Summer in the Psalms: 2020 (Week 3)
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Welcome
Worship
Worship
Songs
Prayer
Giving
Missions: Knoxville Dream Center, Missionary Returning from Africa
Transition
Transition
Announcements
Guests! (great to have so many new folks)
No Kid’s Services Currently
Back to School Bash (YOUTH: Thurs, Aug 6th)
6:30pm-8:30pm
Church in the Park (Lawn Chair & Picnic)
New Harvest Park Pavilion (10am)
Sermon
Sermon
PRAY
RECAP
Summer in the Psalms
Podcast (last year Ps 23, 27, 51, 100) (this year Ps 42, 91, 127, 46, 139)
Expression of raw emotion (praise, desire/deep longing, vengeance, repentance, etc.)
Transparent, aware, edifying, uplifting
TRANSITION
Have you ever worked on something that ended up being a complete waste of your time (but you didn’t know it in the moment)? I mean…you worked on a project, some extensive, elaborate work to do something you thought was a great idea, but when the boss or decision maker showed up it wasn’t what they wanted at all? I have.
It can be demoralizing, can’t it? It can take the wind out of your sails, the gusto to be creative and use ingenuity to branch out and contribute to the team’s efforts.
KICKO: I have to be careful about this at my work. I am very much a self-starter. I do like feedback and input from others, but I don’t have a problem making a decision and living with it. I may learn that a different decision would have been better, and next time I may do it differently. My staff, I want to have ownership, use their gifts, be stretched in their abilities, challenge themselves, be self-motivated, and surprise themselves at what God can do through them.
I remember the first time I was surprised by a successful fundraiser that my dad didn’t have anything to do with. (Blount Co with Joel)
DREAM CENTER: When I lived in LA, I worked for a very driven, type-A boss. He had worked many years in busy, secular industries, and his personality, drive, and lack of personal boundaries could make for a difficult work environment.
Asleep in the office from the night before
Give us our assignments for the day
Times of down-time to get things done on our own
TENSION
-Jesus, I only do the work of the Father. What I see Him doing in heaven. Joining God in His work and what He is doing.
-I will be with you. I will bless everything you put your hand to.
A song of ascents. Of Solomon.
1 Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves.
3 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.
This particular Psalm is given an author, clueing us into its occasion. Solomon, the builder of the Temple for Israel, is accredited with Psalm 127. Some scholars believe it indeed written by Solomon before the dedication of the first building of the Temple. Other scholars believe that the Psalm favors a postexilic situation, when houses and the temple needed rebuilding. I lean towards the former, penned by Solomon.
Jewish tradition includes the practice of reciting this psalm as a part of a thanksgiving service after the birth of a child.
The structure reveals two contrastive parts:
A Futility and Blessing (vv. 1–2)
B God’s Blessing on the Family (vv. 3–5)
The first two verses are marked by two conditional clauses and a recognition of vanity for human efforts. Along with the conditional clause is an affirmation of the Lord’s involvement in a person’s work.
vs. 1
“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”
As a wisdom often does, this psalm evokes a response from the reader/hearer to desire to be more God-centered in their everyday lives. Today, not much different than with the Israelites, we preoccupy ourselves with the work of constructing a house or protecting the city. We would rather have the noble appearance of looking godly, sounding godly, staying busy with what appears to be the ‘work of the Lord’ than actually discern if God is even in the work to begin with.
VISION for the CHURCH: (SLIDE)
Others ask me, and I am constantly asking myself, questions about the vision for the church. This usual means plans of growth, future sights that can stir excitement and rally others behind said plans. The first step is ENCOUNTER.
CLOUD/FIRE (SLIDE)
JUSTICE MINISTRY:
In our current climate in America, everyone has grabbed onto a ‘cause’ they believe is worth dying for. Some of these causes are ridiculous. Some of these causes appear noble, consider serving others, seek to right wrongs and bring equality and justice, attempt to balance the climate of concerns between health and politics in a country that couldn’t be more divided. The world is watching and is baffled by our bizarre responses. They see from the outside where we have driven our stakes and little makes sense.
In midst of even right causes can be wrong motives, can be wrong spirit attitudes driving our own movement within a noble gesture. Instead of rallying folks around, people are divided. We question their true faith, their salvation, wondering are they a real Christ follower. In a snap shot in history, this is a dangerous place to remain.
CONNECT
We can’t connect to one another unless they are just like us. I am not talking about kum-ba-yah moments with unbelievers. I am talking about discerning the Body of Christ around the essentials of the faith. Who God is? Triune and Holy. Three Persons, Distinct in Work and Purpose, yet always One. Who the Son is? God’s One and Only. Willing a Sacrifice. The Holy Spirit. The Helper God sent upon Jesus’ ascension. The Promised One. Empowering us to be His witnesses and fulfill the Great Commandment (to love God/neighbor) and the Great Commission (disciples, teach, train).
But we can’t see God’s Divine creation in front of us because we have boiled down that recognition of worth to political and idealogical alignment. Healthy conversations and relationships with those different than ourselves is a gentleman’s way we have forfeited for a straw mountain to elevate ourselves and justify the distance between us.
We can’t CONNECT.
MARY & MARTHA:
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.
40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,
42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Listen to verse 40 in light of what the psalmist writes here: Unless the Lord build, unless the Lord watches.
“But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.”
Martha even went to Jesus to get Him to side with her. “Jesus, don’t you care? Look at what I am doing around here that actually matters. Tell her to get on board and help.”
I see this in my social feeds, the news media, you name it. This is on both sides of every issue. It doesn’t matter where you fall people everywhere are falling prey to the pick a side or die strategy. Pick a side and know that I am going to tell you how wrong you are if we are on opposite sides.
Martha, like many today, aren’t taking time to sit at Jesus’ feet, the one thing that really matters is fellowshipping with Him, hearing His voice.
I am convicted this morning that we have become so DISTRACTED by so many things that don’t matter because they have nothing to do with Jesus and His reign and rule. Don’t put Jesus wrapping paper on your ideology and call it Christian. I don’t care which side you think you land on with this coin. We have fashioned idols around our opinions, views, and stereotypes and lied to ourselves about how godly they are and worth defending even if is means offending. I am preaching to myself as well this morning when I say this grieves the heart of God.
vs. 1 tells us that unless what you are building right now God is interested in building you are wasting your time. You can say you are watching over your family, your community, your nation, but if the Lord is grieved by how you are going about it, backbiting, causing division, segregating more of God’s people in the name of what is ‘right’, speak your so called ‘truth’ that isn’t setting anyone free instead it is building walls instead of bridges…and God is not watching with you. Not this way. Not no how.
The Hebrew word here used for ‘vain’ is שָׁוְא (šāw) meaning futile, worthless, empty, that which has no result, use, or purpose.
When we work out of our own volition the only purpose our work serves is the one we have given it because UNLESS the Lord is doing the same work, building the same house, watching over the same areas we have prioritized...USELESS, USELESS.
John chapters 4, 5, and 6 all speak of the work of Christ in this way.
Chapter 4: He’s been talking to the woman at the well; His disciples come back and wonder if he is hungry.
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
Again Jesus would say in John 5 in defense to the teachers of the law for when, where, and how He was doing things:
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
In the following chapter (6), Jesus is giving a longer teaching about how Christ satisfies for He is the Bread of Life. Jesus says:
38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
We see this idea throughout Scripture. Moses would say to the Lord...
9 As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses.
10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent.
11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’
13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.
16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
TRANSITION:
The start for you and for me is that we would be waiting before the Lord, that we would hear His voice, that we would be led and guided by Him and Him alone.
vs. 2
This verse is reminiscent of Solomon’s other writings about the futility of human toil, the vanity of so much of what we put our efforts to in this life.
The psalmist extends God’s sovereignty to humanity’s fragile existence. Even as he did not depreciate the importance of the construction of the house and the protection of the city (v. 1), so he does not depreciate the importance of hard work. Hard work may involve rising early in the morning and going to bed late at night. But the psalmist decries this as an inferior way of life if the hard work is only for the purpose of providing daily food and clothing for oneself and the family. The higher way of life begins with trusting the Lord in one’s work. The blessing of God on the labor of the godly is such that his own are provided with all they need and can rest without anguish. Anguish is that experience by which work is turned into toil. Human labor under the sun becomes toil when God’s blessing is absent.
vs.3
We get the sense and connection that when we walk with the Lord are seeking His wisdom and ways that we experience His blessings. The blessings of the Lord are visible in the fruit we bear and reproducible work He is doing through us.
“Children are a heritage form the Lord, offspring a reward from him.”
Some of us have natural children, others spiritual, others having taken a role of raising and influence with those God has placed in your life.
The legacy we leave through the life we reproduce in others around us is discipleship. Multiplying the word of the Lord in us in those around us is the blessing of God.
vs. 4
Arrows hold such value to a warrior. They are a form of protection, just as the godly man need not fear because of the heritage that he will leave behind.
Have em while you are young, and loneliness will never be your experience when old. The warrior image of arrows continues into verse 5.
vs. 5
“Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”
Your blessing will overflow in the fruit of your reproducible work. Blessed is the one whose quiver is full.
Even when adversity presents itself, the defense for your life and godliness will be the legacy you leave behind you.
PIANO
REMEMBER PAUL:
Paul in writing about his greatest defense for his apostolic calling and work was the fruit of his labor, was the lives he had impacted, as well as the hardships he had endured. It is through hardship that we persevere and on the other side see fruit beyond expectation.
PRUNING:
Recently, we had a tree in our front yard...
METRO VIDEO:
“The greatest vengeance you can have is by persevering.” If you sit by the river long enough, you will be able to see your enemies float by.
Some of you need to stop catering to the haters in your life, stop trying to live for the small, loud margin of people that don’t believe in you, support you, and honestly even care about your success in any area of your life. Stop making decisions to please the small margin of folks that are really holding you back from fulfilling and walking in the fullness that God created you for.
I have come by to tell you today that when you truly seek first God and walking with Christ surrounding yourself with His presence that everything else in your life will look drastically different.