God's guide to Home-building

Exegetical point: God is the builder and protector - and he does both through families.

Homiletic point: Unless you build you life and family on Christ - you’re wasting everything.

Intro

We recently renovated a house.

It took heaps of effort and time!

It’s something that we have sunk a bunch of money into - to beautify our home and to build up an investment for our family for the future. To make a comfortable place to live.

It has taken blood, sweat and tears too. We’ve sunk many hours into waving a paint brush and nailing architrave.

But you know what? It could all be for nothing.

All our work, all our effort, all our money - it could all be for nothing.

It could be that it gets destroyed by fire.

It could be that before we can sell the house the bottom falls out of the market and we’re left with a house worth nothing and all our efforts are wasted.

It could be that we loose our jobs and the bank forecloses on our house and we get nothing.

It could be that we three die in a car crash on the way home and someone else enjoys the fruits of our labour.

It could be that before Laura finally gets to enjoy living in a completed house - I get a job halfway across the country and we have to move.

We like to think that we have life in control. That we are makers of our own destinies!!

That we can choose a life path that is full of prosperity and has no pain.

We like to think that if things are going astray, we only need to try harder or think more positively to get things back on track. We just take control and shape our own destinies!

We say to our kids - you can be anything you want to be! You can go wherever you want to go! Do whatever you want to do in life!

LIES!

It’s untrue!

If you believe this, I’m sorry, but you’ve been tricked!

Sure, we live in an age of unprecedented freedom (COVID restrictions excepting),

unprecedented choice,

unprecedented prosperity and wealth,

unprecedented health and medicine,

unprecedented technological assistance,

But,

...don’t be fooled into thinking that you’re the boss of your life.

And even worse, don’t be fooled into thinking that you know better than God - that somehow we people, who lets face it, most of us can’t stick to our fitness or diet, or bible reading plan past about January 31, that we, who are all corrupted by sin, would somehow be able to improve on God’s plan for life.

The arrogance!

It is absolutely outlandish that we could try to improve on God’s design for the good life, for marriage and families, or, that we’re really in control of outcomes in life. Sure, we can influence some outcomes in life - God has made us moral agents, who live and work in his creation, and we can rely on his created order to act in an orderly way - but we can’t control it.

For instance, an example of lack our of control over life - as a farmer, I can plant a crop of grain - but I can’t control the rain. I can expect that it usually rains about the same time every year, but I can’t control it. Maybe I have access to a river to irrigate my crop, but I can’t control the flows in the river from rain upstream - and I can’t control whether or not the government will outlaw irrigation farming next week leaving me high and dry with a dead crop.

Or an example of trying to improve on God’s plan for life would be to say - I’ve got a silo full of seed, and seeds grow, but I’m not going to plant them in soil because that just doesn’t work for me. I don’t like spending too much time in the tractor, it’s a bit of a drag cultivating the soil and planting and all that, so I’m just going to leave my seeds in the silo and hope that they grow there. Maybe I’ll plant a few rows in soil, just to make me feel like I’ve done something - but that whole planting paddocks full of seeds is just not how I want to grow seed you know. I don’t care about the historical reasons why this is a bad idea, My seed - my choice.

Now - fair warning: I might sound a little bit biting this morning. You might feel like I’m being a little rough with your soul. But there’s good reason for it, firstly because that how the passage is in part - I like to try and adopt the tone of the Bible text we’re looking at to help bring it home in your hearts. Secondly I may be a bit incisive because this text fights against the prevailing wisdom of the world - many of us need to wake up to the absolute pile of rubbish that the world wants us to believe.

This is going to be a hard sermon for some - God’s word is going to cut strait into your heart. Ether because you are being a fool and you need to be set straight, or, because perhaps you yearn for the things this psalm speaks about - but God has kept that back from you. Either way, whether it reveals the stupidity in our hearts or reveals the longing of our hearts - remember that it is God who speaks through his word, and we must humble ourselves before our everlasting GOOD Lord.

If I say something that rubs you up the wrong way this morning, come and talk to me. Lets hash it out over the scriptures and we can see if I made a mistake, or whether God’s word is doing it’s work.

He sometimes chastises, and sometimes leads us through heartache, but he is always Good, and loving, and merciful.

So let’s come to the details of the text and submit ourselves to what God has to say. Not preparing to defend our life choices, not preparing to find loopholes, not looking for mistakes the preacher might make so we can dismiss it all out of hand.

Let’s humble ourselves with a short prayer adapted from Psalm 119:

Deal bountifully with your servants,

that we may live and keep your word.

Open our eyes, that we may behold

wondrous things out of your law.

We are sojourners on the earth;

hide not your commandments from us!

Our soul is consumed with longing

for your rules at all times.

You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,

who wander from your commandments.

Take away from us scorn and contempt,

As we try to keep your testimonies.

Even though your enemies sit plotting against us,

your servants will meditate on your statutes.

Your testimonies are our delight;

they are our counselors.

We’ll look at this psalm in two sections - v1-2 and v3-5, but we will see that while they look independent on the surface, the two parts are intrinsically linked.

1. Vanity of building & protection (v1-2)

As we look into this short psalm, you notice a few things straight away - It’s one of a collection of Psalms called “Songs of Ascents” and that it belonged to Solomon. Now there’s not too much to say on this, but it hints at both the origin and use of this song.

Psalm 127:title–1 NIV

A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.

It has been suggested that these collection of songs were used when people were travailing to Jerusalem to meet God in worship there. Thus this and the other songs would be sung as the travelers climbed up to Jerusalem and as they climbed up from the city to the temple itself perched on Mount Zion. It’s a good a guess as any. What we do know it that this psalm was part of the hymnbook of ancient Israel - it was a way to teach people about God and to worship him.

Now, the other thing in that little title is that it belonged to Solomon. This could either mean that King Solomon wrote it, or that it was written for Solomon by someone else, such as his father King David. But it’s interesting to note as we get into the song, it feels distinctively like wisdom literature - you would not be surprised if you found this psalm in Proverbs - which was written by Solomon. So it’s not a stretch at all to see this as the words of Solomon teaching Israel God’s divine wisdom thousands of years ago. But - it is also words used by the Holy Spirit to teach us God’s divine wisdom in modern Australia. Just because it is old, doesn’t mean it is out of date. The very fact that it has stood the test of time should cause us to sit up and take notice!

God is the same yesterday, today and forever. His character does not change, and his Word does not fade.

So what’s God’s wisdom to us through these words? Let’s kick-on into v1-2

Psalm 127:1–2 ESV

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 in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

So, we’re getting to some metaphors for life. Building houses and protecting cities.

These are things that we do now, they’re not that foreign to us - people build houses for themselves, or renovate them in my case. And there are people who protect cities - Police protect from internal threats and the defence force protects from external threats.

These are normal everyday life things. Good things. Things that we need. Things that we are actively supposed to do.

What is said about these two things?

Unless the Lord does it - it is useless. It is vanity. It’s futile.

Unless the Lord build the house - it’s a waste of time. It comes to nothing.

All that money and labour and effort. It’s a big ole waste of time...

...unless God builds it.

All that effort the watchman puts in to staying awake all night - looking out for sneak attacks - trying to be prepared to repel the enemy at any moment; all vanity - unless God’s watching too.

So it’s not saying that building a house, or guarding a city are not good things to do, but that when these things are apart from God - when they are independent of God they’re empty useless activities.

It all amounts to nothing!

But the implication is that the opposite is true - when God is working alongside the home builder, it’s not a waste of time. It will be established. It will stand. It will be a refuge.

If God is watching over a city, the watchman has backup - God is there protecting the city. His labour to stay awake in those wee hours of the morning is valuable and useful.

God has made us to work. Work is good for us. Humanity was put here to to have guardianship over the earth and use it to be fruitful and multiply. But our work has been corrupted - it is tainted by a broken creation that often makes our work futile - like planting seeds that get no rain.

So although the work in this psalm is good - building and protecting work - it is futile without God working with us and for us.

What are you scurrying about building or protecting without regard for God?

Are you out there trying to build the Tower of Babel, so that you can climb up and depose God?

Are you literally fixated on building a house. Having a nice house in a good location? This is an Australian idol, we don’t need use much imagination to see how house & land pursuit can be done without regard to God’s call on your life.

Are you thinking that “If I have enough savings in the bank and my house paid off, then I won’t need to worry about the future”? “I’ll be protected.”?

Now, in case you were tempted at this point to get reductionist and think this song is just for chippies and police officers, that i’m over applying the text, the next verse applies the principle more broadly:

Psalm 127:2 ESV

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

You know the kind of vanity this verse speaks of. You know the feeling!

When you work all week only to see all your pay packet slip through your fingers into rent and electrical bills and car repairs.

When you spend hours washing the dishes and clothes and floors only to find them all dirty a few hours later.

When you burn the candle at both ends trying to get ahead but you only end up falling behind.

You’re fretful, anxious, weary and irritable as you rush around trying to see everyone and please everyone and fit in classes and read those books and create that habit and watch those shows and start that project and write that message and wash that thing and on and on and on...

Harder, better Faster, stronger More than ever, hour after hour Work is, never over...

But then,

We get that soothing balm at the end of the verse. Some good news!

Although it is useless to create busy, anxious lives apart from God, those who belong to the Lord, those who are working under his guidance, His Beloved...

He gives them sleep. He gives them rest.

There is a reprieve from the seemingly empty toil - those with the Lord find rest.

God blesses his beloved. He gives them the restoration they need.

God made us creatures with limited ability. He made us to rely on food and sleep. We can’t just keep going and going and going. We have to sleep, and have our bodies restored - God gives us sleep as a grace from his hand, so that we stop trusting in ourselves and look to him.

He will take care of us while we sleep.

The world will keep spinning if we deign to let him look after it.

But more than just the literal sleep we receive - God gives His beloved people rest from the endless toil of this world. The endless striving. Rest from the futility of life apart from our Lord.

So I ask you, is this where you find yourself in this new year?

Honestly?!?

Are you striving in vain to build up your ideal life, to protect your assets all the while wearing yourself out?

The world is trying to call you to that! The misplaced desires of your heart may be calling you to that! To want the good life that our unbelieving neighbours have, the security that others seem to poses, we want so badly to get and to hold onto the things of this life that we push the Lord to the side!

I’ve done it. I know what it’s like! To go a week without even considering how God would expect me to live. To go a week or even two without worshiping him or praying to him, relying on my own strength and power to achieve my goals.

What vanity are you pouring your life into?

Are you out there building cardboard box forts while God wants you to work alongside him building and defending a kingdom that will last into eternity?

Let me get real pointy.

Are you building a comfortable life for yourself while your neighbours run headlong toward destruction?

Are you whiling away the hours working on trival projects while your mates perish in the fires of hell?

Are you pouring your soul into protecting something that will burn up on judgment day?

What are you going to say to the Lord when you meet him on Judgment day? “I know you called me to follow Jesus, to lay down my life and follow Jesus in suffering for the sake of your holy name, but i just had so much on you know, so many events to get to, i was too tired to take discipleship seriously.”

It shouldn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway - there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with many of the things of this life - houses, cars, jobs, savings, hobbies etc. But more often than not, we’re chasing after these things as idols and they take up all our energy and focus. Often our heart is longing for these earthly things rather than for God’s Kingdom. Seek first his kingdom and everything you need will be provided.

Give up wasting your life and energy in building and protecting useless rubbish and join God’s building program. Join his defence force.

Get to protecting what really matters.

Get to building God’s house, be a tool he uses in the life of other believers to strengthen and establish them. Use the spiritual gifts he has given you!

Take up your watch post ready for the enemies of God who are always looking for an opportunity to attack!

Take your rest in the Lord, knowing that he has it all under control, even when your strength is spent. You can sleep soundly, knowing that God is at work, even when you are not. God is protecting his people even when you’re asleep.

Jesus says:

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus lived and died in your place to free you from the burden of sin . To protect you and build you up. He made the way into his kingdom easy - repent and believe.

What will you give to the Lord in return for this unfathomable free gift?

A life of vanity, or a life of thankful faithfulness?

He gives you easy work - where he promises to work along side you!

Don’t waste your life.

2. God’s building & protection (v3-5)

The second part of our Psalm expands somewhat on themes from the first part, you see, v3-5 talk about God’s plan for building and protecting his people - but now through children!

Now before we go any further I need to take a moment to say something important: This might be hard for many of you. It’s God’s word to us, so we need to hear it, but do not hear it as an attack on those who can’t have children, or those who can’t have any more. We’re going to speak about families, and while God puts before us an ideal of what families should look like, we understand that we live in a fallen and broken world. There are broken families - single parent families - families where there’s only one believing parent - childless couples - singles or widows who desire families - people who have lost children. There is past hurt in our families from mistakes that we have made. These things are hard. They are heavy. And although I may not have experienced your trial, I hope that I can sympathise somewhat, having experienced 10 years of childlessness ourself.

These trials, these griefs, they show obviously that things are not as they should be. We should all weep together over this grief. You who are in the midst of experiencing these hardships outside of your control should not feel like 2nd class people or somehow divided from the body of the church. Even if you cannot experience some of the things we’re about to talk about, these things are still for you to hear, because they affect us all as the body of Christ.

If you have past regrets and mistakes please do not hear me heaping guilt upon your head - God’s grace is sufficient to cover all of our failures, past present and future!

This psalm goes on to open up something of what was said in v1-2. You see, the Hebrew and Greek word for “house”, like in English can also have the meaning of “houshold” or a family unit. So, the the Lord works with us not only in the labors of life serving him, but also in the building of our families. In fact, God to builds his people up by building families, households. And the Lord watches over and protects his people through the raising up of children.

Lets see what the text says:

Psalm 127:3–5 ESV

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.

Wow. What a blessing!

God says that Children are a reward, they’re an inheritance. They are a gift from his hand.

Now, it’s not a reward in the sense that I did so many years of service to God, so now he owes me a baby. It’s just a general principle, that God gives children as a benefit to us. To all of humanity in general - but especially to God’s people and the families that make up God’s people.

The fact that this verse starts with “Behold” should make us sit up and pay attention!

Children are a good gift from God.

Children are not a trial from God to test your patience (though God may use them in that way).

Children are not a burden. They are not here to kill your joy. They’re not wastes of money like the world talks about them.

They are gifts from God.

It is a privilege to receive children from God’s hand.

You have all been children at one stage or another! You are all gifts from God!

Part of the anitgod rehotoric in the world in the moment, apart from that atrocious idea that it is ok to kill these unborn people, is that children are a hassle, that they are joy-killers and parasites. Put off having them as long as possible, if not all together.

Then when you do have them, one of the ideas out there is that you just have to send them off to school, feed them and give them a bed till they’re old enough to figure it out on their own.

You see God’s enemies want to destroy healthy families. To under cut how we think about children and marriage. To deceive us!

So don’t believe anything the world has to say about families unless it directly reflects God’s design. Please don’t take your cues for marriage, family and parenting from a world in open rebellion to God.

Conversely, something that need to be said - is that Children are not gods who need worshiping. Because although a great many people think of children as expensive inconveniences, there are some who love their children like gods. They bow down to their every whim, and bend over backwards to sacrifice everything to their children. Obeying their children rather than God!

But this Psalm reminds us, children are not gods, they’re not to be treated as idols - they are gifts from God’s hand. Worship the giver rather than the gift!

Where’s your heart? Which way do you tend to lean? Is your every moment consumed by serving your children to the exclusion of serving God? Or do you think about kids as lesser value? I hope that you don’t fall into either trap! But at one time or another we’re likely to catch ourselves drifting toward one of these.

The ideal family that God puts forward throughout the pages of scripture is that a husband & wife enter into a loving and respectful covenantal union, where they serve God first, and each other second. From this beautiful loving relationship will come fruit of children who are loved and taught to follow the Lord.

Now I’ve already said - sometimes this ideal is out of our reach because of this broken world, but where it is within our influence, our families should be modeled this way.

And the text gives us a picture of how we are to think of our children in v4.

(read it)

You may have heard this verse a bunch of times and it’s significance is lost on you. Do you see what it said? Children are weapons!

Children are weapons of war!

If we were to use a modern language we would say “Like .50 cal bullets in the hand of a sniper, and the children of one’s youth, blessed is the man who fills his magazine with them!”

Children are not cute set peices - window dressing to our life. They’re not just here to look after us in our old age.

They are weapons that we let loose at the enemy!

They are ranged weapons that we fire down through the course of history to overthrow our enemies in generations to come!

Let me riff on this metaphor a bit. In order for arrows to be effective, they must be

a) pointed in the right direction - the proverb says:

Proverbs 22:6 ESV

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

This is a proverb, and not a guarantee from God. It is a general principle that when you fire an arrow in a direction it will go that way.

b) these child arrows need to be shaped and prepared to fly true. Arrows don’t just automatically fly straight, they need to be weighted properly, to have a sharp tip and good fetching. To many parents think that if they just get all the bits, the shaft, the tip and fletching and put it in a pile that some how in 18 years or so a beautiful arrow will just appear. The proverb says:

Proverbs 22:15 ESV

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

and c) the child arrows need to be let loose on the enemy. You can’t hide your children away in a christian bubble and hope that nothing bad will ever befall them. For sure, you don’t throw them into the mire of the world without preparing them first - but you need to do that - to prepare them for what is to come and actively encourage them to enter into God’s service. To become a builder in God’ house and a watchman on God’s defenses.

We can’t just sit back and expect our kids to turn out ok.

Dads especially! Get serious. Mothers need to hear this too, but fathers especially need to be reminded to shoulder this responsibility. Today. It’s our weakness, to get slack and to let these things slide - but it will be our downfall - like the preist Eli and prophet Samuel. They almost followed in their fathers footseps but they ended up a million miles away.

Get serious about training your kids up in the way that they should go! i should be able to go around and ask every father in here one simple question that i should get an immediate response to: “What training strategies are you using with your children?”

Right off the bat you should be able to tell me about discipleship in your home, how you lovingly correct your children, how you are living as a example for your children to follow. If you cannot articulate it to me, then my guess is that its not really happening in the home.

What kind of arrows are you making? and where are you firing them?

Satan is not interested in letting your kids make their own choice about faith when they grow up, so why are you? Your kids are being assaulted by the world and by God’s enemies out there in schools and on TV and online. What are you doing to prepare them to dance with the devil?

Fathers! You MUST take your responsibility to nurture and guide your children seriously. You are leading and shaping these souls! Yes, mothers need to take it seriously too, but it seems to be that fathers especially need to be encouraged and warned in this area.

You only need to look at history of Israel to see how often they went off the rails when fathers didn't raise up the next generation to know the Lord.

We have a couple more things to note before we finish.

First, More Children = more blessing!

Who doesn’t want more blessing? Blessed is the man who has a full quiver!

What warrior wants to go into battle with one bullet?

If that’s all God has providentially given you, that's OK, just make sure that shot counts. If God hasn’t given you a ranged weapon, that’s ok - fight your fight well in this generation and trust God.

The Lord said “Be fruitful and multiply!” Make imagers of God, and then when Jesus came he told us to make disciples of Jesus teaching them to obey all that he commanded us! These two mandates fit together like a glove. It is a well known phenomenon that children raised in Christian homes often take on Christian faith - you have say 18 years of discipleship! While we make disciples of adults too, we will never have the impact in their lives that families and churches have in Children’s lives.

Let me take a moment to address some objections that may come up when talking about having kids:

The worlds a terrible place, why would I want to bring Children into it? A: They’re a blessing from God’s hand, and you can make the world a better place by bringing more disciples into it!

They’re expensive. A: It’s never been cheaper and easier to bring children into the world safely, especilay in countries like Australia. You may have to give up the big home loan or other pursuits to create space to have kids, but this is kingdom building work! Nobody said that working with Jesus wouldn’t cost you anything.

What about over population? A:That’s devilish lie that will serve Satan more than it serves the Lord of life. But to answer the issue, the Australian birth rate has been below replacement rate since 1976 (and is still falling) and the global birthrate has fallen sharply in recent years. You're not being environmentally irresponsible by having children, plus, we must remember that in our order of priorities - disciple-making ranks very highly.

The real question is: Where’s your heart? Are you looking for excuses to be selfish? Trying to do the least work possible?

The church is shrinking in many places. Why? because we believed the indoctrination of the world, we stopped having kids and we stopped teaching them how to follow Jesus. We joked an jeered about big families “Don’t you guys have a TV?”, “you know what causes babies don’t you?” we said “I don’t want to force my faith on my kids” all the while they we being catechized by the world.

I long for the day when I don’t need to fear preaching on this passage in church because it will be so normal to talk about the fruitfulness of God in families. Quivers full of children!

This is one of the ways God build his house, through us raising up God-fearing children.

This is one of the way’s God defends his people, by raising up the next vanguard of truth who will face of against giants to come.

You kids are the spiritual warriors in training. I invite you to join us! Like Frodo and Sam you are invited into our Fellowship that faces off against what seems like insurmountable odds! But, we will win, because Jesus Christ is our Returning King!

In our Psalm we get an example of this godly defense, when a Godly man faces off against his enemies in the city gate. In that ancient time you settled disputes and made business deals in the city gate. It’s where the leaders hung out too do business.

Now imagine the scene - a man who had a bunch of kids early in life is now at loggerheads with some guys who are trying to swindle him - they were making wild accusations about his character. If he’s was just there by himself, he has no one to back him up - but blessed is the quiver full man! He has a cohort of Sons to stand with him - to promote truth and justice, and to defend their godly family.

So too for the modern family - blessed are those who have a household full of God-fearers - who have seen the gospel lived out before their eyes, who have been trained in righteousness, who seek after the Lord with all the heart soul mind and strength and who love their neighbor as their self.

Blessed are those with a quiver full of arrows to launch into the next generation as wild eyed zealots for God’s cause, laying aside any hinderance of this earthly life an pursing holiness with relish.

They will stand against the devil.

They will wage war against the flesh.

They will fight the principalities and powers with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God which they have known from their youth because their father read to them on his knee and sang to them about the love of Christ.

In our families we are hard at work, not for the sake of vanity, but hard at work with the lord to build houses of faith were righteousness dwells. We’re raising up dragon slayers. And as Doug Wilson says: If we’re raising dragon slayers, we should not be surprised that there are dragons to be slayed.

What now?

Turn from your vain pursuits, and serve God in Jesus Christ - work along side him in Building and Protecting. One of those ways is through children - receiving that gift from the Lord and firing them into enemy territory - to drive back the darkness with the light of the Gospel.

You may never get sent our on a missionary journey to make disciples in a foreign land, you may never stand before thousands and proclaim the Gospel - but if you have Kids, and working with the Lord, build up God’s house and protect God’s people by making disciples then your countless hours of work in the Lord’s name will not be in vain!