Centenary – Psalm 127

Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

In vain. In vain. You rise early and stay up late toiling for food to eat. For he grants sleep to those he loves. Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. 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 is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Men. Fantastic. Rob, what on?

10 minutes. That's it. Rob spent 10 minutes building that house of cards and it's come crashing down. Oh, Rob, I'm sorry. Sorry about that.

Tell you what, there might be some time later on. It's not a busy day. You might be able to do a bit more later on perhaps. I don't know. If you're one of our young people and you want to be able to see a little bit better, then why not come out and grab a seat here in the middle?

That would be a great place to be. You can bring those sheets with you if you'd like. And you can bring a parent or a grown up with you as well if you'd like to. And that's a great place to be able to see what is going on there. Fantastic.

As they're coming up. Why on earth was it that Rob was building a house of cards? And how frustrating was it for him when that house of cards came collapsing down? Why are we thinking about that? Well, right at the start of our psalm today, we hear who the psalm is written by.

It's a song of ascent, in other words, when people were walking up towards the temple. And it's written by Solomon and Solomon has something really big to tell us and in fact it is on the banner right at the back there and we're going to say it together. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Now, Solomon knew something about this.

Solomon wrote a few different books and one of the books he wrote was a book called Ecclesiastes. And in Ecclesiastes he talks about how he spent a lot of time doing a lot of work and working really hard and researching and trying to have the funnest best possible life. And do you know what he worked out? He said it was a bit like chasing the wind. One of the things that the Tanner family sometimes do when we go out for a walk.

I don't know if you guys do this. We love to play a game and it's called Catch the Leaf okay. We go in for fun on a big scale in the Tanner family. Catch the leaf. Basically what you do is you stand under a big tree and as the wind blows and the leaves come off in autumn, you run around like a headless chicken and you try and catch the leaf.

And it's actually really quite difficult to do. Now imagine you were playing catch the leaf without any leaves. Do you think that would be a fun game or not so fun game? It would be a bit rubbish, wouldn't it? Catch the leaf without any leaves.

Do you know what Solomon says that trying to build our life without God is like playing catch the leaf without any leaves. It's running after the wind. He says in the book of Ecclesiastes. Now some of you are thinking, okay, I get, oh, there we go. Ben's dropping all his stuff.

I get the idea that unless the Lord builds a house, the church, then you without him, it's all in vain. I kind of get that. And it's a nice thing to learn. But it's interesting. This passage isn't just talking about the church.

Look at it. It says, unless the Lord builds the house. Verse 1. The builders build in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.

Building and watching over building, creating things, making things and watching over, looking after things. I think that covers almost everything that we do. I want you, if you're sat down in front of me, to have a bit of a think. What jobs can you think of that involve making something or creating something or building something? Have a bit of a think.

Can you think of any jobs that involve making, creating or building? Thomas has got an idea. Being a carpenter. Being a carpenter. Yes.

I know somebody who did that. Any other ones? Yes, go on. Being a builder. Being a builder.

Yeah, literally being a builder. You're building things. Sewing something or like crocheting. Sewing or crocheting. We've got some great sewers or crocheters.

Joey, shout out to Adley, a baker. Yes. Brilliant. Anymore? Engineering.

Engineering. Excellent. Artists. Being an artist. Yeah.

Designing and creating things. Sorry, yes. All sorts of different things that you could build or create or make. I thought of some. You could be a network designer.

You could be an IT specialist who creates and implements special systems. Like, I think Chris at the back. You could be somebody who designs cities and plans towns out. You could be somebody who makes all sorts of things. Loads of our jobs involve making things.

Let's have a think. Can anyone think of any jobs or roles that don't involve making things but involve looking after or keeping things. Looking after or keeping things. Any ideas? Dan?

You've got a hand up. No, I don't. Oh, you don't have a hand up. That's okay. Zookeeper.

A zookeeper, yes. Looking after animals. That's a good one. Any other people who look after things or keep things or got a hand up over here? Let me do a bit of a jog.

A parent. A parent, yes. Looking after things. Yes, definitely. A job.

Yes. A banker. A banker. Looking after money. Yes.

That's good. A caretaker. A caretaker, yes, that's right. Or maybe a doctor or a nurse or somebody who looks. A gardener or a cleaner or somebody who looks after our bodies like a sports person.

Helping keep an entertained culture. Do you know what I think? Most of the things that we do fall into either building something, creating something or keeping something.

Now, if that's true, then what our verse says today is really poignant, isn't it? What does our verse say? Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. In other words, unless God is in it, then it's going to be something that isn't going to last. That's true.

Whether we're talking about church or whether we're talking about what we're doing at work. You know, the things that we do at work will last. The beautiful things that we create or sustain will be there in the new creation. It's incredibly important what we do. But if the Lord is not in it, it will not last.

Now, some of you guys think. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I get that. That's easy, right? Like if it's going to be eternal, it's got to have God doing it. That makes sense.

Right?

But do you believe that? Because this psalm, it gives us a really helpful test. Did he see it there in verse 2? In vain you rise early and stay up late toiling for food to eat. For he grants sleep to those he loves.

Right. I need a volunteer who doesn't mind being on a live stream. That's great. I'm going to use you, Sophie, because I've got parental consent for you. So why don't you come and if you want to just lie down there, that'd be nice.

And I'll give you. You don't need. We've got some great heating in church, but I'm going to give you a blanket there, so that's good. Yes, we do have great heating in church, Sophie. And what I'd love you to do is I'd love you now to think about what Sophie can or cannot do.

While she is here asleep. So can Sophie, while she's asleep, can Sophie see?

No, not very well. So if you can't see when she's asleep, can she hear very much when she's asleep?

Well, the jury's out a little bit, but we'll say no. In fact, that's not going to work very well. She can't hear very much. Can she speak words that make sense while she's asleep? No.

Can she walk around where she wants to go when she's asleep? No. She might be able to sleepwalk, but she doesn't really know where she is. You see, in trying to get stuff done, being asleep is a real disadvantage, isn't it? It's rubbish being asleep.

That's why sometimes if you want to get stuff done, some grownups will stay up really late or they'll do silly things like have their telephone by their bed and answer their work emails in the middle of the night. Or they'll get up really, really early. Because what we think is happening is that we need to walk and sleep and see and do. We've got to do it. It's on me.

I've got to do it. If I don't do it, who's going to get it done? Do you know while Sophie's asleep and acting really well, God is at work. Do you know that when you're asleep, cuts and bruises heal about 50% quicker than they do when you're awake? So if you can't see or hear or walk around, but God is busy healing her body, do you know when you're asleep, you're actually losing weight?

It helps you lose weight. Don't believe me? Apparently you are 15% less hungry if you have a good night's sleep. Do you know that we're doing nothing? God is helping us to heal and helping us to eat better.

Do you know what, whilst we're asleep, do you know what God is doing? He's making us more alert. Do you know if you have a night when you do not sleep, your reaction times are worse than somebody who has been over the legal limit for driving alcohol. Somebody who has had too much to drink. If you have not slept for one night, your reaction times are worse than that.

God is doing amazing things while we sleep. And do you know what else he is doing? God is react, giving us, making us relax. On average, we are 30% more relaxed when we have slept a full night than when we are awake. You see, if you want a great example of God doing the work and not us, think about Sleeping.

Oh, and I haven't even talked about the fact that while Sophie's asleep overnight, God is making the food grow in the fields. God is looking after the. God is looking after the money that is in the bank. God is looking after the fact that her heart will beat a few thousand times at least overnight. God is working in us even when we are asleep.

You see, sleep and being able to stop and go to sleep is proof that we truly believe that unless the Lord builds the house. Say it with me, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. See if we trust that it will help us to sleep. Now, I know that for some of us sleep is a really difficult thing. I recognise there are times and seasons where sleep is hard.

But one of the things that's helps us to sleep is knowing that we are not the ones that are in control. God is building the house.

So if you're going to say a big thank you to you as you sit down, thanks for sleeping out there in church, don't do it again. That's great.

I will just very quickly say, just because for some of us, I know that the end of that psalm is a difficult one. I know that the end of that psalm is a difficult one. But actually when the Bible speaks here of children as a heritage from the Lord, in the Old Testament they would have thought particularly about biological family. But in the New Testament, this is speaking about God's family, the church. God is building his church.

He is the one who is building his church. And one of the ways that we see that is through generation after generation of people coming to know Him. Do you know, and I'll say this clearly, Paul who's sitting here, didn't build this church. Ali, who's sitting here, did not build this church. I most certainly did not build this church.

We've all been builders in the church. We've done this work as in fact has every one of us here in some way being builders in this church, doing good work. But we didn't build this church. The fact that this church is still here today is because God has been at work. The fact that generation after generation will hear the good news of Jesus is because God is at work.

So there are children who are around when Paul was dica here, children who were around when Ali was here. There are children who were around when David Hallett was here and other vicars who will be around later on. And they are now out in this world telling people about Jesus or going on loving and serving Jesus because of God being at Work in their lives. That's a really exciting thing, isn't it? The years after they've left this place, they go on like arrows fired out from a bow and arrow into the world, living and speaking for Jesus.

Why? Because God builds the house.

I'm going to stop speaking in a moment, but I do just want to say it might be that you're here and you're here for all sorts of different reasons today. It might be there's part of you that thinks, do you know what I know that there is more to life, there's more to my work than just the here and now. There is more to this world than just the stuff that I accumulate and one day will be put into a scale after I'm gone. But I want to find out what that is. If that's you, can I encourage you, please, please, please take a copy of Mark's Gospel.

We'll have a bunch of them down in the hall after the service. We'd love to give you one. Because Jesus says, you are built to do things that are eternal.

Your impact on this world should be eternal because the Lord can work through you if you think and built for more than the here and now. We agree with you and would love to introduce you to the person who will show you how. But for the rest of us, if we believe, let's say it one more time, that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. If we believe that, let me ask you, are you giving things to the Lord? Are you going to sleep?

Are you resting or. Actually, if I was to look at your time your emails were sent and I speak to myself on this, if I was to look at the times your text messages were sent, would they say that you believe that the Lord builds a house or would they indicate that actually you think you do? Let me pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Jesus. Thank you.

That he has done everything for us to be right with you. Thank you. That he has plans that will use our everyday things for things that are eternal. Help us, Father, to trust that and therefore to be able to sleep. Therefore to be able to step away knowing it doesn't depend on us, it depends on you.

Thank you. That's the truth of this building. That year after year you have built it. You've met with people here, you've brought people to yourself. You've used all sorts of different people in that, but you have done that work.

Help us to trust that and even to delight in it. I pray. Amen.