Remember, these are psalms that are all bound together, 15 psalms and the end of the psalter, which we believe were designed to be sung by pilgrims in the Old Covenant as they were traveling up to Jerusalem for one of their annual feasts. And as they were going up to the house of the Lord, God would have them to recite these psalms in family caravans or sing them or chant them. And these psalms are not just about corporate worship. Some of them have that theme, but they're also about what our life is as Christians, as a pilgrim in this world. These are pilgrim psalms, they're often called, because we're journeying on to our heavenly Jerusalem. And as we're journeying on, we need the truths that are contained in these psalms. And tonight's psalm really highlights the sovereignty of God, really, in every sphere of our life, even our daily lives, our daily work. wedlock, and then childbearing and childrearing. And so it's a sweet psalm. It's the only psalm of the Song of Ascents that's ascribed to Solomon. You see there in the superscription of the psalm that it says, it's a song of ascents of Solomon. And in the original Hebrew, that can mean that Solomon was the author. So you'll find some, commentaries that have this psalm as written by Solomon himself and that's possible. It's also grammatically possible that it's of Solomon in Hebrew means for Solomon. And so some scholars believe that David, King David actually wrote this Psalm as a tribute to King Solomon. And so it's hard to know which one of those is true. I kind of like the, it's kind of a touching thought that David would have written it, but either way, it ascribes it to Solomon either as the author or dedicated to him. And this is really one of the most beautiful of the Psalms of Ascent. Maybe some of you have seen the words of this Psalm maybe cross-stitched and framed in a house. I know that in my house growing up, my mother had cross-stitched this verse and it was on our wall. And so growing up, I would see these words, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. And so it's a very familiar one of the Psalms of a sense, and I'm glad we'll be looking at it together tonight. So if you have Psalm 127, let's share God's word together. We'll be reading verses one through five, the entire Psalm. And as we do, let's remember, this is God's word. 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 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. This is God's word, the grass withers, the flower fades, but God's word endures forever and ever. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing on our time in his word. Father, we thank you for your word. A holy hush falls over our. Hearts, as we even hear it read, and we realize that your word is self-attesting. These words are spirit and life. These words are trustworthy and true. These words are like no other words that have ever been spoken, because these are your words. And they are for our good. They are for the good of our souls. They are for the good of our bodies. They are for the good of our marriages and our families. and the labor that we do, these words are words that we need. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from your mouth. And so help us to receive these words, not as the word of man, but as they actually are the word of God, which is at work in those of us who believe. Speak to us, Lord, we need your truth. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you had to summarize Psalm 127, I think one of the ways that you could do that is to say, this is basically the God-entranced life. It's talking about pretty much everything that we do in life. It talks about our work, whether it's building a house or guarding a city. So you see something smaller, a smaller project or a bigger project. Whether it talks about as something as normal and human as having children, all of this is from the Lord. All of this and all of these things, we need the Lord's help. And in all of this, we are dependent on the Lord's blessing. And so basically what the Psalm is calling us to do, essentially as we'll be walking through it is to rely on the Lord. to rely on the Lord in every sphere of life, no matter whether it's work life or family life, that we need to be trusting in Him and His help and His blessing and not just doing things in the energy of our flesh. It's so easy to do that, just to go through life and kind of trust yourself and to try to just do it in your own strength and to try to push through the hard times. And yet this Psalm is calling us to realize God helps us in our daily affairs, and as he helps us in our daily affairs, he's the one who makes them fruitful. There's really two sections or two stanzas to this psalm. The first stanza comes to us in the first two verses, and we could just say that section is about God's help in our work. In those first two verses, it's all about God's help in our daily work. And then the second stanza in verses three through five, we could say that's really about God's gift of children and the gift, the precious gift that God gives to his people of children. Of course, the Lord is the one who opens the womb and shuts the womb, and it's presenting that blessing. of children. So let's look at those in turn. First of all, look with me at God's help in our work. In those first two verses, essentially what the author is stressing to us, the psalmist is stressing to us with that opening line is the vanity, the fruitlessness, the worthlessness or the uselessness of doing any human endeavor without the Lord's help and without the Lord's blessing. Notice the word vain is repeated three different times. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor what? in vain, unless the Lord builds the house. Those who build it labor in vain, probably they're envisioning a physical house where you would live in. And so that would be in vain just to build that house in your own strength. Then it goes on, unless the Lord watches over the city. the watchman stays awake in vain. It's fruitless for the watchman to stand in the city wall and try to stay awake up all night and be on the lookout for enemies coming in, perhaps a marauding army that's gonna come and destroy the city. It's pointless for that watchman to stay awake if the Lord isn't in it, if the Lord isn't behind it. And then it also speaks of our daily work. It is vain, it is vain that you rise up early, that you get up really early in the morning and then go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. So it's vain, it's meaningless to wake up really early and then to work all day long and then go late to rest and just get a little amount of sleep. That's meaningless, that's empty without God's blessing. So essentially what the psalmist is saying here is very similar to what Jesus says in John 15, five, when he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. You remember when Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches, he says, I'm the vine, you're the branches abide in me and I abide in you and you'll bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. And we want to rewrite Christ's words there and say, surely I can do something. I can do something, and I need you, Jesus, to augment what I do. I need to meet you halfway. I always think of that book by Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows. And remember, Billy Coleman gets the hunting dogs he's worked so long to get, and he chases the coon up the tree. And he's trying to cut down the tree, and it's not, it's a big tree. It's a big old oak tree, and his grandfather says to Billy, he says, well, I guess you need to meet God halfway. And the idea is Billy does his part, God does his part, and then the tree falls, and he goes and he gets the coon. That's an abbreviated version of what happened. But sometimes we think about that. It's us plus God. But what Jesus is saying is, without me, you can do nothing. And what Solomon, our David for Solomon, the psalmist is saying, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. It's pointless. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. And unless the Lord is helping you in your daily work, it's vain just to continue on burning the candle at both ends. It's kind of like the Tower of Babel. The people who built the Tower of Babel, they made a big tower and they were going up to God. They started to use their industry and their science and their pride to build this great tower, but without God, it collapsed. because it was a work of the flesh. And it's just showing any area of life, the area that's just daily, the personal house, or the whole city, the city of Jerusalem, which is God's city. It requires God to be in that. And the watchman is staying awake in vain if God isn't in it, if God isn't watching. And so the whole thing is trying to get us to say, depend on the Lord. Don't just depend on yourself, but depend on the Lord, rely on him. And so in verse two, when it says, it's vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, and then notice how God sustains us so that we don't have to do that, for he gives to his beloved sleep. One of my favorite verses. Maybe it's one of your favorite verses too. Sleeping is one of my favorite things to do. So rejuvenating, when you get a good night of deep sleep, and if you ever struggled with insomnia, you know how much that can just deplete your energy. And but getting a good full night of sleep is such a gift from the Lord. Sleep was created by God. Now, obviously, this passage isn't trying to inculcate laziness. It's not trying to teach us to just sleep all the time. We know that in Proverbs, it says a little sleep a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. So we know that sleep can be abused, but here it's a gift and it's interesting. It says he gives to his beloved sleep. Do you remember what Solomon's name was assigned by God from birth? It wasn't Solomon. Remember David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. She had become pregnant. The child was born. And then the Lord afflicted that child. David prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed. God said, no, the child dies. Then after that, David gets up, he worships the Lord, he washes his face, he moves on. He and Bathsheba then conceive another son, and that is Solomon. But when Solomon is born, it said in 2 Samuel 12 and verse 25, that his name would be Jedidiah. And Jedidiah means loved of Yahweh. So Solomon's name means beloved of the Lord. He's a type of the believer in that sense. He's a type of Christ. Christ is the Lord's beloved and all believers because in Christ we are God's beloved. And so God gives to his beloved. He gives to those who are in Christ. He gives to his people sleep. It's a gift. This verse was very helpful to me when I was in college. I really wanted to succeed academically. I really worked hard. I would stay up really late hours cramming, especially when I was a freshman in college. I guess I got a little bit more mature. The Lord sanctified me as I went on. But when I first started, I just felt like it all depended on me. I don't know if I would have said that, but I've got to study. I've got to hit the books. I've got to do the best that I can. And sometimes I would stay up all night and I found the next day I couldn't even remember what I studied. Why did I stay up all night? Because my mind was shot. But I came across this verse and I thought, wow, it's vain that you rise up early and then go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, studying, doing the work as if it all depends on you, because you can go to bed. Don't be lazy, don't be careless, do your work to the best of your ability, but then go to bed and trust in God. At some point, when you trust in the Lord, you can put your head on the pillow at a reasonable hour and say, it's in God's hands. I'm not being irresponsible. But that's what we're called to do. We're called to trust in him. He's the one really building the house. He cares about our family more than we do. He's the one really watching over the city. He cares about his people's protection more than we do. He's the one who cares about our work. He has required it of us. He wants us to do it for his glory. But we can go to bed, we can rest, we don't have to be worried about it and eaten up with anxiety because he gives to his beloved sleep. Many Americans are workaholics, we often talk about laziness, but the other aspect of that, the idolatry of work. This idea that we always have to be doing something. We always have to be busy. We always have to be using our time. And certainly, as I said, there's a sin of laziness. But God has built in rhythms to our life. We need sleep every night and we need Sabbath every week. When you think about the creation institution of Sabbath, it's for our good so that we have a time to rest. The creation institution of sleep, was good. You see it, Adam thought it was really good, right? Because when he woke up, he had a wife. Very early on, he realized this is great. I go to sleep and I wake up and I have a gorgeous wife in the morning. But there's that blessing of sleep and rest that God wants to give to us. Remember what we read in the songs of a sense in Psalm 121 verse four, Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. God never sleeps. He's the almighty. He never grows tired. He never grows weary. We read in Isaiah 40 that even young men get tired and weary and stumble and faint, but God never does. He never needs a nap. And because God is always at work and because God is keeping us, we can sleep. We can sleep because he never does. And then in Psalm three and verse five, listen to this one. The Psalmist says, Psalm chapter three and verse five, I lay down and slept, I lay down and slept, I woke again for the Lord sustained me. I lay down and slept and then I woke again for the Lord sustained me. And then I love this verse, Psalm four and verse eight, in peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Sometimes when I can't sleep, I read that verse. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. He gives to his beloved sleep. So in these daily, we should be building the house. We should be watching over the city. We should be working to the best of our ability, but remember, God helps us and God gives us respite. He gives us a time to lay down our head and say that I've done what God has called me to do and rest. Maybe at your work, maybe you're doing too much. Maybe you're trying to accomplish too much in the limited time that God has given you every day. And the most God honoring thing you could do is go to bed at a decent hour. Sometimes that's the most God-honoring thing we can do is take a nap. We need a good theology of sleep and the gift that God gives every day. Even that picture of death and resurrection, going to sleep and awaking. That's a picture of God's kindness to us. So we should be grateful for it. So we have God's help in our work and that first stanza, but then notice how it moves into a related theme here, childbearing and the home. So we have the work in the home and we have the work everywhere else, but the home is the most important. And it talks about God's gift of children. Look what it says in verse three, behold, look, Take notice of this. The idea is, let me get your attention. Behold, wake up and look. Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. God's word clearly teaches that children are a blessing. And we need to underline that and we need to emphasize it because we live in a culture that says children are a burden. We live in a culture where abortion is practiced and basically what is a common reason that's given for the murder of children in the womb? Convenience. Gets in the way of a career, gets in the way of my life. I don't think I have enough money. This child will be a burden to me. We realize that children are viewed as a burden. We see, we live in a culture, not just of abortion, but the proliferation of birth control, right? And we see this, that sense of restraining it and stopping it and hindering it and not wanting children. Whereas right early on in Genesis, what does God say? be fruitful and multiply." The first thing God says to Adam and Eve really is after he blesses them is be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and have dominion over it. And so he stresses this fruitfulness and this is a way that you are to glorify God in the dominion mandate, in the creation mandate, fill up the earth because these children are a blessing, they're not a burden. Psalm 127 is confronting a lot of idols in America, isn't it? The workaholism, being a workaholic, basically, and also the negative view towards children. And there might be a connection, by the way. When work becomes the most important thing, then the children get marginalized. but there's an emphasis on the blessing of these children. Notice the words that are used here in the text that are trying to highlight the goodness of children. As Jacob said, these are the children you have graciously given your servant. They are a heritage is one word that's used. Children are a heritage from the Lord. So the idea is that word inheritance. God is our father and he's given to us, his children, an inheritance. And that is our having children, a heritage, a legacy that goes on even past us. There's a future in our children. And then there's a reward. The word reward there, the fruit of the womb, a reward, speaks of the payment of like the payment are a wage. So it's not just reward, like you got a reward for being a good little boy and God's patting you on the head. That's not the image, but this, it's something of value. Children are like your paycheck. They're a value, they're divine blessing. They're supposed to be seen as precious. And so we should think about that. We should think about that as we talk to young people who are getting married. You know, one of the things that often I think gets left out of the definition of marriage, we talk about companionship. That's a purpose for marriage. We talk about marriage in terms of it's a picture of the gospel. It is Christ and his love for the church and the church's submission to Christ. We talk about marriage, especially as Americans, as personal fulfillment. There's a satisfying relationship. But biblically, one of the purposes of marriage, sure, not the only purpose, but one of the purposes, procreation. It's in our Westminster Confession of Faith as one of the purposes of marriage. It's throughout the Bible. We see, more importantly, where God says in Malachi that he's seeking from a man and his wife godly offspring. And where God talks about the fruitfulness and the blessing of this. And we see in the Psalms, children and grandchildren are spoken of and great-grandchildren as this great blessing and a tremendous gift from the Lord. And yet so many times, young people, especially in our culture, they're like, yeah, I don't really know. It might be a burden, or might not be able to afford another mouth to feed, or I just want to get married. Maybe if they want to get married, for companionship's sake, but not with this vision of fruitfulness. A fruitful marriage in God's ordinary providence is a marriage with children. I think you could make the case that if a man and a wife want to get together and they're totally ruling out ever having children, that the minister shouldn't officiate that ceremony. because one of the major purposes is procreation, children as a blessing, children as a reward from the Lord. Imagine if we said, we don't want the heritage, we don't want that reward, it's not something that's good. And then we think also just about those of us who have children, who wanted children, who still have them, and we sometimes, maybe you wonder, why did I want them? But we should repent and we should see them as a blessing. Our children that are growing up, the children that are adults even, that they are a blessing, they are a heritage. and encourage them, and thank God for them, and invest in their lives. Isn't it interesting? This is not something planned, but how this psalm ties so neatly to what we studied this morning in 1 Corinthians 3 about building, building on the foundation, building with materials that last, investing in our children. Our children have immortal souls. And you think about caring for children and how important that is. So the goodness of procreation, the goodness of these children should be cherished. And notice it's not just that they're a heritage, that's one word. A reward is another word. And then check this out, the other word, arrows. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. I saw Charles with that bow this morning, and I thought he was gonna use it as an illustration of the sermon tonight with his bow and arrow. But that's the way it's presented in the Bible. If you're a warrior and you're going into battle, and you have a quiver and you have a bow, and here comes the enemy, how many arrows do you want in your quiver? The image here is the more, the better. Fill that quiver up. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children's of one's youth. They're useful. So it's vain that you build a house without the Lord being in it. It's vain to watch over a city if the Lord's not watching. It's vain to work all the time if you're not trusting in God to give you sleep. But it also would be vain to go into a battle without any arrows. And so the emphasis is on The arrows in the hand of a warrior, they're useful and parents shoot those arrows and they want to shoot those arrows straight and sharp at the enemy. It's another way we think about just the implications there for child rearing. We're going to see our children as a blessing, but also our children, we're raising them up to go out into a spiritual battle. They are to be attacking the enemy. They are to be fighting the battles of the Lord, if you will. We're shooting them straight. They are our legacy. They are for the glory of God. And fill that quiver with them. And notice what it says here at the end of the psalm. It says, he shall, blessed is the man who fills the quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. So here is perhaps the psalmist thinking of the psalmist as an old man. And the gate was the place in those days where sometimes economic transactions would take place, but also legal disputes would be decided at the gate. And your children would be those who would advocate for you in your old age. We think about the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. And of course, we always think about that as teaching our kids to obey mom and dad. And that's true. But honoring your father and mother is also caring for your father and mother in their old age and being their advocate. And so blessed is the man who has a bunch of these children, a bunch of these grandchildren, they could be his advocate. They can speak. When he speaks with his enemies in the gate, he's not outnumbered. He has these arrows, he has these advocates, he has those who are on his side. Now, you might be thinking when you read something like that, you might be thinking, well, wait a second, children aren't always a blessing, they're not always a heritage, they're not always good arrows. Sometimes, you know, the book of Proverbs talks about children who grow up and they're a shame. They're a shame and a disgrace to their father and mother because of the way they behave. It talks about behaving foolishly can be a disgrace to the parents. But I think even there for the beloved of God, remember we're talking about the beloved of God there in verse two, we're talking about the elect of God. I think even there, there's the promise from God that even the children that give us grief, the children that give us gray hairs, the children that make life difficult for us, that God has promised to use those even for our good. To teach us to trust in him, to teach us to pray to him, to work in them, to sharpen those arrows, to use them for his glory. to teach us, as we said, the purpose of this whole Psalm, to depend on Him, to rely on Him and not just doing it our own power, not just doing our own frenetic activity. We think about adult children and how it changes when you're when your children have children and trying to disciple your children and realizing things have changed as they have children of their own, and what does it look like in that stage? But it builds a sense of dependence on the Lord. The Lord has to change their hearts. Unless the Lord builds their house, the building will be in vain. Unless the Lord watches over that city, it will be in vain. Without me, Jesus says, you can do what? Nothing. Nothing for our children, nothing for our, Grandchildren, nothing for our great-grandchildren. It would just all be in vain. Isn't it interesting that Solomon is the one who wrote those words, vanity of vanity, vapor, all chasing after the wind. But with Christ and with the help and blessing of God, it's not in vain. It's a house. It's a city that's well-protected and well-guarded because he who watches over us will never slumber nor sleep. Ultimately, how many children you have, I mean, we have human responsibility, and we won't go into that part of it, but God opens and shuts the womb. And so ultimately, when we think about children, it's a sense of dependence. There were people in the Old Testament, godly saints, as there are today, who wanted to have children, but ultimately, they were not able to have children until God miraculously opened the womb. And we think even in the gospel that that's what we see, that you had a virgin, didn't you? You had Mary who was, by human measures, unable to have children as a virgin. And yet God supernaturally conceived the Lord Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary so that He would come and be our Savior, so that He would be the sinless Son of God, so that He would fulfill the law of God in exact detail, that He would be born under the law, perfectly obey it in order to lay down His life on the cross to atone for our sins, to rise again so that we could become the children of God, so that we could be the people who live for the glory of God, not relying on ourselves, but relying on him. So when you think about Psalm 127, when you ponder this as the Jews did of old, as they were going up to Jerusalem for their annual feast, be reminded again and again, without the Lord, it's nothing. It's like what it said earlier on in the songs of ascent, when it said, if the Lord had not been on our side, If the Lord had not been on our side, the enemy would have totally decimated us. But as it is, the Lord is on our side. He is for us. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not graciously with him give us all things? And if God is for us, who can be against us? And in that strength and in God's commitment to us, we can depend on him. In our daily actions, in our, childbearing and childrearing in marriage, in the home, at work, at play. God is sovereign, and that's the God-enhanced life that he calls us to have. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. It is indeed a lamp into our feet and a light into our path. We know how much we need to depend on you. Deep within our souls, something resonates with those words, 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's so vain, it's so empty and meaningless. for us to spin our wheels or burn the candle at both ends or work overtime without your help and without your blessing. And so teach us to invest in the things that really matter, our families, our children, our grandchildren, our marriages, to build on the foundation, which is Christ, to build with the materials that last forever, to know that we'll be evaluated and to know what you have, what you have said is valuable. Children, are a blessing from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. And so may we cherish the children that you have graciously given your servant, and may we invest in them for eternity. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand together and sing of the glory of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. When I survey the wondrous cross, it's hymn 252. Let's stand as we sing.