On My Way Up | Psalms of Ascent Week 7

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And now, here is this week's message.

There's a misnomer in in the uh maybe Christian culture too.

It's a phrase that makes my skin crawl every time I hear it because it's just bad theology.

I understand the sentiment, but it's bad theology.

Sentiment is God loves you just the way you are.

It's not true.

It's bad theology.

If God loved you just the way you are, there would be no need for the blood.

There'd been no me for the cross.

What is good theology is God loves you as you are.

He loves who you are.

That's why he came.

That's why he died.

But he didn't die so that we would remain the same.

He died because we were dead.

So to say he loves you just the way you are would mean to say that he wants you to he wants you in the same place that you are.

That's not true.

It's not true.

He doesn't want you in the same place.

He loves you.

He's already come.

But when we submit our lives to him, really submission in Christianity is more recognition at first.

The recognition is I'm dead.

That recognition leads to I want to be alive, and there's only one person that can make me alive.

That's Christ.

And he's made me alive by dying for me and then coming back alive.

And that's the gospel.

That's the gospel.

My title this morning will lead you to believe that I am not doing Psalm 127 and 128.

But that also would be a misnomer because I am doing Psalms 127 and Psalm 28.

But here's my title: George Costanza, The American Dream, and a Theology of Work That Works, or a Theology of Work that God blesses.

So George Costanza was one of four main characters of the show, Seinfeld.

That was my generation's as we go through Friends and Office hit other generations, but I friends was okay.

It was I never understood the office.

I so I never got that one.

But Seinfeld was my show.

So Seinfeld was famously a show about nothing.

It followed the mundane aspects of the life of four single New Yorkers: Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Elaine Bennis, and Cosmo Kramer.

So George Costanza had a particular view of work.

He saw it as an agonizing burden to be avoided at all costs.

Famously believing that the ultimate goal of employment was to do as little as possible, while convincing everyone else that you were profoundly busy.

And he had four standards of how to accomplish this, four laws or rules of the George Costanza work ethic.

One is to always look stressed and annoyed.

If you look stressed and annoyed, people thought you were busy.

The second was the welcome to hurry everywhere and carry a folder with you.

No one would stop and interrupt because it looked like you were busy.

The third was to never answer a call, let it go to voicemail.

You're far too busy to take a call in real time.

And the fourth was to avoid responsibility at all costs.

All right, so that was George Costanza's view of work.

So here's a news flash.

The George Costanda approach to work doesn't work.

Doesn't work.

All right, what about the American dream?

The American dream has been at the forefront of this American experiment for generations.

Now, not surprisingly, the idea of the American dream has changed somewhat differently over each successive generation.

They all view it a little differently.

And those multiple understandings of the American dream is what causes so much confusion over the conversations around the American dream.

So the core of the American dream, or the engine, I think it's safe to say, of the American dream is work.

You might not have heard anybody say it like that, but the engine of the American dream is work.

So for the silent generation and the older boomer generation, the American dream meant the opportunity to work hard and to make your own way.

And if you worked hard enough and you saved long enough, you could create the life you were after.

Now for the younger boomers and the generation X, the American Dream meant the opportunity to hustle, to make a lot of money.

Because money and stuff equaled status and self-worth.

But the next generation, so it's already changed, right?

So the next generation, for the millennials, the American Dream is the opportunity to do what you love, what you're passionate about, making work not so much the status, but work as your identity.

I want to do what I'm passionate about.

Now for the millennial, the younger millennials and the Gen Z, the American Dream has morphed into personal autonomy, reclaiming the personal life apart from who we are at work.

So work is becoming decoupled as the engine of the American dream.

Now I know I've lived with this stuff a week and you're trying to process it in real time.

But work is being decoupled as the engine of the American dream.

Companies are bad, corporate profits, corporate profits are greed.

You hear this echoed so much.

Now I'm not I'm not separating that there can't be greed, but I'm saying as a whole, this is still how it's approached.

Companies are bad, corporate profits are greed.

Companies now have to have to be socially minded, they have to have a philanthropic purpose in order to substantiate their value or even merit to being.

Now, individuals still have needs, we still have wants and dreams, but the responsibility of realizing those has shifted from reward to right.

Now, I know I cover every generation, I every generation that I just spoke about is in this room.

And this is how the American dream has morphed over time.

Now, this ever now, you know, so much talk around socialism right now.

Socialism works as long as there's people that have money.

Socialism does not work as soon as the people who have money run out of money.

As soon as they can't run their company or start some new entrepreneurial endeavor, as soon as there's somebody not working hard, socialism dies.

So does this ever-shifting philosophy of work.

The ever-shifting philosophy of the American dream or work doesn't work.

So, how about a theology of work that does work?

It's no surprise to me that the further the culture has distanced itself from God, and this is the progression how I map it out.

It started as God dependence, then it went to God acknowledgement.

I call that the God nod.

Then it goes to God ignorance, don't know much about God, to God tolerance, to God suppression, to God opposition.

Okay?

So in separating ourselves from God, the premise I'm going to give you today is it's also made its way into separating us from the God who works.

So the solution, I think, to realizing the solution to the American dream is realizing that the American dream doesn't originate with Americans.

The idea of work originates with God, and it's the only work that works when we connect our work to the God of work.

Now that's the introduction.

Here's where we get Psalm 127 and 128 today.

All right, so you can turn there if you want.

It's also going to be on the screen.

But Psalm 127 and 128 is going to be a message.

So Psalm 127 constructs a work theology that works.

Psalm 128.

Is anyone else hearing the bass?

What is that?

What is that?

Kids' worship?

That's awesome.

That's fantastic.

It's distracting, but it's fantastic.

And Psalm 128, Psalm 128 becomes the blessing.

Alright, so here's Psalm 127.

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch 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 the court.

So first reading, it looks like, and Solomon writes this psalm.

First first look is it's like he's carrying two separate themes.

But in actuality, there's one theme using two metaphors to convey the message of one theme.

All right, so here's metaphor number one, the first two verses.

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards and guards stand watch in vain.

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves.

So these verses carry a pretty big presupposition that's easy to run past.

All right.

So it starts out.

Here's my first theology of work that works.

So you can keep track.

Yes, I'm going to do ten of these today.

One is God works, He is the original worker and our model of work.

And his work is creating and covering.

So it says when it says, unless the Lord builds the house, the implication is the Lord builds the house.

If the implication is, or if the statement is, if God doesn't watch over the house, the implication is God watches can watch over the house.

So God works.

The first five verses of scripture tells us this.

In the beginning, God created.

So in the beginning, God worked.

It is the core story of the gospel is that we serve a God who works, that He created, and then He works to redeem creation, the rest of the story.

So this is really the first characteristic of God we get introduced to in scripture is that God works.

To jettison a connection between God and work is to lose the synergy of a work partnership with God and to forfeit the fruit of a co-creating relationship with God.

So here's the second piece of a theology of work that works.

Work is co-cre is a co-creating partnership with God.

We co-create with God.

Now that core story also comes with a core lie, and that is that God is not enough for you, nor has your best interest in mind.

That you have to make your own way and look after your own interests.

Okay?

It's the core lie.

And it separates us from the God who works.

If we believe that God is a creating God that partners together with his creation, because when you read scripture from start to finish, God works within us to bring about his purposes and the plan of redemption.

Now, Revelation says that Jesus was the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.

So provision for our sin is made before sin.

But we don't get to Jesus to 4,000 years.

So how do we get to Jesus?

Him co-creating with his people, bringing about his purpose and ultimately redemption.

Okay?

But if you don't believe that God is a good worker and good at what he does, you buy this lie, I got to do some things on my own.

Because God is not enough.

The God who's created everything from nothing, which is the ultimate definition of creation, he makes everything from nothing.

So even the dirt that we were made from, he had to create the dirt.

So he creates dirt before he creates us.

That's why I've always said God loves dirt.

He's a, he's a he loves land.

But if I don't believe that he is enough, then I'm going to work.

And what the scripture is going to tell us about is I'm going to work in vain.

I'm going to work apart, distance from him, and that work doesn't produce what we want it to produce.

You got to get over that core lie that God is not enough.

And I think it makes sense to me, it makes very much sense to me that God not only wants to, Satan not only wants us to separate us from God relationally, he wants to separate us and God in a work relation as well.

He wants to separate both of these things because of what it the ripple effect of all that.

So Solomon addresses this core lie, exposing the result of when we separate our work from God.

And it's that it's all done in vain.

Vain means toil, it means to be anxious, uh, frenetic movement, right?

It's it's the it's the faster your feet move, but you're not making any progress.

Right?

Like all movement is not productive.

Right?

All right.

So the third theology of work that works is we can neither build the life we want, nor care for the life we have on our own.

If your work at whatever place or purpose is going to produce what we actually long for, you have got to believe this: that we can't create the life we want on our own.

All right, here's the metaphor, second metaphor.

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 quivers full of them.

They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.

I have one of the we we dedicated two little ones in the first service.

And one of the core privileges that I had over 37 years of pastoral ministry has been with families with their little babies in hospital rooms.

Now that stopped mostly after COVID.

It still happens, but not as frequently.

I mean, there wasn't a baby born in this church that me or Pastor Harry weren't in that, weren't in that room that day or the day after for 10, 15 years.

And I always would make the babies mad because I always wanted to see the feet.

So if you're a mom, you understand this more than us men, but when that little newborn is unswaddled, it's not good.

But I would unswaddle because I wanted to get to those feet and those hands.

Fingers and toes to me were just a miracle.

I mean, there's no other way to look at childbirth other than this is just a miracle.

This is a miracle that their children can be born.

But listen, it's not our miracle.

We don't create life, we procreate life.

It's an extension of God's creation.

How inside of us he puts the ability to create life.

One of the more intriguing, hard to wrap your brain around aspects of God is that he doesn't need us for anything, and yet he has included us in everything, including procreation and co-creation.

Now, I first heard the term co-creating when I was doing my postgrad work in New Jersey.

And the professor, it's very lit, it was a very liberal Methodist university.

So I always was listening with both ears.

Um, but um on this particular day, the professor said that we co-create with God.

And I was like, hmm, really?

God really, he's the creator.

I don't, you know, but you know, I just I just kind of bit my tongue class over, got the prof to the side.

You're gonna have to unwrap this co-creating thing with me.

Because it seems to me that you're elevating mankind to God.

He said, No, not at all, Charlie.

When you read the word, does God do things independently or does he do things with his people?

I said, he does things with these people.

He said, Yeah, that's co-creating.

That he is the energy, he's the life, he's the thing that starts everything.

It's his ideas, it's his plan, and then we get to work together.

I mean, one of the beautiful things about working in partnership with God is the times that it's a little frightening at first, but it's the times where he says, Well, what do you want to do?

Have you experienced that?

Like we we live life like it's always it's always a yes or no answer, it's always a left or right, it's always one or two, it's always A or B, right?

And and sometimes it's God saying, Yeah, yeah, well, what would you like to do?

We're going in the right direction here.

You can go left, you can do.

And it's a little, it can be a little frightening at first.

I would just rather you tell me what to do.

Right?

And sometimes it's well, what do you want to do?

Co-creating, co-creating with God.

So here is a theology at work that works number four.

God works with and through his people to fulfill his purposes.

But get this: this co-creating partnership always fulfills his people.

See, if you don't believe that God is good and you do not believe God is for us, then working for God always seems like that we're just accomplishing something he wants done, as if, as if it's not what would fulfill us.

See, that that that's when we when the enemy can get between our work and our father, these are the kind of things that can resonate settle inside of us.

Well, you know, I don't want to do what God wants me to do because he's gonna take me to another country.

Well, I bet if God wants to take you to another country, the life you're looking for, it's in that other country.

This is just how he works.

He doesn't do that to thwart us and our dreams.

I would challenge you, where do you where do you think your dreams have come from?

Where do you think your bet has come from?

I'm not saying everything we chase is a thing we should chase, but I'm saying is to just disregard a dream and a bet is to be separated from the God who has chosen to create alongside of us.

The co-creating partnership always fulfills his people.

So here's here's what I think Solomon, and I wrestled with how does these two metaphors connect?

And here's where I landed.

The best blessing bestowed on mankind, which is procreation, in my opinion, is an extension of the creation and the partnership of God.

And our participation in the life process is not toilsome, it's not in vain, it's actually quite fun.

Everyone's afraid to acknowledge and put connect the dots with me here on this.

Human life is perpetuated not out of work, but out of enjoyment, out of joy, out of intimacy.

I mean, when we had Annie, it wasn't work.

Okay, someone wake up with me here.

So so so listen, this this this is this is I think this is a connecting point.

I mean, why why would he then choose families and children with his work if he wasn't trying to communicate to us we two things?

We have a place in this process that's indispensable.

And it's not toilsome work.

It's something we've been built for and wired for.

You know, go back and listen to the nine o'clock.

You'll uh you know, see how they responded.

So, five, a theology of work that works.

Working in partnership with God is as natural and as rewarding as having a child.

What we build In life and the life we build cannot be separated from the powerful and the protective work of God.

Working in partnership with God is as natural and as rewarding as having a child.

So here's the sixth theology of work that works.

God blesses co-work with good rest.

God blesses co-work with good rest.

Right.

So that was that was uh like end of verse two.

End of verse two.

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat.

But he grants sleep to those he loves.

All right?

Sleep, rest, contentment, satisfaction.

That these things are given, they're not achieved.

You stay up late, you get up early, you do this, you do that.

You're trying to create satisfaction on your own.

And your answer is work harder.

Isn't that always our answer?

Do more, work harder, work longer.

I'm with it.

I I'm shoulder to the grindstone kind of guy.

I'm like, there's a whole digger.

I mean, I that's my mentality.

But what Solomon is trying to say here, he's saying, listen, when when when God, when he's working with someone who loves him, so what does that mean?

Someone that is attentive to his will, his ways, and his word.

It's all in scripture, it it we display our discipleship and our love for Christ and our obedience to him.

Okay?

And so you can say then the the person God loves, that's remember my caveat at the beginning.

The person God loves is the person who works with him, who follows his will, his ways, his patterns, his what he wants as outcomes.

And listen, he's and when we are working like that, he grants us rest.

It's not something we've earned or gained, it's a gift.

It is what comes out of naturally.

And it doesn't mean that when we work, listen, I've I've been, like I said, pastor 37 years.

It's not all fun.

It's a lot of work.

There isn't, I can't imagine anything that I would have ever been able to choose that looking back almost 40 years later, I would have said, Yeah, that was for me.

And it fits every one of us in that way.

Every one of us in that way.

Um, all right.

So uh here's number seven.

A theology of work that works, you're waiting for it.

Partnership is still work.

Still work.

Solomon echoes this work theology in one of my favorite Proverbs, Proverbs 6, 6.

That has one of my favorite words in scripture.

Go to the ant you sluggard.

I've always loved the word sluggard.

Can't tell you why, but try using it in a sentence later on this week, and you'll fall in love with it too.

Go to the ant you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise.

It has no commander, no overseer, no ruler.

So it's self-motivated work.

Yet it stores its provisions in the summer, gathers its food at harvest.

How long will you lie there, you sluggard?

See?

You like it word.

When we get up from your when will you get up from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of your hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity, scarcity like an armed man.

Partnership is still work.

I don't get to sit around waiting for God to do something for me.

Still work.

Now, years later, Solomon also writes this in Ecclesiastes that all work is meaningless.

It's a chasing after the wind.

You're going to, well, Solomon, which one is it?

Right?

Which one is it?

And like scripture, it's both.

Work is wisdom when I work with him.

Work is vanity when I try to do it all myself.

Listen, we are owed nothing from no one.

We must work for everything.

It's true, isn't it?

It may not be, it may not be wanted, there might be people who don't want it to be true, but it's true.

You have to work for everything.

You are owed nothing from anyone.

There is two ways to work.

We can work against the grain, or we can work with the Father.

One produces a lot of frenetic activity and little return.

The other produces more than we can imagine.

So Jesus addresses this in Matthew 6.

So this is near the end of the Sermon of the Mount.

He says, But seek first his kingdom.

So my translation in light of today is work first for his kingdom and for his righteousness.

And all these things will be given to you as well.

What are all these things?

He just talks about what the pagans chase after in Matthew 6.

Pagans chase after what they're going to wear, what they're going to eat.

I'm like, I would like to eat and I would like to wear clothes.

So I'm not quite sure why that's a pagan, why that's a pagan activity.

And that's not his point.

So the pagans, so a pagan, someone that is distance from God, doesn't want anything to do with God, his work, his ways, nothing like that.

So the pagans chase after those things.

Those things become what they work for.

But when you work after me and my will and ways, when you seek first my kingdom, those things that they race after and chase after and measure, that's a byproduct from me.

Those things will come when you work after me.

Some of you may be holding on to something so tight, but it's separated from what you have heard or believed God has pulled you to.

And you are desperately trying to hang on to something that I wonder if what would happen if you let it go.

And adjusted your grip to the Father.

And I wonder what would happen.

Because he knows that if we ever learn to let go of that stuff and grip God, that the fulfillment and purpose we're after.

Look, I'm not a prosperity preacher.

I'm not saying you get anything, everything you want.

What I'm saying is sometimes the things we want are really not the things we want.

Because ultimately, what we want is purpose and fulfillment.

Those things come when we grip the Father.

And he just blows your mind with the rest, honestly.

He just, it's a surprise to oh, I I I can't even put it into words.

I'm getting, I'm getting my own goosebumps here, my own words.

You know, of what happens when you take that seriously.

Then he goes on.

The last piece he says here, Jesus says, he says, hey, don't work for tomorrow.

Today has enough work of its own.

That's how I translate that in light of this message.

Not worry about tomorrow, because today has enough trouble of its own.

I would associate work with trouble plenty of times, wouldn't you?

So there's enough work today for you to chase.

That you can leave the work tomorrow.

You leave it to tomorrow.

Um, so here's number eight, a work theology that works.

Pursue God and his ways, and that partnership will produce what you need and more.

Don't get caught up in worrying about tomorrow's work.

Get caught up in working with me or with God today.

All right, so how does that work work?

What does it mean, Charlie?

How do I, how actually does a partnership with God, how does that happen?

I think the best answer to that, Jesus tells us in John 15, when he says, I am the vine and you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Your work will produce fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Abide.

Interesting term, to dwell, to sit in, to reconnect, to settle.

I I I wrote it out this way uh for this week.

To abide is to stay in rhythm, to stay tuned in, to stay in harmony with.

So here are three things that I think are necessary to stay in rhythm with God around our work.

First is rhythm requires proximity.

If you're going to be in rhythm with someone, you have to be in proximity with someone.

It's an exercise, an eye contact, body touch.

It's the it rhythm is a product becoming kind of one with someone.

So someone after service today said, said to me, after nine o'clock, said, Pastor, do you agree with this that I'm to work something to the effect you've heard it, it's it's a variety of this is around.

Um uh to work with all my might and to trust God with all my might.

All right, that I go that I should work with everything I got and still trust God with all my God.

I said, Yeah, but I think it's a little bit new, more nuanced than that.

He said, What do you mean?

I said, Okay, so if I get up in the morning and I just start 100 miles an hour, Lord, I'm telling you, I'm working as hard as I hard as I'm gonna work.

And I take no time with the Father.

Am I really working in partnership with God?

Or are we doing like my two-year-old, my two-year-old grandson right now?

Bop watch, he calls me Bop, Bop and Nina, Bob Watch, Bop Watch, Bop Watch, Bop Watch.

And I know, guys, I know there's been decades of my life where I've worked really, really hard.

And I said, God watch.

God watch, God watch, God watch.

And I mean, he's a great dad.

He loves watching his kids do stuff.

He does.

But I I wonder how many times in my own life he went, hmm, could have saved you that bump.

Here's a band-aid, but you wouldn't have had that cut.

We had a little conversation.

I think it's Luther that famously said, I may got this wrong, someone will correct me afterwards, and please do.

I think it was Luther, though, that said, today has so much work, there's no way I can fathom getting through it without spending the first three hours in prayer.

And I and I will I will tell you by experience, good and bad experience.

Now I spend time with the Father in the morning.

I'm not going to spend three hours, but I spent time with the Father in the morning, and I stay till I'm done.

It's amazing what gets done that day on my agenda.

It's amazing.

It's amazing the thoughts that I would have spent hours and hours trying to conjure up.

How they come.

How they come.

Stay proximity.

Rhythm requires submission.

There's a word everyone loves.

Submission.

Two parties can't have two different objectives and approaches and stay in rhythm.

Submission.

Works the same way in a household, doesn't it?

Someone has to take lead.

Who's supposed to submit in a marriage relationship?

Does anyone know anyone know the scripture?

Both.

It says, submit to one another as you submit to Christ.

So what does that look like, Pastor?

It looks like sometimes my wife knows what direction we ought to be going.

It just does.

And sometimes she'll look at me and say, well, that's a little scary, but I trust you.

So let's go.

I'm getting all kinds of preaching advice right now from the you can't want your way with God and achieve anything that he has for you.

Some point in time, in wanting your way with God, he's gonna say, okay.

All right.

You can have your way.

And I'm telling you, that walk back is not a great walk.

You're right, Lord.

Now, some of that's very helpful.

We went and grow without it.

He's there to still watch over us, protect us.

He didn't just wash his hands of us and tells us, well, go ahead and when you crash, come back and see me.

That's that's not how God operates.

But I'll tell you, in my life, there's been plenty of times we said, Well, gosh, you just won't let up.

So, okay.

And then you come back and say, So, did you have something that you would have liked to have shared with me prior to this adventure?

Yeah, and if you would have shut up for just two minutes, I would have told you.

And then rhythm requires reliance.

And I went back and forth between the words trust and reliance here, because they're different and but they share some similar qualities.

That submission requires that I trust that God is for me and that God's enough.

And then if I sit there long enough with him, eventually I'm going to hear what he's got to say and what's the next thing for me to do.

I will tell you, some of you that sit in positions where you have to come up with solutions, there is no better solution person than Christ.

There's not.

And you spend, if you spend a little time asking him for the solution, the creativity that you're looking for, he will bring it out.

And then reliance.

Trust gets me to move, reliance keeps me there.

Just because something's hard doesn't mean you misheard God.

Just because you might be in a position of work right now, that's hard, doesn't mean that somehow you're outside of what His work, His will is for you there.

Right?

Because partnerships work.

Just work.

Not everything goes our way.

Not every, not every, we don't get attaboys every day we walk into work.

But it is the continuation of knowing that I'm co-creating with you.

And this is where you want me, this is where I'll be.

And I will work as unto you every day that I'm here.

And when this is done, then you're going to put me in another place or another career or another direction where I will work as unto you as worship.

Because when I work unto the Lord as worship, wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I'm bringing the light of Christ into that arena, which is our purpose.

That's why every one of us shared, we we do different things with different people all day long.

And that's for a purpose.

And God takes your bent and your personality and your wants and desires, and he mushes those with his plan and his purpose, and he puts us in those situations to fulfill us and to co-create with him and fulfilling the work that he had come to do is to redeem all mankind.

Every place you are, you are working as a light of redemption in that place.

And the enemy wants you to lose sight of that because he, when he gets you lose sight of that, you don't worship in your work.

When you don't worship in your work, you're working by yourself.

When you're working by yourself, you can't affect any kind of life change.

But when you work as under the Lord, you can facilitate life change where you are.

That's good.

Whether you think so or not, that was good.

All right, here's number nine: a work theology that works.

God rhythm produces God fruit.

Veering and venturing out on our own is marked with toil and limited fruit.

Human effort is necessary, it's just not enough.

A partnership with God brings production and protection.

All right, so that brings us to our blessing.

Psalm 127 was all about a path, a pattern for work.

Psalm 128 is when we work unto the Lord in that regard.

Here comes Psalm 128.

Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who will walk in obedience in Him.

Blessed are all who fear the Lord and work with Him.

You will eat the fruit of your labor.

Blessing and prosperity will be yours.

I didn't write that.

That's not written for an American Christian.

Prosperity, prosper, prosper, what am I?

Yeah, that word is defined differently in every culture.

Here's our mistake as Western Christians.

We we think we define these words for other cultures.

We don't.

Imposing our Western cultural definitions and expectations on these things and other cultures is a mistake.

It's a mistake.

And I would say there's probably somebody in the room that needs to readjust what your understanding of that word means.

All you have to do is live a little bit of life to chase after what you think prosperity means until it doesn't deliver what you wanted it to deliver.

Will you recalibrate to find out what does it mean when God says it?

And then Solomon veers back off to our family.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house.

Your children will be like olive shoots around the table.

And I couldn't get too deep into that, but I said, that just struck me.

The language struck me.

You know, we're in sowing and reaping season, and sowing is seeds.

But with olive trees specifically, you get faster olive tree, more akin to the olive tree you took it from when you take, when you graft out a shoot and put it in the ground.

And I just started thinking, man, I want I want my daughter to be a shoot, not a seed.

I want her to carry the DNA of our family, and I want it to grow fast.

Verse 4, yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord, who works in tandem with the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion.

May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

May you live to see your children's children, peace or shalom beyra.

Remember, I know I framed it with George Costanza.

But this is taught, this was taught generation after generation after generation, heading to Jerusalem for those three seasons, three festivals.

What were they teaching?

Teaching your kids, we're heading to a city.

We're heading to a city that God built, and that's God's address.

And you know the history of this city.

This city has been torn down and burned, and it's been built back up.

When it veered, it fell.

When it aligned, it prospered.

Son, daughter, we want to see the peace and shalom in Jerusalem.

And the way that happens is when we stay aligned in rhythm with the Father.

And at the same time, he's teaching the family how to stay in rhythm with the Father, just like the city was to stay in rhythm with the Father.

That's its connection to these Psalms of a sign.

Here is work, a work theology that works number 10.

Work that honors God with alignment, with rhythm, will be blessed with stability and flourishing.

And I want you to receive that blessing today.

Just because you're not experiencing what you want to experience in your work right now, again, doesn't mean that you're in the wrong place.

It might mean if it's not giving you the satisfaction, the fulfillment you want, I think your first starting place is trying to find out are you in rhythm with the Father where you are?

Are you in rhythm where you are?

God is very good at moving people around when he wants to.

To do anything he wants.

The very fact that you can't see something coming is a good indication that there's plenty there to work on your behalf.

You just, I remember I took my first job at a seminary and um it was for$16,000 on a six-month probation.

It was in the Southeast.

They couldn't trust anybody from New Jersey.

The pastor who hired me left six months in.

New guy comes in.

And he and I did not get along.

It was all his fault.

I was hired to be a student pastor.

That's what I want to do.

He kept throwing other stuff on top of me.

It was me and him.

That was it.

It was a small church.

And I didn't know what to do.

And so I prayed.

I said, God, I don't want to work here with this person.

But I don't know what to do.

And I came to work one day and I was sweeping the fellowship hall.

I was sweeping it because I had to tear down from, I had to tear down chairs and tables and sweep it and set up for youth group that night.

And I said, There's a phone call for you.

And I took it in the kitchen.

It was a church in Texas.

I didn't know the person.

I didn't know the church.

Am I looking for a new job?

Would I be open to a move?

And I said, who told you that?

Well, no one, no one told me that.

I just, someone gave you a name, and we're in need of a student pastor.

Now, this, okay, to get to put in perspective, I was at a church of about 120.

The church that called me was a church of 1200.

1200.

I had no business working at a church of 1200.

That was good.

It wasn't that good.

But that has served me so well all my life when I couldn't see what was next, to rely and trust in God that He could produce and create out of nothing and nowhere.

So what does that mean?

Then what's my responsibility right now?

I work with all my might now, as obedient and submitted to the Father, and to work with rhythm with him where I am and watch what he does afterwards.

Sometimes, sometimes you're in a place where you need to be because there's some stuff that has to be done in your life.

And it's only going to be get beat out of you.

And that's the truth.

There's stuff in my life that would not would still be in my life if someone didn't beat it out of me figuratively.

Right?

And sometimes I'm in positions where, you know, you feel or you're in a position where you feel like you're getting beat up.

And again, stay in rhythm.

What, okay, let me say, can I save a few bruises?

Can you just tell me what it is?

And I'll do my very best to get it out of my life right now.

But the fact of the matter that it's still in my life means it's got to get beat out of me.

So you may be in two places, one of two places.

You might be in a lot of places, but these are the two that occurred to me.

One is you're not in rhythm.

And today is your call to realign, to get back in rhythm.

We get out of rhythm for all kinds of different reasons, right?

All kinds of rhythm.

Cars get thrown, thrown out of all kinds of things happen out of rhythm.

You hit a you hit a pothole, you're out of alignment, right?

All kinds of things can happen.

This is not saying you're a bad person or you don't love God or you don't pray or any of that.

It's just, it all happens to all of us.

The second is as best as you can figure out, you're where you're supposed to be, and nothing is happening for you.

And you're getting disappointed because you just thought something would be different.

All right, let me take you back to Galatians 6.9.

This is where we started this year with, right?

Put up Galatians 6.9 for me.

Let us not become weary in our work.

For at the proper time, which means God has timing, at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we don't quit.

If we don't quit.

Right?

The three flaws of sowing and reaping.

One, you reap what you sow.

You can't reap what you don't sow.

Second, you reap more than you sow.

There's more coming than what you're planting.

There's more coming than what you're planting.

And the third, though, this is the one no one really loves, you reap later than you sow.

It's gotta get in there, it's gotta work.

Don't grow weary in doing good for in due season.

You will reap a harvest if you do not give up.

You some of you might be in a position of wanting to give up.

Today is your clearing call to not give up.

So, in response today, we have communion left and right, back to the blood.

What we talked about at the very beginning of the service.

Over here, there will be pastoral team, care team, elders that will be down here that would like to carry this weight with you, and you can share with them, and they'll pray with you over here.

You want to spend some time alone with the Lord.

Uh, I encourage you to do that.

And I would challenge all of you Monday morning.

If you, if, if work, take if you're working.

I know we have retired, I know we have students.

You equate, you work what work is to you right now.

You start it out with the Father and see the change that will take place in your day.

Stand with me, I'm gonna pray, and then I'm gonna invite you to move.

Lord, thank you for our time together in this house with you.

Thank you for those watching online today, and then we'll watch much later probably.

Thank you for working in all of our lives.

Thank you for trusting us to work with you.

Father, there's hearts all over the place in this room today.

Some very specific circumstances that I think the enemy is trying to convince them that they are unique only to them.

And maybe nobody else in the room has experienced them, but you are fully aware and capable.

And as they, Lord, unload some things to you today, I ask that you would respond in such a manner to wow them.

To just wow them.

You are the best at wows.

Do that for us today, I ask.

And this week, I ask.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

I invite you to move.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.