Scott Schutte: This is Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat, for God gives rest to his loved ones. Children are a gift from the Lord.
They are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them. He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. This Psalm is a Psalm that helps us to reflect on really our priorities in life and are we relying on God for our provisions or are we striving for our own security ourselves?
I just think of verses, verse one really. It says, unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects the city, guarding it with centuries will do no good. I often find myself and others that I talk with, grasping for things in life and searching for ways to build their own security, ways to build their own sense of safety. But ultimately, all of those things are in vain if they aren't in God's will and if God's not in those things.
And so my, reflection and and also challenge to us this morning or whenever you're watching this is that these things that we're trying to pursue in life, money, homes, better jobs, maybe relationships that we think are defining of us, none of these things are what actually define us. None of these things actually bring us any safety or security. They're all vain and at some point will be gone away. And so, my challenge is that we would listen to what God's will is for our life and that those are the things we would invest in because we know those things are not in vain. And so let's pray together.
God, I pray that you would bring to mind now all the things and ways in which I am striving to provide for my own safety, my own security. I pray that I would release those things to you and that I would lean on you as my provider and lean on you as the person who brings me safety. God, I pray that you would increase my faith and that you would remind me how you always do provide and how everything that I need you give to me. All these things we lift up in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.