Unless the Lord Builds

Good morning. It's good to see everybody this morning. As Dan said, I'm Eric, pastor here at Clearnoat Church. And I just do want to reiterate, I am very excited about our small group starting up. It's always a sweet time of fellowship together. And I do want to reiterate that the more... effort we put into them both in being present and in being vulnerable. confessing our sins, talking about the real problems that we have when we pray together, the more fruit that we can expect from them and the closer our hearts will be knit together.

And so as we prepare to start, I encourage you to be praying for them and seeking that God would really bless them and the ministry that they are in our church. Now, if you looked at the bulletin, you may have noticed that this morning we're taking a break from Psalm 119. And I'm intending to, the next few times I preach, preach on different topics of things that I think would be helpful, encouraging, useful to our church.

And this morning, we are going to be going through Psalm 127, which, as Eric pointed out to me, is just about three pages further on than Psalm 119. Psalm 127 is one of the Psalms of Ascent. It's written most likely by Solomon or potentially for Solomon. The Psalms of Ascent were thought to be, if you recall the geography of Israel, Jerusalem is up on a mountain and the temple is on the Temple Mount.

And so the thought with the Psalms of Ascent is that as the Israelites would head to Jerusalem for worship, the Psalms of Ascent as they were going up to worship God. at the temple Now... As we read through this psalm, I have a question for you. Are you... A builder. Do you think of yourself as a builder? Probably most of you don't quite think of yourself in those terms.

But even if you haven't thought of yourself as a builder before, You are a builder. You're building things in many areas of your life. Some of us are building businesses. We're building careers. We're building networks. We're building a reputation. We're building families. We're building the culture of our homes. Even you kids are building things. You are going to school and you're working on skills. You're sharpening your minds.

You also are building reputations. Our church has gone through difficult months, right? And now we're looking towards, we don't want to be caught up looking at the past. We want to look forward. We want to build. We want to grow. We want to see what God has in store for us. So we're all building something. And the simple message of this first part of the psalm is that whatever we build, will be in vain.

if we're not building according to God's word and in submission and dependence upon him. So maybe a better question is, Not, are you building? We all are building something. But the question is, What are you building and are you building alone? Are you building according to God's word? Because if the Lord is not in what we're building, then the warning is, it's vanity. So let's read our passage, and as we go through it, let's examine our ways and see how we can build with the Lord so that the things with which we're building are not vain.

Please stand for the reading of God's word. This is Psalm 127. A psalm of a sense of Solomon. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. It's vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors. For he gives to his beloved even in his sleep.

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them! They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

So the first point is that we must build with the Lord. God must be in all of our work and in whatever it is that we're building. And if he isn't, what we're told is that that building will be in vain. So what does it mean that it's in vain? Well, I can tell you of a few occasions where, you know, we went to this house and we painted it and the homeowner comes back in and is like, I don't like it.

We need to paint it a new color. Yeah. Or you bought the IKEA cabinet, right? And in your vain glory, you decided to put it together. You weren't paying much attention to the instructions and you attached part of it backwards. And you had to deconstruct it in order to rebuild it. The vanity of your attempt, right? Then, um... You know, we have the... idea that we see in Corinthians.

that there will be those who have built and built. And yet when we come and stand before God, what they'll realize is what they have built is wood, hay, and stubble. And it gets burned up. So we get the picture, right? Vanity here is describing something that though it may have the appearance of something solid. In the end, the thing that is built is futile. The builder may be sincere, may be skilled, and they may even be diligent.

But if God is not part of that work, If he's not doing the work. It is vain. It will lack true substance. And we're not just talking about earthly success or failure. That can be part of it. That is part of it. At points. But a man can succeed outwardly and yet be building something that has no lasting value. that the lack of solidity to it. will only be seen when it's burned up in the end.

And so the key thing that we have to see is that we have to notice in all of this is whether or not the Lord is involved in what we're building and what we're watching and the labor that's going on. Is what we are doing in submission to God and independence on him, or is it in reliance upon our own effort? Now, this argument that Solomon's making here is not that we don't have to work.

right there's no room in this psalm for just sitting back and watching god act God's created work. Work was created before the fall on the garden. We are to work. Laziness in scripture is never commended. It's always a sin, right? And so in the first two examples that Solomon gives, he's assuming that the man is working. The man is going to work as he is called to do.

He's supposed to do it. He's working to be a good citizen, to watch out for the welfare of his city. These are good and necessary things, this work. But the vanity is if we do all that good work and necessary work, but we do it without the Lord. So how do we labor not in vain? We have to build with the Lord. So then we have to ask, what does it mean to build with the Lord?

How do we build with dependence upon God? Well... To build with the Lord means... that we ought to seek his direction. depend on the Lord's strength to ask for his blessing and to give him the glory. And so we think about, do we acknowledge God in our work? When you set out to complete a task, do you begin by seeking God's direction before it? Do you start with prayer?

as you are in the midst of your projects. Are you praying for God to be with you, to bless it, to give you wisdom? And as you complete your tasks, do you give glory to God for the work that he's helped you to accomplish? I think in my own life of how often I, and how easily I can neglect to seek God's blessings. and to depend on him and the things that I'm doing, right?

Especially, you think about when you're doing something that doesn't seem spiritual, right? It seems logical that if it's spiritual, we would call on God, right? So, you know, before we read the Bible or before we start family worship, sure, we pray because that's a spiritual thing and we want the Lord involved in it and depending on it. But, you know, do we begin our day headed to work with prayer, would bless the work of our hands.

I mean, do we even start the day in prayer? Or do we just, the alarm goes off, we get up, we get our coffee and we head to work without thinking about That our whole day is vanity if the Lord is not in it and blessing it. Do we only, I mean, think about how many times you begin a project at work or on your home and you're chugging along.

until you hit something difficult. And that's the first idea that you have is, oh, maybe I should pray about this. That's often me, right? This is often me when I start. I don't think about praying and seeking the Lord to bless the work and to be in it until I hit the problem. And then I think, oh, I should probably get God's help on this. It was interesting in reading about Dr.

Samuel Johnson. He wrote a dictionary. But we also have all these little prayers that he wrote. And you have specific prayers before he started his work on the dictionary. And he had a little prayer that he would pray for every time he caught himself wasting time. It's just this beautiful example of someone who, in his work, actually wrote down prayers to help him to depend on God and everything that he's working on.

And so the first... Couple verses here are teaching us that we must build with the Lord, which means we must be dependent on him, seeking his direction, depending on his strength, asking for his blessing and giving him glory in the things that we're doing. The second thing that he says here. in this psalm is very striking. He says that he gives to his beloved sleep. Now, how many of you would say that you have a theology of sleep?

Have you ever thought that there actually was a theology of sleep? How many of us are frustrated by sleep? We're frustrated maybe by lack of sleep, or we're frustrated that we have to sleep. Sleep's just a waste of time. It's an interruption to our busy life. You know, Solomon here is teaching us a lot about who we are. Because he's describing someone who, it could be a couple different things, right?

You have the person who... just has to work. Right? The only way that he can get ahead is at work. And so sleep's an inconvenience. He's also describing someone who just has to be in control. And sleep, you're not in control. So you don't have time for sleep. Now, there's a translation... question here. This is a well-known question. The Hebrew can be understood as, he gives sleep to his beloved.

or as he gives his beloved while they sleep. Either way, the point is very similar. God's people. God's people, so you. You're God's child. You don't have to live as though everything depends on your ceaseless labor. It doesn't. He gives his beloved sleep. Christians, the beloved of God. can sleep easy. and they can sleep well. Why? Because God's got it. He's in control. and his gift to you is sleep.

You think it wasn't talking exactly about sleep, but you think of Stonewall Jackson, right? Who has this famous quote that I'm as safe and bad as I am on the battlefield because God has appointed the time of his death, right? But there's this idea here that. We don't have to control all things. We can sleep. We can get good rest. And the Lord, who owns the cattle on a thousand hill, can provide for you even while you're asleep.

The dream of the passive income, right? Just this idea that I can go to sleep and the money just collects or whatever. But there is a reality to the fact that though we are called to work hard. There comes a point when the work must cease, because the work will never be done. The work will never be done. The work will never be perfect. The work at some point has to be laid down.

And you have to go to sleep. And that is a blessing from God. In that sleep, God restores us. He refreshes us. He gives us energy to get up the next day and to get back at the work. Rest. You think about it. In the very beginning of the creation, God set apart an entire day for rest. God did not rest on the seventh day of creation because he was worn out from having created the universe.

It was an example for us. that we ought to rest. And so we must at points. Put the work away. and be done. That is an act of faith. It's an act of faith. And it's a reminder to you that you are not the one in control, that God's in control, and you have to cede it to God. You have to give it to God. Sleeping is an admission that I'm not in control, that the world will continue on just fine without me.

And thus, it can actually be an act of faith. So sleep in faith. You. Eking out a few more hours, getting up a few hours earlier to do a little bit more time or staying up a few hours later. can be an act. of faithlessness. Not always. There are times, there are seasons. But consider that you sleeping reminds you of your frailty. Because we're dead to the world when we sleep.

We are very vulnerable. It's a reminder of our vulnerability and of our trust in God that he's... He's in control. And so you give it up. Go to sleep. And trust in God that he can give to you even in your sleep. And so there are other things. I mean, one of those things is. putting your phone away, not listening to the dings and beeps and emails.

It's for you in college, right? You're going into college. Put the homework away on Sunday. Just rest on Sunday. Fellowship with other believers and rest. Put the homework away. Don't do it. I used to study on Sundays until I had a pastor just chew me out for it once. And I stopped, and you know what? It didn't have an appreciable difference on my grades at all. But there's just simple things.

Think about it. What is drawing you? and keeping you from work. and in faith. Set it aside. Okay. So, sleep. It's an act of faith. The next part of this psalm. Solomon goes from the idea of this building. and of the uh example he gives about sleep he then moves into a really practical section about children and you know we have the idea of building a house now he's talking about uh uh filling the house as it were.

And what we find is, even when it comes to he then moves into a really practical section about children. and you know we have the idea of building a house now he's talking about uh uh filling the house as it were. And what we find is even when it comes to filling a house, we have to be dependent on the Lord as, you know, children are not brought about from our own labor.

They're a gift from God. Now, I want to say that as it comes to raising children, If you do not have children, Or if all your children are grown and moved out. This does not mean that you're off the hook. Kids are given to parents, but the church is also necessary. I had a friend who would say that we raise our kids and the church finishes them.

And you think about examples. I'm sure if you think about it, you all have examples of people who are fathers and mothers in the faith, right? I think about a man named Papa John who had one child who became a member of our church, and then he came, and he was an older gentleman, and he would come to youth group. And, you know, He gained. 60 kids.

Everyone loved him. He was Papa John to everybody, the whole church. I think of in the book that we're reading in youth group, right? There is this lady, Ma Orlean Puckett. And my pocket. Had 24 kids, none of whom lived. But she was a midwife. And it is said that she helped deliver over a thousand babies. And not one of them was lost. And she has this, she said something like, I don't know why the Lord took all my babies, but he helped me to go and help all these others, right?

But we don't have to even go out there. We can look at Dan George. How many of you have lived in Dan George's house? Or you've seen young men who have gone through and Dan's been a father to how many young men, right? So the reality is that as we talk about children, there is the reality of our own lives and our own children, right? But we also have to be thinking about the children of the church and how we can be fathers and mothers and brothers, sisters to the children of our church and care for them as well.

our baptismal vow every time we have a baptism the pastor asks do you as a congregation undertake the responsibility of assisting the parents in the christian nurture of this child If so, say we do. If you have ever taken that vow, that is a vow you made before God and before all the rest of us, right? We have made that vow. And so it is incumbent upon us, having made that vow, that we go and do that work of helping raise up the next generation, right?

Now... In our church, I can say Our culture doesn't love children. And I don't think anyone here is going to fight me on that, right? We all can start thinking of the examples. you know, the messaging of our culture is that children are an attack upon our autonomy. They are a drain on our financial resources. You know, we can't live the lifestyle of Americans. You know, they don't personally fulfill us or something.

Right. The whole view of our culture is that we just add kids in as we want, or if they accidentally get added, we can eliminate them. The attitude of our culture is displayed towards us in very serious ways. down to ways that are not as serious, but are still painful. right so we can talk about abortion and birth control and the way that they're pushed and moved And those are very serious ways in which our culture shows that it does not love children.

And I think that the reason... for this is because of the promises that God has given about children and fruitfulness and that the redemption would come through the seed of a woman. And so Satan has it out for children. Because the promises of God that come through and have come through that. But our culture normalizes not having kids. And it goes down to things, just think about the design of cars.

and the way they're pushed, right? Like just their design choices in ways that make it uncomfortable in our culture for large families. certain types of lifestyles that are pushed, vacations, you don't have money to afford those things, you have to do these particular types of education, and if you can't do that, then you're failing as a parent, and so like all these different pressures, right? Which may not be as serious as something like abortion, and yet these pressures...

devaluing children and saying that, no, children are just something you sort of add in as you can fit them into the lifestyle that you should have, that you deserve. rude comments in grocery stores, And maybe if it doesn't rise to a comet, it's at least the looks, right? So we have constant negative messaging and pushback against being fruitful. And we're not immune to that discouragement. You know, we're very fruitful as a church.

We have lots of children. And yet, we have to be careful that we don't allow this insidious... constant messaging from everywhere you turn to filter in and cause doubts in your mind about being fruitful, about the joy and the blessing of children. But there's also, on the other side, there's a danger growing. on more of the conservative alt-right-ish side of things. We're beginning to see in culture people say, actually not having children is a problem.

We, you know, it's gonna cause problems to our economies. And so there's beginning to be pushes to have more kits. But some of this pushing is very ungodly in the way that it's pushed. We want to have kids to build up our race, our kingdom, our business. They talk about the evolutionary urge that man has to spread his seed abroad. So we have to have lots of kids.

There's one particularly horrifying story I read recently about this billionaire who has a hundred, is it 120 kids? I think Tim knows what I'm talking about. But yeah, this Chinese billionaire who has like 120 kids, he's met maybe 20 of them. And he's just raising up kids to control society? I don't know. It's a fetish? I don't know, right? But like there's this, what I'm saying is that there has begun to be a swing back of, oh.

You know, we had all the fear-mongering about population, overpopulation and stuff. We're beginning to have a swing back about all these having kids. But it's not a Christian view. It is not the view of Psalm 127. Neither of these are Christian. They're both destructive to children. The second view that I've been describing, and really both views, view children as a commodity. They're a means to an end.

They're an asset to enhance your life or they're something that would detract from your life. They do not view children as the image bearers of God. Children are not viewed as young men and women that have eternal souls. So there's so much noise. so much noise about children. And cutting through all of that noise is Psalm 127. And in Psalm 127, we have God orienting us and telling us, what we should believe and what we should know.

And that is that children are a gift, they're a heritage, they're a reward from the Lord. Do you think? of children as a gift. Some of us do. You know, I gotta tell you, I was, um... When I was leaving Joseph's graduation party and I'm walking down, I don't know if any of you know Ben Carell. But Ben Corral, you've met Pastor Max. It's his son. So think of a slightly younger version of Pastor Max.

And we're walking out, and I said hi to him. And we know each other. We don't know each other well. And so he's basically asking, you know, what's new? I just had a daughter, Irene. I don't know, think of Santa Claus and the joy and exuberance. He's like, oh, congratulations! And he's like getting a hug from a teddy bear. Like, just overwhelming and big and tight squeeze.

I am so excited for you. How old are you? Wow, I only have eight kids. You're probably going to surpass me. That is so exciting! You know how encouraged I was? He genuinely believes that children are a gift from God. No. I do want to pause here and say... Some of us here Some of us here know that children are a gift from God. And we know that precisely because we have felt the loss of children.

or the absence of children in our home. And so a psalm like this can be difficult. because We look at it and we see the loss of... My child. My inability to conceive. And it says that children are a reward, so what does that mean? Is God punishing me? Is he withholding things from me? These are painful questions that this psalm can spark. Is God angry with me?

The purpose of this psalm is not to diagnose. Our losses. Your loss. The psalm is rather to teach us the precious. truth about children, that they are a gift and a heritage from the Lord. even in the midst of the pain. And when God withholds children from us, or when he calls our children home early, as it seems to us, early to us. We must not fill that silence with our own reasoning.

We remember that we live in a very poor and broken world. And in our world, we experience much suffering and pain. And God does not often give us The reason. for any particular suffering and pain that we experience. And so we can't sit here and try and figure out and say, you know, it's because... of this sin that's satan wants to tempt you into that way of thinking What I can tell you is this.

We're told in Scripture that God is a God of all love. He's full of mercy. And God is not vindictive. We- we get offended. And then we snap at someone, right? Because they offended us. But God's not like that. He's not vindictive. Lamentations 3 says this, and this I call to mind. And this I call to mind, therefore I have hope. Do you need hope? Recall this to mind.

The Lord's loving kindness indeed never ceases. His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I have hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him. And a few verses later, he continues and he says this, the Lord will not reject forever for. For he causes grief.

Then he will have compassion according to his abundant loving kindness. For he does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men. So if you read this psalm in it. Pushes on a bruise. It's a particular point of pain. Don't read it and think of it as God's punishment. for you. Instead, take an opportunity to turn to God in prayer and seek the comfort of his presence.

And always hold in hope the remembrance that one day Lord returns and there will be a resurrection. And in that day we have faith. that those children whom we've lost are very young. We'll see them and we'll be united before God with them. And in that day, he'll wipe away all of our tears. And there will be a wholeness that... and a restoration. Now God says that the children are a gift, right?

And part of that we can see through the pain of not having children or the loss of children. It tells us the value of them. And I asked earlier, do you think of children as a gift? And I think often, you know, on our better days, we do. On our better days, we do think of children as a gift. However, often we have difficulty with that, right?

It can be hard to think of children as a gift when we're tired. And it's... One in the morning and your newborn's crying and wants to eat. It can be hard to think of them a gift as you look at the effect that having children has had on your body. When you're instructing them for the tenth time. It can be hard to think of them as a gift when you get married young.

And trust me, this is me. I got married when I was 20. I've been married 12 years. And I have eight kids. So you start doing kid math, right? And you start saying, well, my goodness. How many kids will I have? if there's 12 of them? Does it stop at some point? I will say, God doesn't ask you to have faith for however many kids you can mentally calculate that you could have.

Have faith for the next kid. Don't have faith for all the question marks in the future. Have faith for the next kid. It's all you need to do. Are kids a blessing when we might have to drive a big van that's obnoxious? Are kids actually a gift when we have to educate them? Are kids a gift when it means we can't take the big fancy vacations that everyone else is taking?

You know, our lack of thinking that kids are a gift of God is often demonstrated by how casually we speak about kids. How many kids do you want? Well, I think I only want four. Can you imagine speaking about any other of God's blessings in that way? How much sanctification do you want? How justified do you wanna be? Raising kids is hard. Like I said, I have eight of them.

I know it's hard. Gods. statement about kids is that they are a gift, a reward, a blessing from him. Any thought to the contrary is a lie from Satan. It's an attack. That's what they are. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Now, remember, when it says this, it's not a transactional statement. It's not saying that our children are earned. They're not given to us because somehow we were good enough to deserve to have a child.

Rather, this is complimentary. It's to the first line. It's emphasizing it. Children are a blessing from God. They're a gift from God. The children that you have were a gift from God to you. You are meant to be the parent of that child. He's given them to you. The children of our church are given to us by God. They're here. They're given to us by God. They're a blessing.

He tells us that children are our strength, like arrows. Okay. An arrow. Starts out as a stick. What good is a stick? As a kid, you make a bow, but you don't know anything about a bow, right? So you think that you need a piece of wood and a stretchy string because the power comes from the stretchy string. Wrong, right? The power comes from a bow that's bent.

But if you just have a stick you picked up off the ground, what code is that arrow going to do? Nothing. To have an effective arrow, it has to be shaped. It has to be sharpened. You have to have... The power comes from a bow that's bent. But if you just have a stick you picked up off the ground, what color is that arrow going to do?

Nothing. To have an effective arrow, it has to be shaped. It has to be sharpened. You have to have nice feathers that are put on so that it goes to the right direction. Right? Children are a strength and a blessing. We have many of them in our church. But they're only going to be that strength and that blessing that it talks about here as if we hone them and shape them into powerful instruments of God.

children proverbs will warn you this right children are not always bringers of joy Children who are disobedient and foolish bring grief and sorrow to their fathers and mothers. So we have to go back to the idea of building. Remember how the psalm begins. If the Lord is not in the building, it is being built in vain. It's no good to have... all the children that you can have and not raise them to fear and obey God.

It's not honoring to God. For us to build well, we must build the Lord's way. After all, our children are our sacred trust from God. They're gifts from God. And we will give an account for our children to the Lord. So how is this done? Quickly, a few points. Fathers, you must lead spiritually in your home. And you must lead spiritually in your home. Through your leadership, you will teach your wife to lead spiritually in the home as well.

It's not. Just her job to do that. right? And I didn't do this for years. In my own home, I relied on women's Bible studies to take care of it, and Sunday school to take care of my kids, and I did my thing, right? It took years to develop the discipline of family worship, where I'm actually sitting down each evening with my children and teaching and instructing them.

And yet, how can we expect to build a house to glorify God if we do not take that time to teach and raise our children spiritually? An arrow fashioned them. We have to train them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. This means we must discipline them. But not just discipline them, we have to disciple them. We don't just spank our children. We have to positively instruct them and teach them in the way they must go.

Our kids must know that we love them. We must constantly touching them, kissing them, holding them, squeezing them tight. We must constantly consult God concerning our children. God built us. He knits us together. He knows how we operate. And so we got to consult with God. If you want to build and sharpen and fashion children as arrows that are mighty to go out, you can't do that apart from the Lord.

You have to consult with God. And... As men... Think about it. When you have a mom who stays home with her children, Her life is constant sacrifice. She's always doing stuff. um We can often be out working as men and then when we come home we want me time. and neglect to care for our children. We have our segment of the budget for buying all of our toys, which, you know, tend to be expensive.

We have our hobbies. I want to challenge you as men to make sure that you are not doing your hobbies and buying your toys to the neglect of your children. that your care first for their first your relationship to god Then you're care for their mother. and your care for them all those things are paramount and far more important than spending Loads of money on your hobbies. So don't neglect that. So I ask again, what are you building? Are you building your career? You're home? Your reputation. Your church? Your children? Are you building as though everything depends upon you? Or are you building independence of the Lord? Work hard. Pray hard. Raise your family faithfully and serve your church and build your home. And then... Go to sleep. Let's pray.