Bible Message notes: Psalm 127:1-2
In the first two verses of this Psalm we have three very common human activities; building a house, watching over a city, and producing food.
The writer uses those very human activities as a basis for the thesis that whatever you work at, and however you hard that work is UNLESS God is in it all it is not worth the effort.
1. Building
Human beings have an amazing appetite for building things. We build not only houses but reputations, networks of relationships and systems of organisation. Building is symbolic of purpose. Psalm 127 was written by King Solomon. 2 Chronicles 8 lists the buildings Solomon designed and had built.. 2 Chronicles 3:6 “Whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and through the territory he ruled, he built.” It was under Solomon that the nation of Israel became of age as a nation. He consolidated the monarchy, fortified the army and sorted out the infrastructure. He was a nation builder.
Yet Solomon got busy building a nation and his reputation that he neglected his relationship with God. Under the influence of his many foreign wives he began to worship idols and became increasingly disillusioned with life. (Ecclesiastes 2:11)
Solomon’s problem was not that he wasn’t a skilled builder. It wasn’t that he built badly it was that much of what he built didn’t matter. The Salvation Army has built a world-wide network of churches and ministries, a reputation as people, who do good works. The SA has built an efficient structure of organisation. As well as asking “Have we built well? “ we must as what we are building matter?
The answer is that unless what we are building matters to God then however good what we build looks it is pointless. So this begs the question what is it that matters to God?
In Matthew 7:24 Jesus said “Whoever hear these words of mine and puts them into practice is like wise man who built his house on the rock.” Jesus had only three years of earthly ministry so when he spent time teaching he spoke about what really mattered to him. And Jesus says we are to use what he said as the basis for anything we seek to build. There was one thing that Jesus talked about in almost every block of teaching. It was the kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God. What is the priority of life? Jesus put it simply, “Seek first the kingdom of God.”
The
rest of his teaching tells us what that kingdom looks like. In his teaching there are some broad themes As
a Corps we have a list of values based upon Jesus words. The references are just samples from the
teaching of Jesus but all of Jesus teaching could be placed somewhere in the
list.
Experience God through our worship John 4:23-24
Embrace a discipleship lifestyle Luke 14:26-27
Extend God’s kingdom through
mission Matthew
28:19-20
Engage in authentic Christian
fellowship John 13:34-35
Encourage everyone in their ministry Matthew 25:14-30
Express Christian love through
service to others Matthew 25:31-46
Worship
and by that we mean loving God, discipleship, mission, fellowship, shared
ministry, service, these are the things are the things of the kingdom, these
are the things that matter.
2. Watching.
Security
has always been apriority for society. Watching is about protection. In 886 Alfred the Great, arrived at the small
settlement of Ripon he liked and granted a Royal Charter and gave them a
hunting horn to commemorate the occasion. But Alfred warned them, “You need to
be more vigilant there are Vikings about.” So the people appointed a “wakeman”
or watchman to guard the settlement through the hours of darkness and the horn
was put to use to announce that all was well when he began his watch. People
were reluctant to take the role because of the responsibility and the wakeman
did not always succeed in preventing attackers from destroying the
settlement. The city motto became and
still is Psalm 127:1
When
people have done a good work for the Lord, there are two dangers.
a)
Complacency: A watchman’s job is to
be on the alert against anything that might put a city in danger. Ephesians 6:12 says that our true enemies are
not flesh and blood but the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark
world, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
b)
Watching without the Holy Spirit’s discernment.
Human know-how is not enough to detect the enemy. Against an enemy as
powerful as the spiritual forces of evil we need stronger weapons than the
world offers.
2
Corinthians 10:4 “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the
world.” Above all we need God to defend
us. We need him to be the one on guard because he not only sees the enemy but
is strong enough to defend us against him."
When we rely only on our own judgement we often operate
from a basis of fear. We love what has been built
in God’s name and become fearful of anything that we think might threaten it. Just
as society can become obsessed with health and safety, often seeing dangers
that are not there we can become suspicious of anything new, or different, or
creative or unusual. The trouble is that sometimes it is not the enemy we are
keeping out but the Holy Spirit as well.
However
we should not just sit back and let God do all the watching. Although we can’t
watch without him, we are invited to watch with him, just as Jesus invited his
disciples to watch with him in the Garden of Gethsemene. Prayer and the role of watchman are closely
linked?
From
the walls of cities watchmen looked for messengers and enemies. Their purpose
was to inform the gatekeepers when to open the gates and when to keep them
closed. Today among the people of God we need those who work with the Watchman,
the Holy Spirit and help us discern not only the dangers we face but what God
wants us to be open to and welcome into our fellowship.
Colossians
4:2 says, “Devote yourselves to prayer, be watchful and thankful.”
3. Farming
The
third picture is about provision. The farmer spends long hours toiling for the
things to satisfy our needs. This is also a picture of someone giving
themselves no rest in their pursuit of this goal.
When
our work totally consumes us then we have life out of balance and the overwork
will be counterproductive. It will be in vain.
The
text is not against labour or against
people having the resources they need to be fulfilled, to be healthy and
grow. This is true physically but also
spiritually.
“If we neglect to search the word and neglect
private prayer and assembling at the house of God can we wonder if we do not
grow? God will undoubtedly build our spiritual house but we must labour in it,
there must be earnestness, prayerfulness, watchfulness, an intensity of desire,
a using of all appointed means by which we may be built up in our most holy
faith. I am certain, he goes on that it
is true in our Christian work, in our trying to bring souls to Christ. We
cannot expect to see men converted, if we are not earnest is telling them the
truth of God which will save the soul. It is the work of the Spirit to convert
sinners yet the Lord uses us as his instruments.” (Spurgeon)
However
in obeying the command of the Bible to we so often become caught up in the work
that we lose sight of the purpose of the work and we lose sight of
relationships.
We
can see hard work and busyness as valuable in themselves. But busyness as a
mere distraction to fill up empty days is a form of denial and busyness to
impress others is a form of deceit.
Eugene Peterson points out that sometimes we are busy because we are
vain. We want to appear important. The
truth is without God we can do nothing.
Frantic
work is often the sign of our inability to trust God to provide for our needs. Psalm
127:2 “for he grants sleep to those he loves.”
Another
translation of that is “he provides for those he loves while they sleep. Our
need for sleep is a reminder that we cannot be in control of everything 24/7.
We just have to trust that God will keep our world going whilst we are at
rest. Even while we are at rest he is
building, he is watching and he is providing for us.
Unless
the Lord builds, unless the Lord watches, unless the Lord provides, then
nothing is accomplished, nothing is secure and nothing is satisfying. But the Lord does build, watch and provide.
What
does that mean for us? Our plans need to
be given to him, our fears need to be given to him and our needs need to be
given to him.
God Bless
Carol
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