A Song For Hard-Working Men (Psalm 127) Series

A song for hard-working men (Psalm 127)

This morning, we will be talking a lot about practical, everyday parts of life. We'll talk about work, and wealth, and family. We'll talk about how a man provides, and protects. We'll be talking about our role, and God's. Parts of what I teach this morning, some of you will find yourself struggling with. What I'm teaching on requires a lot of nuancing, and subtlety, and I'm probably not saying everything quite the way I should. Some of you will feel a bit of sting this morning from the psalm. Or, you'll feel the sting from what I say. I will leave it up to each of you, to decide if you hear the psalmist tell you this morning that you're doing something wrong, or if in fact you're ok. I think that's what the psalm does, so that's what I'll do. I'll leave it up to you, and to the Holy Spirit living inside of you, to decide if it's good to feel a sting from the psalm.

Our psalm this morning, Psalm 127, is part of a larger collection of psalms that's called a "song for the ascents." What exactly that means is debated, to some degree, but probably the idea is this: Part of what it means to belong to God's people in the OT, is that you'd journey to Jerusalem several times each year for Jewish festivals. You'd celebrate God's big saving acts that He's done, and you'd give him thanks at the beginning of the different harvest seasons. If Israel was ND, it'd be like, you'd offer God a sacrifice at the beginning of the wheat harvest, and then soybean, and then corn. And each of those harvests was at the same time linked to something really important to your history with God in the past. It'd be like if the wheat harvest was linked to the day Jesus died on the cross, and the soybean, to when he rose from the dead, and the corn, to when Jesus went up to heaven. Something like that.

So in the OT (after the temple was built), if you were part of God's people, you'd go to Jerusalem every year to offer God those sacrifices at his temple. Some of them, God gets the whole thing, and we'd call that a "whole burnt offering." And some of them, God gets a part, and you get a part, and priests get a part. And the sacrifice feels more like a potluck, where you share a meal with God.

Now, in OT thought, Jerusalem is always "up." You go "up" to Jerusalem. Even if you lived in Colorado, and you were visiting Jerusalem, you'd say, "I'm going up to Jerusalem."

So Psalm 127 is a song you'd learn, and memorize, for the times when you'd journey/pilgrimage up Jerusalem to worship God at the temple. These are songs [that God gives you] for you sing to prepare yourself spiritually-- to put yourself in the right frame of mind, in a good place, so that you are able to worship God in a way that pleases him. So think about this psalm as a gift from God, that you can sing in the car, on your way to church.

Now, the interesting thing about that, is that at first glance, today's psalm doesn't seem to have much to do with worshipping God, or sacrificing to Him. Today's psalm, is a psalm mostly for hard-working men-- the kind of men who work hard, and work long hours. It's a song for husbands and dads who understand that a man provides for his family, and protects his family, and who understand the cost of that.

All of this isn't to say that women can't and don't work hard. I see the wives and daughters out hauling grain at 8 pm on a Friday night. I see my wife making dough into bread at 10 at night. Women can learn a lot from this psalm. But this is a psalm, perhaps above all others, that's for men.

Let's start by reading the first part of verse 1:

(1) A song for the ascents. Of/for Solomon.

If Yahweh isn't building a house, pointlessly/emptily (Exodus 20:7; 23:1) they have toiled-- the ones building it. ["pointlessly" is focused here and next 2 lines; exact same word in v. 2, but hard to translate it nicely]

If Yahweh isn't guarding a city, pointlessly/emptily he has stayed awake-- the keeper/watchman (Psalm 121:4, Yahweh is, same word, the "keeper"/"watchman" of Israel).

In the song lyrics of this verse, we immediately find ourselves reading something that sounds a lot like the book of Proverbs. We're reading about real-world realities about how life works.

Any of you who have done construction projects know that building a house, or working on a house, is hard work. It's the type of work that's best described by using a slightly ugly English/Hebrew word-- you've "toiled." [the typical word used for "work" in Ecclesiastes]. Construction work involves moving heavy things. It can be a little dangerous. And it's the kind of thing where things often don't line up quite right. Something was supposed to come together at a right angle, and it's just not. Something is supposed to be three and a half feet, and it's 3 ft, 5 1/2 inches. A footing was supposed to anchor the house in place, so that it didn't shift, and the house shifted anyway, causing a crack that ran from floor to ceiling.