As I said when I expounded this passage two weeks ago, this psalm was written by Solomon. It says, a song of a sense of Solomon. I spent time on that occasion considering Solomon and why we should listen to this man. How as the third king in Israel, he was blessed by God upon requesting of God wisdom with that wisdom. His ability, his capacity, his character, and his competence are very clearly evident. And so in coming to this, Sam, we're coming to someone who knows what they're talking about, which is always a good thing to do. It's best to go, I find, in life to someone who knows what they're talking about rather than going to someone who thinks they know what they're talking about, but clearly and evidently doesn't. This man knew what he was talking about. And when we come to consider what he writes here in this psalm, his opening statements as we've seen in verses one is that the prominence and the need for God, not just to be present in our lives, but to be actively present in our lives. And then he comes in this second verse and addresses the issue of toil or work. And he speaks to that in a sense that would convey that it's almost vanity to give yourself to labor. And what I want to look at first is the fact that work is a big part of our lives and it's a big part for a reason. And then I want to consider what is it that Solomon is actually getting at here when he speaks about the relationship with work and the possibility of it being something that is vacuous or vain or pointless. Because it almost seems as though there's contradiction here, and there's never contradiction in God's word. Even when we see in the four Gospels the different accounts of what took place in Jesus' life, we've observed in our fellowship groups how that, that far from being contradictory is absolutely complementary. It's like individuals looking at a situation, the same situation from different perspectives, and they will give you the view that they see, and then you take all those views, you get a composite of what actually happened. You get a better view of what happened. And what we know from Scripture is that in relation to work, that we are to work because God is a God of work. In Genesis, God speaks of his creation. How he made the heavens and the earth. and how He made the heavens and the earth in six days. And then having finished the earth, as we see in Genesis chapter 2, thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. God worked in the creation. breathed out the creation in His spoken word. And when He labored in that spoken word, He established all that we see, observe, and experience today. And the psalmist speaks in Psalm 104 of how God continues to work because God did rest in the work of His creation. Of that there is no doubt because that's what he read in Genesis chapter 2. The creative order is finished. And God finished His work on that sixth day. Literal 24 hour, six day creation. He finished that work. then He rested from that work. And there has been no more creation since that moment of that hour when God finished His creation. But that doesn't mean that God has sat back and not continued to work. Very clearly we know from various portions of Scripture that that's not the case. Psalm 104, it speaks verse 14 in the following of how God continues to work. He says, you cause the grass to grow for the livestock. and plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth fruit from the earth and wine to gladden the heart. The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly. The cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests and the stork has her home in the fir tree. God continues to sustain his creation. We are to care for this earth on which we live. But we're also to understand that the existence of this earth is not dependent upon our care of it. We are to care for it because God has established us that responsibility. He gave to Adam the responsibility of working in the Garden of Eden to To bring life to it in the sense of not new life, not order because God established that, but to labor in the garden. He was to be God's regent in the earth. But this earth does not depend on what we do in the next 10 or 20 years. This earth depends for its sustenance upon God. We have to be very clear about that because there is a lot of communication, thought, and going in and the culture of our society and the world today that we have to do certain things. Otherwise, there's not going to be a world existing for our grandchildren. That is not true. If God chooses to end this world before the end of this week, then that's His choice. If God chooses to give the earth another five millennia, that's His choice. So He has worked and He sustains His work. We are to work because God has given us this responsibility, as I've already alluded to. He planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put man whom He had formed. And we read in Genesis chapter 2 that God took the man and put him in the garden, To work it and keep it. To work and keep the land. That was his responsibility. And God codified that responsibility in the book of Exodus when he brings the people before Mount Moriah and he has them stand there. And they're not to touch the mount because if they do so then he will consume them because of his holiness. And he takes Moses up and he gives Moses the law. The 10 commandments. And one of those laws, he says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He begins with the Sabbath day. He begins with the act of rest. And then he says, six days you shall labor and do all your work. And then he goes on to speak about the keeping and the preserving of the Sabbath day. Put Adam into the garden. He said, work it Adam, that's your responsibility. He stands before the nation of Israel in the form of the law that he gave to Moses. And he clearly stipulates, you are to rest on the Sabbath day, that is now this day of the week as we understand it. And you're to do so having worked for six days. Worked for six days. So God worked. He gave man the charge to work. He commands man to work. And then, in the book of Proverbs, he gives many warnings to men about the necessity of working. He says that not working is a bad thing. Now obviously, when we use the word work, we're not talking about solely employment. So when we're using the word work, we're not talking about going out, working a 38 hour week, or whatever number of hours you work, and then getting paid for that. Although there is the element of the fact that that is involved. But I'm making that point just in case some of you godly ladies, and I'm sure you understand this already, by using the word work, we're not in any way diminishing the work that you're doing in your home. You do work far more than 38 hours a week, especially if you have a scatter of veins around your feet. God makes it very clear that the that the labor of our hands is important. He says in Proverbs 21 verse 25 regarding work, that the desire of the sluggard kills him, the non-worker, for his hands refuse to labor. Then he says of the sluggard who has an excuse for not working, 26 verse 13, he says that the man or the woman who will not work, who will not apply themselves, the sluggard says, there's a lion in the road, there's a lion in the street. In other words, they always have an excuse or a reason for not doing what God commands. He says in 26.16, the sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. In other words, the sluggard always will have not just an excuse, but he will think he's right. Even if seven men come to him and say, you're wrong. It doesn't matter. In his eyes, he is right. And he gives an example of how the sluggard is to go to the aunt and consider his ways and be wise in Proverbs 6.6. But it's not just an Old Testament warning against laziness, against a lack of willingness to work, because we find in 1 Timothy 5, verse 8, that if anyone does not provide for his relations, and especially the members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than unbeliever. That's an incredible statement. He's speaking there, Paul to Timothy, of Christian men and women who refuse to apply themselves in such a way that they will not provide for their relatives and especially their own members of their house. But they want to live, as it were, on the basis of the church providing for them. And he says, they have denied the faith. Are they literally deniers of the faith? No, they're not. But that's a consequence of their saying it. And it's worse than an unbeliever. That's a huge, huge statement. And what are the examples of working? Do we not see the Lord Jesus Christ continually and constantly working? Teaching in the synagogue. Healing. Was ever a man who labored so intensely in his life having to go off to get rest? And the Apostle Paul speaks when he speaks to the elders at Miletus in Acts 20. You yourselves know that these hands minister to those who are with me in all things. I've shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. So we have these examples of the Lord and the Apostle Paul applying themselves to working, and Paul saying, I worked. I didn't rely on you. I had reason to rely on you, but I didn't rely on you. I worked. I maintained that responsibility that God gave me. And so when we come to Psalm 127, and we read what Solomon has to say about the vanity of working. It is vain that you rise up early and go late to rest. Eating the bread of anxious toil is what Solomon is saying here. I'm contradicting. I'm at odds with what God has commanded. Am I at odds with God the Creator? Am I at odds with God's statement to Adam to go out and work? Am I at odds with what He said in His law in Exodus chapter 20? Am I at odds with what I wrote? Am I at odds with myself and what I wrote in the book of Proverbs regarding the sluggard, the one who would not work and the responsibility and the implications and the consequences of their not working? No, He's not saying that at all. There's no contradiction here. The key to understanding Psalm 127 verse two is how are we approaching our work? What is our view of our work? What is our perspective with which we come to in our work? And let's face it, our work is a big part of our lives. Huge part of our lives. I mean, we do have hours every day that we do fill with labor. And it's really important that we understand that as we fill those hours with labor, whatever form that labor takes, that we fill that time with labor in a way that is right and correct. Biblically right and biblically correct. Because if we don't, then it's vanity, it's pointless. There is no benefit derived from it to rise early and go to bed late. If you're getting up in the morning early and you're applying yourselves to some reasonable, moral, acceptable, responsible task, and you're doing it in a way that is not correct in the eyes of God, then as far as God is concerned, it's an utter waste of your time. And my question to you is, do you want to live your life, your one incredibly short life, wasting your days, investing your time in whatever you are doing that is in the eyes of God utterly pointless. I don't think any reasonable person here this morning would want to do that. So surely it's incumbent upon us to understand the relationship between work and God in our lives. so that we find ourselves not living a vacuous or a life marked by vanity, but we're living a life that's marked by biblical productivity. And to explore this, I want to ask three questions. And I want you to turn to the book of Ecclesiastes because Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, and Solomon has a great deal to say about work. in the book of Ecclesiastes. And so we compare scripture with scripture in order to see what we would have to understand about what Solomon is saying here in Psalm 127 verse 2. It's found in page 656 of the Pew Bible, that's Ecclesiastes if you're looking at that. The first question I want to ask is, we've got to think about what in reality does our work achieve? What does our work achieve? In Ecclesiastes chapter 1, 3 to 11, it's very clear that Solomon says that if we're living our lives and working in a manner that does not take into reality the fact that God is the one who gives us our life and the one to whom we are answerable too. If we are just living and working for work's sake, we will achieve nothing. Because he makes the point, verse three, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? Legitimate question. You work, you labor, you toil, What do you gain? What do you achieve? And then he goes on in verses 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to demonstrate that there's nothing new in the world. It's a cyclical pattern. Verse four, a generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it sets. The wind blows to the south and goes round to the north, around and around goes the wind, and onto its circuits the wind returns. The streams run into the sea, but the sea is not full. Isn't that an amazing thing, boys and girls? You think of all the water that runs down the mountains into the sea, and yet the sea is never full. Where does all the water that runs off the mountains come from? Where does it go when it goes into the sea? So the water rises and so it rises into the sky and it goes in a cycle. What's the point? It just goes round and round and round and round. And if you get up in the morning and you do your work, And you have no reference to the person and work of Jesus Christ. You have no sense of God giving you life. You have no sense of the glory of God. And you have no sense of your need to walk in the ways of God. That will be the pattern of your life. It will just go round and round and round and round. He says in chapter two, verse 11, having spoken about all of his work, He speaks of the huge amount of toil that he engaged in. This is Solomon himself. He talks about having gathered silver and gold, the treasure of kings and provinces. He talks about the possessions that they had. We saw the last time how this man built a temple for the Lord as God had decreed and then built himself a home. He says in verse four of chapter two, I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted them in all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered to myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces, singers, concubines, the light of the sons of men's hearts. He just goes on and talks about all the work that he had done and all that the fruit of that work. And then he says in verse 11, then I considered all that my hands had done and the toilet expended in doing it. And behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind. And there was nothing to be gained under the sun. I did all this work. I did all this work. And what was the point of it? What was the point of it? And what benefit does it bring in this lifetime? He speaks in chapter four, verses four to 12, again about his work. And he speaks about how that it doesn't get him ahead. It didn't get him ahead. Many people looked at Solomon and all the splendor of all the magnificence of his kingdom and all the treasures, and they thought, if only I could be like Solomon. My life would be easy. And Solomon who gained all that material wealth and all the pleasures from that which he did, he looked at his life and he said in respect of it, what have I gained? I've gained nothing. And this man put his feet up on his bed at night. He looked at himself and he said, what has been the point of all of this? It hasn't satisfied my soul. Well, maybe you say, well, he was working for the benefit of those who would live after him. He was leaving an inheritance to his family. Well, he also speaks about that in chapter two, and he talks about the futility of working. Verse 18 through 23, working in order to leave something for those who will follow you. He says, I hated all my toil in which I toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will be the master of all of which I have toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. He says, I labored and I accumulated all this property, all this wealth, all these possessions, And he said, when I looked at it, I found as if it didn't give me anything that I wanted in my life. It didn't satisfy the inner need in my life. And then when I thought about, well, at least there's a benefit in leaving this to the family that follows me, he said, I'm leaving this to a person or people, and I don't know what they're going to do with it. And many of you have heard of that, known those of us who are a bit older and new family businesses, family businesses that were established in times and communities. ran for 100, 200 years. But they're nowhere today. The grandfather labored every hour that God gave him. All the hours that he could get, he was out. And he trained his son to work all the hours as well. And the son worked. And then the grandchildren came along. And a few of them worked. But then you find as you go down the generations, there's less appetite for that work. There was more appetite for spending the fruit of that work. The wealth of that work. And so large family industries were squandered on the back of subsequent generations. And even small family businesses were squandered in the back of a grandchild or a great-grandchild or great-grandchildren who had no sense of working, just saw money come easy, money go easy. And Solomon identifies that and he says, I'm working all these hours and I'm getting nothing out of it. It's just vanity to me. It's just pointless. And when I compare myself with other people, I have all this stuff, but I'm still not happy. And when I think, well, I'm leaving it as an inheritance, and I'm not saying we shouldn't leave as an inheritance to our children, we should. It's a biblical principle. But he says, if I'm working just to leave an inheritance, they will squander it in due course. So what is the point? God worked. God commanded Adam to work. God commands us to work. Six days shalt thy labour. And do all thy work. He warns us about not working. About being lazy like the sluggard. Who won't work. And makes all sorts of excuses as to why they can't work. And when anybody challenges them, they say, you don't know what I know about my life. And he says, that's the sluggard. Sluggards go off and be like the ant. If you know anything about ants, they're constantly working. And yet all of that work, Solomon says, is utter pointless. It's vanity. So what's the point? The point is it's vanity if it's done for work's sake. It's vanity if it's done for your sake. But if it's done to please God, then it's a wonderful thing. Mothers, you get up in the morning, you change diapers, you make breakfast. Some of that breakfast is on the floor and the table within a few minutes. You get a cloth out. You wipe the face. You wipe the table. You wipe the floor. You turn around. The face is a mess. The floor is a mess. And the table is a mess. And you look to yourself and you think, what's the point? Men, you go out and you work. And you labor. And you try to make progress in your chosen profession. And you do it with a heart. And then you find people come along, colleagues come along, and make daft, stupid arguments against what you've done. And you go to your boss, and you get into his office, and you think, well, this will be an obvious one. I'll have to not be very proud now when I stand and he shakes his head and says to me, well, that's easy. You see it right, and they see it wrong. And you're standing there, and your boss turns around and says, I don't really agree with you, you agree with them, and you're standing scratching your head, thinking to yourself, how on earth can you see their position, when my position is eminently clear and obvious? And you leave his office thinking, I'll just go home and pack out the bag, because there's no point. And it doesn't happen once, it happens frequently. And mothers, by the time you get to the afternoon, the washing machine is out, and you put all the washing in, and you get it out, I was going to say ironed, but you don't really iron stuff. But you wash it and you put it away and you think that's it, that'll be it, done. And then you go around the rooms later in the day and you see all these baskets with dirty clothes in them and you thought, I thought I'd done all the washing. It's all to be done again. And you see, you could get into an attitude of why am I doing this? I'm doing this for my children. My children need this. Well, what happens when your children grow up and leave? If you're working just to put food in your children's stomachs and keep them enclosed, what happens when they leave? Are you gonna just stop then? Are you gonna become a slugger? What men and women who go into the workplace, what happens when you retire? Are you just working for work's sake to put money on the table? Is that what you're working for? When did you think this thing through? We have a responsibility to put food in the stomachs of our children. We have a responsibility to put clean clothes on their back. We have a responsibility to train them in the things of God and educate them. We have a responsibility, men, to go out and work and provide for our families. As Solomon writes in Proverbs about the sluggard who depends on others and needs to go out and work to provide for him and not just himself, others in his family. But there's more to it than that. Because if it's just working for work's sake, it will take the heart out of us. We will be uncomfortable. We will reach a point in our lives and we'll say, what is the point? I'm just stuck at this. I'm just doing this for the sake of it. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 224, there is nothing better for a person than he should enjoy, eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. How can Solomon say, find enjoyment in his toil, when Solomon, and I've read it to you, has said, our toil is nothing but a cycle. Our toil doesn't give us any joy in our lives. Our toil doesn't give us any advancement above other people in terms of how we are satisfied. Our toil does not give us anything of value in terms of the inheritance of our families, because we don't know if we're going to leave it to someone in our future descendants that's going to go out and destroy it. Is this man psychotic? Is he psychotic? Does he not know where he is coming, his left hand from his right? No, he says, find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. He finds joy in what he's doing because he looks to God. And he says in chapter 3 verses 9-13 where he talks about his toil. What gain has a worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Everything beautiful in its time. And he goes on to speak about the fact that key to our enjoyment of our labor is our enjoyment of God. I perceived that there is nothing better for them to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. You see, it's when we labor with a view to the glory of God. As you change the diaper, as you wipe the table for the third time in the morning, as you do the washing for the sixth time in the week, and the baskets are still full, it's you're doing it to the glory of God. You're saying God worked. God blessed me with work. God commanded me to work. God tells me not to be a sluggard. I am working. I am bringing glory to God. Isn't that a wonderful thought? So when the children are up and gone, God will give you more work. And you'll not be lost. Do you know how many women are lost in their lives when their children leave them? Do you know the reason why many godly women cause trouble in the church in their 50s and 60s when their children are up and gone? It's because they're looking for a reason to justify their existence. They've been so taken up with their children all their life. And I advocate mothers caring for their children. But they're so taken up with the children in their life that when they're gone, they're often married. They become busybodies, wanting to tell everybody else what they should do. That speaks to an inability or a failure to have grasped during the 30 years of their motherhood, 25 or whatever it was, that each day they were doing it, not for the sake of their children, but to the glory of God. And as they did it to the glory of God, then their children benefited. Their children understood that. And that framed that work. Do you know why many men get lost after they retire and become difficult, even Christian men? because they haven't understood that their 40 years of working was in the glory of God. That's where they were to find their joy. That's whenever they come out of the office for the umpteenth time and the boss had turned down their reasonable, justly warranted argument for the sake of someone else just because the boss has a particular relationship with this other person and they're scratching their heads and they're thinking about it. They can leave that office disappointed that their professional capacity has not received the reasonable, acceptable response that it should entitled to, but they can leave it and they can say, I can go to bed tonight and I can look my savior in the eye and I can say, I've done my best. And I did that to your glory and to your honor. And whatever they say about me, and whatever they think about me behind my back, it doesn't matter. I wasn't spiteful. I didn't play their games. I didn't get into the office politics. I didn't play by their rules. I played by honesty and integrity. I gave myself in the best way that I could. I can look God in the eye and say, I'm finding joy in this job. Do you hear me this morning? Because it would be a sad thing for some of you young mothers in 20 years time to be the cantankerous 50 and 60 year olds. Trying to do your best and yet getting it wrong. Getting it wrong. And I have nobody in mind. Or for some of you men in your 30s or 40s and you're retiring in 20 years time. You want to run the race well, but you want to run it correctly. You want to do it to the glory of God. Is that not what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount? Do not be anxious about tomorrow. But how do we not be anxious about tomorrow? We seek first the kingdom of God today. Today. Today. Today. Are you to work? Yes. God commands you to work, because he worked. He put Adam to work. He told his people in Israel to work. He tells us to work. He gives us warnings about those who don't work. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, make sure they work. Jesus worked, Paul worked, but they labored understanding it wasn't about work for work's sake. Accumulation of wealth or the handing down of an inheritance. All of those may be necessary, but it was work to reflect the glory of God. Work to reflect the joy of knowing God. Work to delight in the things of God. So when others look at you and say, I'm surprised that he or she hasn't given up by now. I can't make it out. I'd have thought they'd been long gone by now. The hard time we've given them. you by your testimony speak of the power of God's grace in your life. Not just to talk about Jesus, but to clean that table for the fifth time in the morning. Because you've done that load of washing for the eighth time in the week. And because you've taken the abuse at work, you've taken it. Without a big smile, cheesy grin, you've taken it, and they look into your eyes and they say, you're different. There's something about why you're doing this that's different. Because you beam out, I'm doing this to fulfill the blessing and the promises of God in my life. Shine as a light to the glory of God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the truth of the gospel that shines through our lives. As we labor in the things of God, it involves our daily mundane routine work. As we care for these matters that apart from you are toil and vanity, But as lived in Christ, they speak of our joy in you. We pray that you'll help us to understand these things in Jesus name. Amen.