Psalm 128

Intro

The Bible is written for us, but not to us.

3rd person Christianity

To read the Bible as if it were addressed to someone else, therefore, is to succumb to third-person Christianity, in which the words and actions of God concern them, not us.

Divine Address

The Bible is the medium of divine address. To read the Bible as God’s word is therefore to encounter something living and active (Heb 4:12): the voice of God, God personally speaking, the triune God in communicative action, doing things with, in, and through human words. We are not the first recipients of Scripture, its immediate addressees. But when, in corporate worship, the lector proclaims, “The word of the Lord,” after the Scripture reading, the congregation thanks God for something present, not simply a relic from the past.

Not “I-It” but “I-Thou”

Scripture is not an inert object to be studied, as if reading the Bible were an “I-It” relation. It is rather a means for encountering the living God, “the primary means by which God presents himself to us.” Reading the Bible is thus an “I-Thou” affair—but this is not how many biblical interpreters see it.

Context

Paul will preach in 2 weeks. Psalm 126 cried out for blessing

Last week with Jonathan. Psalm 127 asserted that it comes not by toiling but by trusting.

Psalm 128 fulfils the desires of 126 and confirms the assertions of 127.

Primary Contribution of the Psalms:

To model what a God-centered view of life is like.

Therfore ask, “What does this psalm tell us about how God’s presence and work connects with our deepest concerns and emotions in the midst of difficult or joyous circumstances?”

Statement of Blessing v 1

Psalm 128:1 “How happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!”

How Happy or Blessed is Everyone

I didn’t feel happy this week. Do I not fear the Lord? Is the Bible wrong?

Not a fleeting emotion but a condition of those who walk with God.

The Hebrew term אֶשֶׁר describes the objective, God-given condition of blessedness enjoyed by those who walk in covenant faithfulness. It is not a fleeting emotion but a settled state of well-being grounded in the character and promises of the Lord. Approximately forty-five occurrences, spread mainly through Psalms, Proverbs, and prophetic or covenant contexts, form a tapestry that reveals what a truly “blessed” life looks like in the sight of God.

Usage Distribution

• Psalms (about 26 times) • Proverbs (8 times) • Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles and others (remaining occurrences)

The word clusters in texts that accent discipleship, wisdom, or covenant obedience, underscoring a consistent biblical theme: blessedness flows from rightly ordered relationship with God. These instances show that blessedness is both declarative (God’s verdict) and experiential (lived joy).

3. We understand this with everything around us. Things used according to their purpose will lead to flourishing.

Who fears the Lord

Wrong understanding of fear

We live in what is called a culture of fear

This creates a social imaginary for fear.

“The gospel both frees us from fear and gives us fear”

Amazing Grace, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”

Natural Fear

a result of the fallen world and dangers

Afraid of heights

Sinful Fear:

What James tells us when the demons believe and shudder

Sinful fear drives you away from God.

Comes from false ideas about God

The unfaithful servant who buried his mina instead of investing it. He says, “I was afraid of you because you are a severe man.” Luke 19 Matthew 25 k

He sees nothing of his master’s kindness

Maybe poor teaching leaves us with no fear of God because all we focus on is his love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Poor teaching, hard times, and Satan’s accusations can all cultivate this cringing fear of God in our hearts.

President of Wheaton, Philip Graham Ryken - “While it is true that what we love often shapes what we think, it is also true that the biblical remedy for disordered affections is for God to speak his truth to the mind…There is an intrinsic, ordered relationship between the thoughts and the affections that guide our actions. The formation of the heart comes through the transformation of the mind. Therefore, one of the primary ways the Holy Spirit changes the things we love and worship is by changing the way we think.”

Holy Fear

Not a fear of God’s anger or wrath.

Spurgeon put it, “leans toward the Lord because of his very goodness.”

It flows from an appreciation of God.

Example:

I love and have a real affection for my pet.

I love and have a real affection for Emily.

I love and have a real affection for God.

The three loves differ because the objects of the loves differ.

The living God is infinitely perfect, overwhelmingly beautiful in every way: his righteousness, graciousness, majesty, mercy, everything. “And so we do not love him aright if our love is not a trembling, overwhelmed, and fearful love. In a sense, then, the trembling “fear of God” is a way of speaking about the intensity of the saints’ love for an enjoyment of all that God is.”

Fear and Love: “True fear of God is true love for God defined: it is the right response to God’s full-orbed revelation of himself in all his grace and glory.”

Yārēʾ portrays a posture of humble submission to the living God, the wellspring of obedience, wisdom, justice, and worship. Wherever this fear flourishes, covenant life thrives; where it fades, ruin follows.

Discipleship: Teaching the fear of the LORD forms character and community

Faithlife Study Bible Psalm 128

The word ashre (“blessed” or “fortunate”) is used to contrast the righteous and wicked throughout the book of Psalms. The fear of God is connected to conduct; the blessed person reveres God in belief and conduct.

Who walks in his ways

Not an external command but an internal motivation.

Comes from a trusting adoration “Fear of the Lord.” We trust his plan is best.

behaviors - values - worldview

Psalm 1 “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. The wicked are not like this; instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.”

God doesn’t want you to just be happy, he wants you to be holy.

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible Chapter 128

Only those who are truly holy, are truly happy.

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible Chapter 128

In vain do we pretend to be of those that fear God, if we do not make conscience of keeping stedfastly to his ways.

What about the dread of holiness?

Another part of a sinful fear which is the fear of letting go of sin.

But that is creating its own fear as we fear that if people knew us they wouldn’t like it, or fear of being caught.

Culture of Fear

Moral confusion has lead to a culture of fear. It has left our society anxious.

Michael Reeves points out that moral confusion is the consequence of a prior loss: the fear of God.

I am my own boss. I control my own destiny. But what if I mess up? I don’t know what I’m doing!

How different is this from our culture?

Christianity, you were made to be in a relationship with God. A right ordered relationship.

Culture, you are free to live out your true self.

American Worldview Inventory of 2020

God is absent from Most people’s views of purpose and success

Among 71% of Americans who consider themselves to be Christians, fewer than 20% adopt the biblical view that our purpose is to know, love, and serve God.

23% define purpose as experiencing happiness and fulfillment.

18% living out our full potential physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually

18% knowing, loving, and serving God

10% living a long, healthy life

What is success?

25% living a healthy, productive, and safe life.

22% being a good person

21% consistent obedience to God

18% experiencing personal happiness or freedom

By Age

18-29, 31% personal happiness or freedom

30-49, 35% living a healthy, productive, and safe life

50-64, 26% consistent obedience to God tied with being a good person

65+, 30% consistent obedience to God

Michael Reeves, “And the more you want something, the more you fear its loss. When your culture is hedonistic, your religion is therapeutic, and your goal of feeling of personal well-being, fear will be the ever-present headache…. It is completely understandable, but it is tragic: the loss of the fear of God is what ushered in our modern age of anxiety, but the fear of God is the very antidote to our fretfulness.”

Counting of Blessings v 2-4

Psalm 128:2–4 “You will surely eat what your hands have worked for. You will be happy, and it will go well for you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children, like young olive trees around your table. In this very way the man who fears the Lord will be blessed.”

This is personal and present. It is the prospering of work and marital and domestic joy.

You will surely eat what your hands have worked for.

Live one the fruits of one’s own industry

Psalm 127 with Jonathan showed laboring in anxious independence of God is vain.

Working under God and in obedience to His ways is fruitful

If you do not obey or observe God’s commands

Leviticus 26:16 “then I will do this to you: I will bring terror on you—wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.”

Deuteronomy 28:33 “A people you don’t know will eat your land’s produce and everything you have labored for. You will only be oppressed and crushed continually.”

Zechariah 8:10 “For prior to those days neither people nor animals had wages. There was no safety from the enemy for anyone who came or went, for I turned everyone against his neighbor.”

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children, like young olive trees around your table.

Large families were viewed as a tremendous blessing

Imagery of vine and olive shoots naturally suggests growth and fruitfulness.

Olive trees were known for vitality, strength, productivity, and longevity.

In this very way the man who fears the Lord will be blessed.

Faithlife Study Bible Psalm 128

Describes a pious reverence toward God.

Prayer of Blessings v 5-6

Psalm 128:5–6 “May the Lord bless you from Zion, so that you will see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life and will see your children’s children! Peace be with Israel.”

This is public and future. it is the lifelong, communal, and familial.

Speaking as if they have obeyed and can now anticipate a long and prosperous life under God’s protection.

Encouragement to remain faithful

Benefits to draw in those who need to change

CSB Study Bible: Notes Psalm 128

In the ancient Near East, the ultimate earthly blessing would be prosperity for one’s nation, long life, healthy offspring, and peace.

2. Temporal blessings should not cause us to forget the richer blessings of Gods grace, which we shall ever enjoy.

3. A prayer for communal blessing as it includes seeing Jerusalem prosper. Praying for peace for the nation.

a. This ties the family blessings firmly to the people of God and ultimately to the church of Christ.

Faithlife Study Bible Psalm 120

peace The Hebrew word used here, shalom, has a wide range of meanings; it can refer to the absence of war or an all-encompassing sense of well-being and wholeness.

Faithlife Study Bible Psalm 125

the people must remain loyal to Yahweh and in right relationship with each other

Application

Do you know of such a blessing?

Evangelical Commentary on the Bible Psalm 128

A statement that all who fear the Lord are truly blessed leads into a wish, that the hearers may know such blessing in their lives as well.

Two ditches:

1) Prosperity Gospel: I should be blessed with health and wealth since I fear God.

2)Poverty Gospel: This blessing isn’t for me. Wealth is evil. I am made to suffer.

So, is this blessing true?

Jesus exposes the problem and discloses the solution

Jesus was sinless and he alone deeply feared God in every moment of his life, yet little if any of this blessing was visible in this life.

He never married or had children

His friends betrayed him and denied him.

And yet, in his resurrected glory he will experience this blessing in its fullness. “He will be satisfied with what his hands have wrought; marry his bride, the church; and see a vast family from every tribe and nation and tongue.

“In the meantime, we his body may be assured, as we walk the way of the cross, that all the blessings of Christ our head will be ours in him.

1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

How do we as Christians need to reorient our expectations as we look to the temporary and eternal blessings in Christ?

Maybe reshape our expectations of entitlement that I have done enough and should be blessed?

Maybe reshape my disappointments that this life is just bad an the only thing left to look forward to is eternity?

Sometimes God grants us satisfying work, joyful marriage, and a healthy family life in Christ (we clearly have a lot of kids at this church). If so, we should be deeply grateful.

However, this is not true for all.

Some are unfulfilled in work

Some desire to be married

Others struggle to have kids

The picture of Psalm 128 may be ideal, but it is not entirely disconnected from reality, at least for some.

But it is Christ who finally guarantees it and Christ who fills it with a fullness of meaning only hinted at in this language.

For this light and momentary afflictions is producing an eternal weight of glory.

We should pray and wish these blessings on individuals, families, and the church.

Augustine encouraged unmarried members that “maybe be that some of these young olive saplings crowding round the Lord’s table are your spiritual children.” Build into them and nurture them in the fear of the lord.

We also pray and wish these blessings on unbelievers. Yearning that one day they will be members of Christ.

For non-Christians, this blessing is available to you!

Due to sin, we have disordered affections and desires, and a broken relationship with God.

We seek God, not happiness

Teleological ethics

Hedonism - focus on pleasure

Utilitarianism -greatest good

Pragmatism - what works

Egoism - self interest

Christian Hedonism is the conviction that God’s ultimate goal in the world (his glory) and our deepest desire (to be happy) are one and the same, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Not only is God the supreme source of satisfaction for the human soul, but God himself is glorified by our being satisfied in him. Therefore, our pursuit of joy in him is essential.

Righteous conduct does not earn but evidences the blessed state

The defining feature is that relational fullness comes from communion with God, not in material prosperity.

Practical Ministry Applications

• Discipleship: Teach believers that genuine happiness is rooted in obedience and forgiveness, not circumstances. • Counseling: Guide repentance toward the joy of restored relationship with God. • Worship Planning: Incorporate beatitude passages at the outset of services to shape congregational posture.