive Shoot's righteousness. Now, the question I ask as I'm going through this is, wait, children righteous? Are children righteous? Like, have you ever spent any time with my two-year-old? Like, she's like looking at me right now. Corbin, is he righteous? I have to admit, I don't know if any of you, I've never seen, before I prepared this sermon, I had never seen a picture of an olive tree. How many of you have seen a picture of an olive, like a mature old olive tree? Even what one looks like. We just don't have olives, right, in this country. We just don't. So is it just me and Jenny? Nobody else has seen a picture of an olive tree? Okay, a couple in the back. That's your other piece of homework. So the first one was to go reread 1 John. And the second one is to look at a picture of an olive tree, an old olive tree when you get home. Because what happens, you have this old, old olive tree, big gnarly trunk, and the olive shoots spring up right around on the trunk. I mean, they literally grow right on the trunk. Sometimes they go out in the ground, it's true, but sometimes they're right on the trunk. And the plants will grow up, they'll like literally grow up right with the tree. So like little offshoots off the tree, and they'll become their own trees. So think about this image, then you see this gnarled old olive tree still bearing fruit, because it'll still bear olives, surrounded by a little band of, I mean, not children, sturdy successors, children, I guess, and they're growing up, and they become trees, and they can bear fruit, and on and on and on. Those children, incidentally, a lot of times what will happen is the old This part's going to make me maybe a little weepy. The old olive tree, the gnarly old olive tree will die. And one of the children will take its place. And then on and on and on. I just love that picture. I had never appreciated children as olive shoots until I looked at a picture of an olive tree and thought about what that actually means. Now, I've waited a very long time to preach a sermon that involves olives, so I can trot out the one olive joke I have. And I gotta be honest with you, good olive jokes are hard to find. You may think there's plenty of them out there, but they're really not. And I, my wife will tell you this, I tested this one at home and it failed miserably. So I'm gonna go for it anyway. Charles Spurgeon, I'm okay because Charles Spurgeon said, when you preach a sermon, he calls them windows of light. So if you're just all doom and gloom in a sermon, people are going to check out. So you want to bring them back with a joke. But it doesn't even have to be a funny joke. So here we go. Are you ready? A lot of olives, I think maybe the majority of olives come from Greece. So instead of olives, why don't they call them Greece's pieces? It failed miserably at home too. It really did. Grease is pieces. All right. It didn't go well at home. I should have probably just punted on that whole thing, but I waited a long time to put an all joke. I used to tell, like I tell my father, like the way to write a sermon is you start with a joke and you write the whole sermon around the joke. And he actually thought I was kidding. He thought I was serious. I'm like, no, I'm just, I'm kidding. You don't actually do that. Like that would be crazy. The Lord would probably strike me down if I did that. One last interesting note that I want to point out in verses three and four. The word blessed in these verses is different than the one in verse one. This is the English problem I was telling you about, right? We have one word and we use it everywhere. Verses one, happy, this word is a different blessed. This one means, and this is probably what you think of, receiving gifts from the Lord. You're blessed in that you're receiving these gifts without any merit on your own, right? What would be an example of that? A wife and children. Finally, let's consider the broader sphere and read again verses five through six. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children's children Peace be upon Israel. The blessings flow beyond our families. It flows to the church, to God's people, to the faithful. Galatians 6.16 says, peace be upon Israel. Peace be upon the church. And from Hebrews 12, it says this, you have come to Mount Zion. you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in the festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. Now, I kind of fumbled through that, but if you read that and think about it, you'd be like, wow, that is quite a gathering. That is the church, that is God's people. These verses essentially are a reaffirmation, if you will, of the great priestly blessing, which I hope you have memorized. We say it as a benediction occasionally, but it's this, the Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his face to you and give you peace. Those words are words of comfort. And that is the great priestly blessing. To see your children's children is really the equivalent to all the days of your life. It's to live a long, full life. We have a lot of well-seasoned people in our church. Is that the right way to say it? I'm trying to be politically correct. Well-seasoned, mature, age-challenged, maybe? I don't know what the... But the benefit of that is we have a lot of grandparents. Right? Children's children. You've seen them. What a massive blessing. And I'm a grandfather now, too. I know you look at me and think, boy, that guy's way too young to be a grandfather. So I'm hoping, like, I know gray hair gives away, but what a gift, right? What an absolute gift to see your grandkids. You hug on them, you kiss on them, and then you send them right back home with mom and dad so you can go to bed, right? There's a limit to that, but yeah, no, it's, it's, what a, what a huge blessing. Beautiful blessing. I wanna conclude by making three, I think they're very obvious statements to parallel this psalm. And they're kinda like the negative to the positive. And they're probably obvious, but I wanna do this because I want to remind you of what is out there. so that you're ready. Number one, the world hates everyone who loves Christ. It just does. It's probably not a surprise. Amen? Yeah, it's just, that's what it is. Number two, the world hates families who loves Christ. It does. This is not a surprise, right? Everybody understands this, it's true. But we gotta remind ourselves so that we're ready when we go out to fight the battles. that the Lord has called us to fight. Number three, the world hates churches who love Christ. And we're seeing that, right? Over the last few years, churches are being shook. People who were faithful to go no longer go. Churches that are faithful seem to be getting just hammered in the media. And the world just hates churches who love Christ. But guess what? This is all a good thing. It's a good thing, why? Because Jesus told us this, if the world hates you, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you, right? I mean, the world hated Jesus before it hated us. And James says this, don't you know, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So it's a good thing. It means we're following Christ, right? Not the world. If we're being hated, we know we're following Christ and doing the things we should do to trust and obey and love the Lord, love our neighbor. And here's one thing I think you understand as well, but I want to point out, and it's the thing that the world does not understand. People who love God, the families who love God, the churches who love God, we're actually the happy people. I mean, we're actually the people with walking around with smiles on our face. It's not all doom and gloom. We know we have hope. And so our love, our fear of God will lead us in the best and right way, and it'll bring that smile to your face. It'll make you happy and giddy. Your home is the epicenter where truth, faith should be found. And that's the point of this psalm. One point is that your home, the aroma of your home, people should know when they walk in, there is something different here. And one last thought, and this is for the singles among us, And for the childless, because I know the Psalms is, boy, it's very focused on, you know, especially husbands and fathers. But listen to this. This is for you singles and those of you who have not had children. Christ never married. He never had children. Big surprise, right? I know you know that. But he experienced God's blessing in a very deep way, the deepest way. And in union with Christ, if you're single, if you don't have children, all kinds of people, and that's the beauty of the gospel is it's for all people, you can enjoy deep happiness and deep fruitfulness in the family of God. You really can. Just trust in Christ. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful for this psalm. We are thankful for the words of life that it brings us. We pray that we will be faithful. We will love you with all our hearts and souls in mind, and we'll love our neighbors ourselves, and we know we're going to fail. And when we do, Lord, we pray we will be faithful to confess, confess, receive that forgiveness, get back up, and work hard in this world that you've given us. We love you, praise you. I'm thankful for this church. Special measure of blessing today, Lord, as we start 2023. And I pray this in Christ's name, amen.