SERIES: Songs of Ascents
TEXT: Psalm 127
MESSAGE: “Don’t Waste Your Life”
“ What areas in our lives does the writer, Solomon, suggest we depend on the Lord in? Our…
1. Work and Protection (v1)
2. Worries and Toils (v2)
3. Family (v3 – 5)
“What is the Christian understanding of work?. . . It is that work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties . . . the medium in which he offers himself to God.” -Timothy Keller
“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun?” -Ecclesiastes 1:2-3
“Look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” -2 Corinthians, 4:18
“Whether we spend our lives helping others or killing others, in the end it makes not a whit of difference. If human beings are going back to nothing, we should admit that nothing we do matters… The fleeting pleasures of life are senseless, useless, and insignificant if we try to live without reference and gratitude to God.” – Timothy Keller
“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.” – John 15:5
“I am the living bread that comes down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” – John 6:35
“ A feature of millennial culture is they have been forced to be self-reliant and to take a loosely networked individualism as the normal order of the universe. They have extremely low social trust. Pew Research Center says 19% of them say most people can be trusted, compared with 40% of boomers.” – David Brooks, PBS Newshour
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30
“Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. Once a day God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day. How humiliating to the self-made corporate executive that he has to give up all control and become as limp as a suckling infant every day.” – John Piper
“But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.” – 1 Corinthians 12:24-25
Application questions:
1. What are you building on?
2. What are you toiling in?
3. What are you preparing for?