The psalm that that hymn referenced in its last stanza is the psalm that is our text today, Psalm 127. So, pardon me, I'd invite you to turn there now. Psalm 127, as we continue through the psalms of ascents, coming to the very center psalm of the psalm of ascents right now. As we've been learning, life is an ascent to God, and we as God's pilgrims pursue God's eternal purposes. This psalm helps us to do that as we sing it on this earthly pilgrim journey. Let me begin by reading the psalm for us together today. 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, go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, or he gives to his beloved sleep. Behold, children are an 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. They shall not be put to shame when they speak with the enemies in the gate. Pardon me. Now, the first point of my sermon here today is something that actually is spurred on by the superscription to this psalm, which obviously I didn't just read here, but it says, a song of a sense of Solomon. I like the first point of the sermon today here to be of Solomon and of Jesus, because I think this is important for our attention to this psalm. Right off the bat, the superscription sets a context in which you are to envision this psalm. because it says, a song of ascents of Solomon. Now, that should catch your attention if you've been walking through the Psalms together with us, because it's unusual. There's actually only one other Psalm in all the Psalter that has a superscription that says, of Solomon. Pardon me, that Psalm is Psalm 72, which is a powerful royal Psalm, which begins, give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son. May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. It goes on to look forward to this king's son ruling from sea to sea in a kingdom of ultimate peace and prosperity. It concludes with a confident prayer that peoples will be blessed in him and all the nations would call him blessed. What you're seeing in Psalm 72, Well, of course, associated with David and Solomon. But what you're seeing in Psalm 72 is the serpent crushing seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, God's anointed king, bringing God's blessing to the world in God's eternal kingdom. In other words, you have Jesus Christ. That's what Psalm 72 is about. So when you come to Psalm 127 and we read, of Solomon, we have a pretty good idea of where this is heading. This is all in the context of the grand sweep of God's plan of redemption. Look at it with me. When we read in verse one about the Lord building the house, we should immediately think of 2 Samuel 7. There, David expressed his desire to build a house for the Lord, a temple. And in response, the Lord told David through the prophet Nathan, the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. This is a covenant, a promise that God made with David. And right away, it's bringing up this issue of a house. In fact, the house in both senses, which is intended in our text here, both the sense of a house as a dwelling place and a house as a household, a family, a dynasty. The Lord would build this. He would enable David's son to build a temple for him, a house for him, and he would build a house for his own namesake. When we read back in Psalm 127 of the Lord keeping the city, we should think of Jerusalem as it's expressed in all these Psalms of ascents, going back to Psalm 122, Jerusalem. built as a city that is bound firmly together, to which the tribes grow up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David." Right? This is the context in which he's talking about this. When we read of the Lord giving sleep to his beloved in verse two, he gives to his beloved sleep. That's Yadid. we should think of the name that the prophet Nathan gave to Solomon. Yes, when he was born, David named him Solomon, but Nathan said his name will be not just Yadid, Yedidiya, or as we would say it, Jedidiah, right? Beloved of Yah, beloved of the Lord. That was a name given to Solomon. And we should hear the echoes of that when Psalm 127 is saying He gives to His beloved sleep. When we read that sons, literally as the text is translated here, children, but it's more specifically sons, are a heritage of the Lord, we should think of the Lord claiming Israel as His inheritance and then giving to the people their inheritance in the land with Himself. And all of this context is set up for us by this psalm of ascent as the pilgrims wind their way up to Jerusalem to meet with God. And so as you enter into Psalm 127, you have to pay attention to the context here. He's not just talking about houses in general. it will work out to apply to all houses because all houses find their true relationship here. He's not just talking about cities in general, although it will work out to cities because cities find their relationship here. God is talking about his promises, his covenants, his covenant with David and his seed and how he's going to bring blessing to the whole world, his grand sweep of redemption. And because of that, as soon as we think of that context, We should think of the one greater than Solomon, in whom all of God's promises to David will come true. He, this one, is the serpent crushing son of Mary, the son of Abraham, the son of David. He is the beloved son in whom the father is well pleased. As God himself announced in Matthew chapter three, he came to create a household, a family that would transcend all fleshly families. Matthew chapter 12, Jesus himself said, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And then he answered his own question. Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Jesus is the one who promised in Matthew 16, 18, to build his church, which would be a temple of the living God. against which the gates of Hades will not prevail. And speaking of enjoying sons as a heritage of the Lord, like Psalm 127 does, Jesus brings many sons to glory. In Christ, we are members of God's household and we are sons of God, inheriting all of God's blessings. You see, folks, it's in this context that we have to sing Psalm 127. It's the song of ascents of Solomon. And for that very reason, it is ultimately about Christ, Jesus, our Lord, and our spiritual fruitfulness then in Him. You see what this Psalm has just done for us? This is so important for you in all aspects of life. And this is why singing the Psalms is so important for you. Rather than starting with your experience in this world as a pilgrim, and then trying to somehow make God relevant to it, It's done just the opposite. It said, you need to see all of your experience in this world in light of God and His promises and what He's accomplishing. And it's not until you do that that you will actually understand what's going on in life, that you will have a fruitful, eternally fruitful life. The Psalm is helping us to do, it's calling us to do that. So now, having seen of Solomon and of Jesus, we can sing of our pilgrimage in the right context. And let's look at this Psalm here. It falls into two very even stanzas of four Hebrew lines each. The first one in verses one and two, you can easily detect a theme in this stanza here, can't you? In vain, 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. And then the next, it is in vain that you rise up early and stay up late eating the bread of anxious toil, this vanity here, this emptiness, worthlessness. What is that this psalm says or sings about that is empty or vain or worthless? Well, it mentions things like building a house. And of course, in that double sense, we just talking about a dwelling place, but even a family household watching Over the city, it talks about here, it's put in that category of vain, keeping watch, trying to protect and guard the city. It mentions getting up early and working all day long and until late in the night, right? That too is one of those things that it says it's in vain. I think how this psalm captures so well the way we live. In fact, I think it pictures it perfectly with that description of eating the bread of anxious toil. We labor for our bread, right? And yet this bread is characterized as anxious toil or even painful labor. There's kind of a nod here, actually, in the Psalm to Genesis 3.16, which uses the exact same term to describe the pain that will come upon the woman in childbearing because of the curse, right? All this life-giving stuff, and yet now it's even in the very process of giving birth to life, you are being bowed down with painful labor. It wears you out. It grinds you down. It's vain. Pardon me. Our labor in this world is like pushing a rock up the hill that rolls back down and you push it back up the hill and it rolls back down and you push it back up the hill and it rolls back down and you can never seem to get anywhere. How often do we indulge that fantasy of getting ahead, right? You hear that language a lot, right? I'm gonna get ahead. I want to just be able to get ahead a little bit. How often do you feel that way or think that? If I could just get ahead. And so we'll do this extra work here and we'll do that extra work there so that we can get ahead, whatever that might mean. Time works the same for all of us and you can never change that, but we're always trying to get ahead. You work and you slave and you toil and then you die and it's all dust and ashes anyway. And everybody forgets all the hard work and the pain, the toil, even the love you've expended on all these things. It's vain. Pardon me. But of course, in vain is not the whole of the theme of this first two verses, is it? It's unless the Lord then is in vain. And here we need to add in that part of the theme. When the Lord works, then nothing is in vain. If it's merely our work, if it's what we have the human ability to accomplish, if it's all of our ingenuity, all of our effort, all of our abilities alone, then it's in vain. But when the Lord works, nothing is in vain. The Lord is the one who is the giver of life. In fact, it says here, the Lord gives sleep to his beloved, the perfect antithesis of all this strenuous toil. In fact, the verse even sets it up that way in verse two, it is in vain that you rise up early, that you delay to sit down. In other words, you're just working and working and working. eating the bread of anxious toil. And then it says, it actually gives a just so. Our English translations often take it as for, but the connection is a just so kind of a exactly in this way. In other words, what he's about to say is the perfect counterpart. So here's what you've been doing. You've been working hard, dawn to dusk, nonstop, keep going, keep pushing. Now here's the exact counterpart to that, that meets that need exactly. What is it? The Lord gives. Note that by the way, this is a gift, right? The Lord gives something and it's actually sleep. It's when you aren't exerting your effort or accomplishing all these wonderful things in life. It's when you're stopping and saying, I can't do any more. Just so the Lord gives sleep, the antithesis of anxious toil. Pardon me. I do think the Old Testament Sabbath was one of the ways that God was teaching His people this very truth. When God gave Israel their law, told them six days you were to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day, that is a day and you are to cease from that laboring. Why? Because the Lord did that. God is actually inviting you into His rest by giving you this day of Sabbath, Israel. He's inviting you into the accomplishment, the fulfillment of all the works of His hands. And in order to do that, you know what you have to do? You have to stop because you can never get there on your own. You won't be able to. You could work forever and you would never enjoy the Lord's rest. God has to give this to you and He's giving you rest. And as an Old Testament Israelite, if you were that back in the Old Testament, when you, well, for those of you who have a farming or agricultural background, you'll understand this very much. Pardon me. When it's time to get the harvest in, You have to get it in, right? Your life depends upon this. In fact, very much your life for the whole next year until the next harvest can be brought in. You have to get it done. You're very driven to get this done. So now it's harvest time and you're just getting going on this wonderful barley crop the Lord has provided for you this year. And then it's the Sabbath day and you have to stop and sit there for a whole day and What if it rains on the Sabbath evening so that now the next day I can't get out in the field and then the next day and I can't get my crops in and I lost my crop because I sat down on the Sabbath and didn't harvest it? What does it take to be able to do that? It takes trust in where your life truly comes from which is the Lord and not your harvest, right? That's what has to happen in order for you to obey that command of Sabbath. That's exactly the idea here. It's the Lord who's giving you anything that's going to ultimately benefit you, that's going to give you life. You have to realize at the end of the day, it's going to come from God and not from you, not from your abilities, not from your labors. Pardon me. You might even say today, pastor, how can I enjoy this rest that the Psalm is talking about here? My answer to you would be only in Jesus. In other words, here's what has to happen. You have to be taken out of the economy of merely human working and brought into the economy of God's giving. Your confidence in yourself, your abilities, your human ability in general even has to be crushed. It has to be crucified so that your confidence can be in Christ alone. Jesus said this, "'I am the vine, you are the branches. "'Whoever abides in Me, and I in him, "'he it is that bears much fruit. "'For apart from Me, you can do nothing.'" Do you really understand that truth today? That's what this psalm is calling you to, inviting you to, and it says, unless the Lord builds the house, it's saying, apart from Me, you can do nothing. You can work all you want to, and you actually won't accomplish anything. But if you abide in me, there's a whole different story here. All of our work then, when we're in Christ, all of our work springs from faith working through love. Just like Paul told the Thessalonians, remembering before our God and Father, your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, folks, when you have this kind of perspective, unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain that build it, then it doesn't mean that you just sit back and do nothing and just expect God to, well, God's going to do it. I guess I just sit here. No, we work because God works. Therefore, my beloved, Philippians 2 says, as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but also much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. In other words, you work because God works. It's God's work that leads to your work. It's God's work that undergirds your work. It's God's work that guides your work. And it's God's work that brings your work to fruition. Now, of course, that means that your work has to align with God's work, doesn't it? You can't work at cross purposes to God and then expect He's gonna make that work worthwhile. You can't disobey God in your work and expect that somehow He's gonna make that good. And that's just assumed in the pilgrim perspective of this psalm. If you live by the world's values, then don't be surprised when you are caught up in the rat race of life. Don't be surprised when, pardon me, when the world system around you sets the agenda for your life. Don't be surprised when you can't get off the treadmill because you're letting them set the agenda. You're not actually living by faith at that point, right? But if everything you do is done by faith in the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself for you, seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, working with all of His energy, which He powerfully works within you, as the Apostle Paul put it in Colossians 1, then your work will bring rest, God's kind of rest. In other words, real life from within. You ever feel worn out in this world? Right? You feel the laborious toil that comes about from the curse. What's the actual antidote to that? Is it merely a little bit more sleep? No. Although sometimes we have to be wise and understand our human limitations, right? Sometimes a little bit more sleep can actually evidence trust in the Lord. When we say, I don't have to do everything and I can't. Right? That's good. But is it the little more sleep that's going to give my heart rest? Not at the end of the day. It's the Lord, right? It's when I'm living by faith and I know that He is working so that what I am doing is ultimately and eternally good. That my labor in Him is instead of being in vain, it's now laying up treasure in heaven. This is actually accomplishing eternal good and glory for God. When you have that kind of hope in life, That's what gives the human soul strength. So let me just say about this first stanza here, without Jesus, your work is worthless for God's eternal kingdom purposes. Without Jesus, everything you do, and I mean the best that you've ever done, the stuff you're proud of, is worthless for God's eternal kingdom purposes. That's what this Psalm is communicating to you. This is a wisdom psalm, folks, which shouldn't surprise us given that Solomon's his author, right? It's a wisdom psalm. And it gets right down into the practical details of life, your work, your household, your family, those kinds of things. But it elevates them by putting them into their right connection with God's eternal kingdom purposes. Now, as it goes to the second stanza here, the psalm turns our attention to what I'll call a paradigmatic contrast to vanity. So you have vanity on the one side, right? Unless the Lord works, vanity. Everything you do is vanity. Now, what's the total opposite of that? Blessedness. That is God imparting His life to you so that you are enjoying the fullness of real life with God. Life that is fruitful and abundant and productive. That's what the second stanza of Psalm 127 talks about in verses three through five. Behold, children, or as I mentioned earlier here, more directly, sons, are a heritage of the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, a mighty man, are the children, the sons of one's youth, and therefore, blessed is the man, right? If you've been reading the Psalms, you should have echoes going off in your head, like, how did the whole book of Psalms start? Blessed is the man. We're still building on that theme. Here's what it means to be truly right with God. When Jesus started his sermon on the Mount, what did he start it with? A bunch of blessing statements, right? The Beatitudes, we call them. It's the same idea here. Here's what it means to be in a condition of true life with God. God imparting all of his life to you, you responding to that and becoming all that life was meant to be. Blessed is this man. And what's the characteristic of that man? He fills his quiver with these sons. And therefore these sons shall not be put to shame when they speak with the enemies in the gate." Folks, here's a song that we need to sing loud and strong into this narcissistic technocratic void of modern Western civilization. If there's any song in the Bible that just shouts out everything that is contrary to what our society is built on right now, this is it. I call it the narcissistic technocratic void. Many years, Joxy Alol observed, we, talking about our modern age, we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere. We don't know where we're going. We don't know what the point is. Okay, why should we get better technology? We don't even know. We can't answer that question. We have no even culture wide agreed upon answer to that. Therefore, we don't know who we are or what we're doing. And in some ways we see the signs in our Western civilization that we are fast arriving at a point of sheer nihilism in which we self-destruct. We destroy ourselves from within. And one of the ways that shows up, our self-destruction, is one of the ways this psalm is talking about. We refuse to have children. because we have no confidence in the future. We have no glorious vision before us that this will actually be good. And so we reject it. Some of the latest figures I've seen are that the total fertility rate, pardon me, of women in the United States as of 2018 which is just one measure, one way of trying to get a grasp of what the reproductive rate of any given society is, total fertility rate, is in 2018 was at 1.73, which, by the way, is the lowest it's ever been since we've tried to measure that kind of a statistic. Usually demographers, sociologists, those who study this kind of thing will say that a society's equilibrium rate, where they at least reproduce themselves, is 2.08. So that gives you an idea where we're at, right? In other words, as we're going right now as a society, we won't even reproduce ourselves in the next generation and so on and so forth. We're having fewer children than it takes to replace those who are passing away. Pardon me. Now, why is that? I don't think you can answer that by saying, well, we're lacking the necessities of life. I mean, we don't have food and shelter and therefore, you know, we don't have children because we don't have any way to take care of them. And no, we're actually about the richest civilization that's ever existed in the history of the world, right? It's pretty hard to come up with some kind of explanation that pins all this to purely material explanations. The reality is, I would argue, it's a spiritual void. We have no reason to reproduce ourselves because we have no faith. We have no point for the future. There's nothing to invest ourselves in that we will say ultimately matters. In fact, I was just reading a story recently, which is sadly not an isolated incident of a 22-year-old woman, pardon me, who was completely uninvolved with any romantic partner or what's the term not significant other we try to use that kind of terminology nowadays and didn't have any particular prospects of being but she thought you know maybe if someday I get married that would be good but she went and had a tubal ligation to make sure she would never have children if she ever should get a significant other. Why? Because it would be really awful to bring children into this world. There's no hope there, right? No reason to live beyond just myself. And that's the condition we're in as a society. We're fast trying to invent other ways to manufacture babies rather than actually bear them. And in fact, that brings me back to this Psalm. I believe that the reason children are specifically singled out in this Psalm And you say, what's the connection between this first stanza and the second one? He's talking about all of our labor, building a household, even a city. And then he zeroes in on this aspect of children in the second stanza. I believe that children are specifically singled out here because they are a crowning example of a gift from God. One of the wonderful things about children that every parent, if you're aware of, just marvels at, is that children are begotten and not made. They are begotten and not made. Of all the things that we do as human beings, they are the thing that we participate in, but we don't give life. We don't make that person the person he or she is, right? You parents ever marveled at that? You look at your own children and you see so much of yourself reflected in them because they are your children actually, right? And yet they're their own distinct person. They are who they are because of God, right? Not because of you. You didn't get in there and decide, I want this and I want that and I'm gonna make them this way and I'm gonna make them this smart or that tall And even beyond their physical characteristics, you didn't make them the living soul that they are, God did. You participated in the process, but that's a gift from God. That's why the Old Testament consistently says that God is the one who opens the womb. The point is God makes living souls, right? We can't do that. I think the current push for designer babies, as they're sometimes called, is simply a crowning of the technological idolatry we have, which proclaims, you will be like God. I don't want to have to deal with people in my life who are dependent on me that aren't what I want. I don't want to have to receive them as a gift. I want to be able to control it. I want when I want, what I want, as much as I want, and no more and no less. I want this kid to be smart enough, you know, to measure up to his dad, of course. So, you know, I'm going to engineer his brain if I can to make him smarter. But that's, we joke about that, but that is actually what we are doing in our society right now. We're trying. And it's idolatry. We are rejecting the gift that God gives and says, no, I want what I can make instead. And that's just one crowning illustration of our technocratic idolatry that we are living in. And that's why this Psalm is so important. We want control, but at the end of the day, it leads to death. We're dying out as a civilization, not flourishing. As believers, on the other hand, we receive children as gifts by living in the love of Christ in our marriages and our households. Pardon me. We receive children as gifts. What a wonderful truth that is, by the way. That just opens up such a world of love, right? Our relationship with our children, even, our relationship with our spouse, by the way, is no longer utilitarian. It's no longer what works for me. It's about giving and receiving love. And the overflow of that love is children. And that just makes life even more loving. You see what happens when you submit to God's goodness and trust in him for life? He begins to make life really rich and really overflowing. When we try to control it with what I'll just call in our society ever since even the 1960s that our contraceptive mentality which the pill is just, you might say, a technology that puts on display our mentality, our idolatry of our age. We think control is what will give me life. But unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain, right? That's the point. You can't make life. You have to receive it as a gift from God. Folks, this is the gospel. When we receive children as gifts of God, as living souls, we recognize then another important truth that this Psalm is driving us to, and that is even that procreation itself is discipleship. It's ultimately spiritual in its aims, not merely biological. We're not just like the rest of the creatures that God made in Genesis 1 there, are we? We're made in God's image. We are living souls. We are made to relate to God. And that means we're not just like the other animals, even though we share a biological nature with them. So when we reproduce as human beings, we're never merely being like rabbits, right? That's not the point, right? Just have more kids. No, the point is, in our exercising of productive dominion over the earth that God has given to us to have procreative discipleship. Our goal is to make worshipers of Jesus Christ, to bring other people into this loving relationship with God, to train them up in that way, to give our lives into them so that they know God. Pardon me. And you see what's happening when God gives the gift of children? God is bringing us into his eternal kingdom purposes for life. for eternal life. That's what God is doing. It's a wonderful thing. Unbelievers don't recognize it, but that's what God is doing. God is bringing us into his kingdom purposes for life. He's making us a part of his mission. And our goal then becomes to train up worshipers of the one true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to make disciples who know the Lord and are like Jesus Christ, who can live with him forever. And that shows us, by the way, that this reproduction that's being talked about here in this psalm is never merely biological, but is ultimately spiritual. I think that's what will become even important when we get to verse five. Pardon me. Look at verse four, though. It says, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, a mighty man are the sons of one's youth. When God gives, in your youth, and of course, the time for us to bear children is in our youth. When God gives in your youth, these sons and children, it compares them to arrows here. And of course, arrows being a mighty weapon. Arrows even bringing about the imagery as opposed to other weapons of their day of being able to strike from afar, being lightning fast, Pardon me. These are amazing things that God is equipping you with for a mission, to accomplish victory in warfare even. By the way, do you ever think of children as, this is how we accomplish victory in warfare for God, right? Far beyond what I can reach even. I mean, this is a way to affect the future after I die. This is the way God has given to me to invest in this way, to accomplish his mission in this way. These children are arrows. You need to aim them well. You need to receive them as the gifts that they are, and then you need to aim them well for the purposes God has for their lives. That's all wrapped up in what we're singing about here. And that shows us the answer here as we come to verse five is to the, contraceptive mentality, the technocratic void of modern Western society isn't simply to have more children. That won't answer the need exactly. Muslims today are having more children, right? Demographically, they'll take over certain parts of the world simply by the fact that they're having a lot more children than other people are. But will that fix the spiritual problem? No, it will replace one form of idolatry with another form of idolatry. So the point is here, not just have more children, although we certainly delight in children here, The necessary thing is to restore faith in God's good purposes in Christ, and to let that overflow in all of our lives, in building our households, in building our cities, in building our churches. You need to ask yourself today, what would it be like to see your family in light of God's promises to David? Have you stopped to think about that? We had the blessing of just observing a wedding here in our church a couple weeks ago, right? Why did God form that new union? Just because they love each other. Well, that's a good thing if they love each other, right? That's a gift from God. But how does that relate to God's purposes for the promises he made to David? How does that relate to the messianic king? How does that relate to the building of the temple and the ultimate city, the new Jerusalem? You see, now we're starting to get to a Christian perspective on these things. Now we're starting to see why God is giving us these good gifts. This is wonderful. God is actually, when he gives us marriage and then children, he is giving us an avenue of participation in his eternal purposes in Christ Jesus. And we trust him for that. But that then even overflows and is even superseded, you might say, transcended by the family that God is building in the church. As I've already alluded to earlier in the sermon, when Jesus Christ came, He came to create a family. And if you are in Christ, you are part of that family. You are sons of God. In other words, you have been adopted into His family with all the rights and privileges that pertain thereto. You are part of His eternal kingdom purposes. And as He builds that family, it takes shape in the church. A church that has this kind of perspective in our world today is going to be a church that knows where it's at. We are pilgrims, and this is where we're heading. We're heading for the new Jerusalem, and we want to be fruitful while we do it. That's going to entail being fruitful in bearing children in our families, but it's also going to maintain being fruitful in bearing spiritual children. I believe a church that sees God's purposes in the world is going to crave and delight in spiritual children, that is bearing sons, becoming spiritual parents, seeing them go forward as disciples for the Lord, arrows in the hand of a mighty man, accomplishing the mission of Jesus Christ. And I would urge you as a congregation today to bear spiritual children. That is, make it a delight, first of all, to invest your life in others so that you can bear much fruit. Just like being a parent, it takes a lot of work, doesn't it? One of the reasons people get skittish about having children when they have their values out of line from God's kingdom is that it's a lot of work. It's a lot of money. It's like life denying kind of work, soul draining kind of work sometimes, right? And you have to be at it night and day for years on end and you never get a time off. And yeah, that's the kind of gift that God gives, right? In fact, I was reading one commentator who made a little aside that I thought was kind of fun. He said, it's not untypical of God's gifts that first they are liabilities or at least responsibilities before they become obvious assets. The greater their promise, the more likely that these sons will be a handful before they are a quiverful. There'll be a handful before they're a quiverful. Amen to that, right? That's the way it works. And it's true in all dimensions of spiritual childbearing. If you're gonna invest your life in other people, it's going to mean you have to invest your life. You have to lay down yourself. How is our church going to be fruitful in the mission as we are pilgrims walking to the new Jerusalem? we're going to have to invest ourselves in others, and even be willing to lay down our lives in investing for them. Pastor Justin, just to bring that in what we've been learning in our seminars is such a great application of this. In fact, I just, after seminar hour today, I told him, it's like, you just said a lot of applications from our sermon today. So this is great. This is perfect. Right? Bear spiritual children. Realize it's true. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. And let me just emphasize, this translation is right on the money. This is an active sentence. Not just that it happens to you, but that you pursue this because you know this is real blessedness. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with children. Right? You say he's a glutton for punishment. Yeah. Because he knows this is a blessing. He knows this is God giving him a gift by which he could never be so fruitful spiritually if God didn't give this gift to him. But every child he gets is a gift. He didn't earn it, deserve it, it's a gift. God gives it and now he has an opportunity. And so it is spiritually as a church, as God gives children, We invest, we welcome that. We welcome that when it upsets our tidy little relationships sometimes, and we welcome that when it makes things harder sometimes, because this is God's gift of us being able to participate in His mission. Pardon me. Folks, I hope you're seeing, in contrast to the void around us, the meaningfulness of all of life, down to its most intimate details in Jesus Christ, right? If the Lord is working and he is working in Jesus Christ, if you trust him and your life is hidden with Christ in God, then your labor isn't in vain, right? What did the apostle Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15? Your labor is not in vain in the Lord, right? It will never return void if you trust Christ. Folks, in Jesus, the second stanza tells us God gives you a share in the blessed life of his kingdom purposes. If you believe that today, would you confess your faith that Jesus is Lord? Let's do it together as a congregation. Jesus is Lord.