Accept the Lord Build the House - Gerald Birky

Good morning and Christian greetings to you all this morning.

Good to see you here. It's good to see people

on people on the benches, fellow fellow Christians gathered together.

That's that's what I that. That's what a Sunday Sunday

morning service represents to me as it often is for

for some. I've I've noticed this over the years, that

that that the one who has, the one who has

prepared to preach, tends to tends to hear things. Hears

slightly different things in the service than than I do.

Often it's like I guess, yeah, I guess that was said.

It just didn't It didn't click very well with me,

and so I probably heard some things here this morning

that you folks didn't notice, simply because you don't know

where my mind has been going. I have a very

simple a lot of ways, have very simple message this morning.

I'd like to read. It's a few verses a text

from Psalm one twenty seven. You can turn there if

you like. We'll read that Psalm eventually. It's short enough,

and I considered trying just to give it my memory,

because I think I almost could. Except under pressure, I

probably would foul something up, except the Lord build the house.

They labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord

keep the city. The watchman waketh, but in vain. Verse two,

it is vain for you to rise up early, to

sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows, For

so he giveth his beloved sleep. The verse three to five,

the very familiar verses about children. Children are in heritage

of the Lord, arrows in the hand of the Mighty Man,

have a quiver full of them, And that those The

last half of that psalm has been you know, it's

the one that's that's that's dragged into every child training

or family or family planning, or have to do a

family sermon, and that that's what it is. The first

two verses of this psalm are what caught my attention

a while ago because they kind of looked like proverbs

to me. They were they're kind of a standalone, standalone verses.

So what I have for a title this morning is

simply that except the Lord build the house, And I'd

like to take those verses apart a little bit for

you this morning, put them back together, do a little

bit of a word study, and then ask some questions,

kind of moving into the question portion of this, the

more practical side. The house that you are building looks

like what There's a personal life, there's a family life,

there's church life. And so jumping back to the to

the beginning of this word, a word in this a

word in this in this verse or this text, except

the lord build as you know, I would, I am

rather interested in building, and I had I've actually put

this well, there there was a there was a really

rough sketch of an outline, got got altered some in

the in the last several weeks, but several weeks ago,

maybe maybe let's say three weeks ago, I was I

was working on this outline. And this past week I

had something rather interesting happened to me on this subject

of building. There was a there was a trade show

in actually it was Atlanta, Georgia. I had don't know

that I did ever been in Atlanta other than in

the airport before, but Atlanta Georgia trade show metal con

where they display all these the metal the tools for

metal working. And so I took that show in. We

two of us flew out when Wednesday evening, spent Thursday there.

We're home by late Friday evening. So I was in

a motel to two nights. We were. We got there

late Wednesday night, left here in the afternoon, so it

was it was time to go to sleep. Got into

my room and I had I had my I mean,

one of one of my to do to do to

do while in a motel room was work on work

on Sunday's sermon, So I had that. I was prepared

to get up Thursday morning and work on that. Some

think about those things Thursday morning before I woke up

up to a pounding noise, bang bang bang. It was.

It was rhythmic, it was, it was fairly impactful. And

then another one and then another one, and actually I've

soon realized, oh, that's that's outside the window. And I

went back to sleep and I don't alarm. Clock woke

me up later when the sun was up. The show

didn't start till nine or ten, but I walked. When

I got up, I went over to the window and

opened the open this heavy blind and it was a

big window. It was a really nice window, ten foot

ceiling in the room and twelve inches top and bottom,

so it was a full eight foot by eight foot

by twelve window. And I wound the thing clear up

and for a guy that likes building, it was about

like a kid in a candy shop. I was. I was.

I immediately identified the noise of the banging and there

was a nice, big tall tower crane that I had

to put my head against the window to see the

top of. We were on the seventh floor, so roughly

seventy feet off the ground, and from thirty feet out

from the wall of the hotel we were in was

where the foundation line was, and it was about I

would say, it's one hundred and fifty feet square, so

think the size of our gym times too. And just

I was. I had a bird's eye view and there

was well, it was just it was a building site.

I counted twenty twenty two guys hive viz T shirts,

hard hats, tool belts. I mean, it was right at

the stage that was highly interesting to me. They had

most of the footings in and they were building. They

were setting walls anyway, so I got to see, I

got I got to watch building happen from yeah, Thursday morning,

Thursday afternoon, Friday morning. They had another they had another

on site inspector they didn't know about, but I inspect

I inspected their work very interesting. You could identify the

you could identify where the where the where the guy

where the orders were coming from, and you could you

know the guy on the excavator, he he made me annoyed.

From where I was. I watched him while he was watching.

One corner of his blade he bladed a pile of

dirt onto into the bottom of a column that somebody

else was going to have to clean out later to anyway,

But they kept they were doing their thing. They were building.

This verse saw one twenty seven one. Except the Lord

build the house. That that one, that one tangles us

up because we know what it means to build build

a house. We know what houses are, we know what

building is the Lord build and it just it. There

must be something figures of speech here. There's one other

thing about building that I'm gonna I'm going to highlight

here cause you to think about just a little bit. Well,

that that building site that I looked at from above,

I could see, well, it happened to be that the

building that we were in. And there was a straight

line on one side, but the street was at an

angle on the other side. It wasn't looking very far,

but there were there were straight lines, and then there

was some angles, and the elevator shaft was here, and

the anyway I was, I was. I was just thoroughly

intrigued looking at this because you could see the design.

You could you could be completely certain that there was

a set of drawings, there was a blueprint somewhere that

was being followed. Wasn't the guys tying the rebar, setting

the concrete forms, They weren't making all of the decisions

the phrase I built this. So when this building was

built ten, twelve, fourteen years ago, whatever, that was. One

of the first people hired on this building was an

architect who drew a sketch of the building. And I

have heard in my career listening to builders, I have

heard an architect say I built that building. In my mind,

the architect didn't build the building. He just simply he

just simply started out with the pretty drawing of what

it should look like when it's done. We used to

have an engineer that came here, Dave Swarbrick by name

Dave Swarbrick. One time showed me a set of plans

and said, I built this. Oh, but what does the

engineer do? Civil engineer, Well, he's the one that he's

the one that determines how thick, the whether the whether

these trusses will hold or not, whether how much weight

the wall will need to bear, how much concrete and

rebar needs to be below that to hold it up.

I've heard an engineer say I built this. Framers the

guy that frames a house, those their constructions of this world.

They put this all together, the concrete, the rebar, the steel,

the skin, and they say I built this. Probably the

funniest one, and the one that I just about I

snickered at, was an electrician I was talking to talking

about a plant a He's talking about, you know, some

building a plant and eugene or sawmill, and he said, yeah,

I built that like Sparky. He tied the wires together.

But somebody else built the building. But what he was

looking at was was his portion. And then the funniest

one almost is I have a brother. I have a brother, Carl.

He lives in Montana and he has a business called

a I call it a house building business, or English

verbiage says it's called a home building business. But Carl

can be in his pickup off doing something else and

on the phone a realer can call him and tell

him there's a there's a there's a building lot for

sale in the next city. He talks to an architect,

he talks to a framer, he talks to the finished carpenters.

He provides the money, and when it all gets done,

he may or may not have ever been to the site,

and he says, I built that house. Who's fooling who?

And what is building? I'll get back to that after

a while. Meanwhile, the clock moves on this this song,

this these two pro I'll call it two or it's

actually kind of just one proverb at the beginning of

this song making a statement, except the Lord build the house,

that labor in vain, except the Lord keep the city.

The watchman waketh but in vain. Well Adam Adam Clark's commentary,

he had a heading above this psalm and he said this, this,

this psalm is just stating that the overarching theme here

is the necessity of God's blessing on every undertaking, without

which no prosperity can be expected. So God's blessing or

God's involvement, or you might say building by God's rules.

Who do you attribute this psalm to? That one gets

a little interesting. My Bible calls it a song of

a song of degrees for Solomon. Song of degrees being

something that was sang or chanted or recited at various

positions while while entering the temple or while going up

the steps. We've we've those those pictures have been painted

for you before, mental pictures. Who wrote the psalm pretty

much all agree it's it's a song of degrees or

a psalm of degrees. The Hebrew Chaldi and Vulgate a

tribute the psalm to Solomon. The Syriac says the psalm

of David concerning Solomon, and that it was spoken also

concerning Haggie Ey and Zacharia, who forwarded the helped in

the building of the temple. Oh, the Septuagint, Ethiopic, Ethiopic, Arabic,

and Anglo Saxon. They have no title, but simply call

it a psalm of degrees. It was most likely composed

for the building of the Second Temple under Nehemiah by

some prophet of that time. That's that's what a common

that's how specific a commentator can get with where it

came from, Where this this set of words came from.

But there are some interesting things about this phrase, except

the Lord build the house. This phrase to build, to

build a house. In the Old Testament, there's a well.

This is actually more just for the word house, the

word house in the Old Testament, in the Sacred Writings

one and I've got it written down here. I'm not

gonna bother trying to say it, because I don't understand

their pronunciation rules. But to build the temple of the Lord,

the Lord's temple was called a house. That word was

used there, the same word. So when when David said

he wanted to build a temple, he said he wanted

to build a house for the Lord. That's the same

word in Hebrew is to build an ordinary house like

general construction of a house or a place of dwelling.

But a house also in the Old Testament is refers

to having numerous offspring, you know, he and his house.

So in the Old Testament writings the way we have

it translated for us, God's God's house, a plain house,

or your family kind of all the same, all the

same word. Going a little bit farther in in Hebrew,

and this I found I found really interesting. The word

a son, the word for son the word for daughter,

and the word for house are all very related. They're

just a letter or two or basically one additional or

different sounding syllable for each of those three things, but

all having the root word that we would use to build,

So building to build, the word house, and son and

daughter all words that were very related. And so tying

building of a house verse one to children in our

inn heritage probably was not that big of a step

in in its original in its original language. And so

the question are you building a house? Or how are

you building the house? How are you building your house? What?

What does it? What does it look like? And by

your house, I'll branch off a little bit from that,

from the from the the Hebrew definition of the word house,

because I think this is this was written in picturesque

language to make a point. But I would say that

you or I what we build, the decisions we make.

I would ask you the question how are you how

are you building your faith or your family or your church.

One Corinthians three nine says this, for we are laborers

together with God. Ye are God's husbandry or field, Ye

are God's building. So you're part of You're part of

something that God is constructing that God something that God

has an interest in. And back to that, back to

that who built it. I poke fun at my brother

Karl for being the guy that says I built the

house without ever having been on site. But the interesting

thing is when there's a problem with the house three

years later, he gets the phone call. And so the

builder and ownership, there's a pretty there's there. There's kind

of a hidden tie between those things. Just keep that,

keep that in your mind. God creation, We people man

God's creation, but actually owned by God. We are building, yes,

but God is kind of the the ultimate builder. So

now just I'm going to take a little deviation here

down a bunny trail. Something else for you to think about.

And this is just a bit of an exercise in well,

a thought provocation exercise to provoke your thinking. In anything

that you do, there's risk. And I when I looked

at those builders, I watched and was looking at their

at their the level of risk taking, and some things

they were doing seemed perfectly normal and others I don't know.

That tower crane, that tower crane in a rebar cage

and two guys down underneath there and the cage coming

down and it looked risky to me, but I wasn't

doing it. What kind of risks are you taking in

your in the building process? See, we're we're as human,

we are, we are our lives are kind of this

series of deciding what level of risk am I willing

to take? I five hard rain eighty miles an hour northbound.

Is that a risk you're willing to take? Well, maybe

everybody calculates that mothers would prefer you didn't take that risk.

But there's some there's something that we find in the

scripture that is coming, that has happened, that will happen.

Hebrews nine twenty seven. Listen to this one. This verse

kind of feel it'll feel way off the subject for

a bit, but I'll get back to the subject as

it is appointed unto men wants to die. But after this,

the judgment that that statement from Hebrews, there's no risk

in that there's a time. There's a time question TEWO

Corinthians five versus six, three eleven. I'm going to read

those as we well two Corinthians five six through love

and this is the apostle Paul writing this says this,

Therefore we are always confident knowing this, whilst we are

at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord,

for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident,

I say, and willing rather to be absent from the

body and to be present with the Lord. Paul's long

way of saying, he's here, but he's not sure. He'd

just assume not be sometimes. Wherefore, or because of this,

we labor that, whether present or absent, we may be

accepted of Him, for we must all appear before the

judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things

done in his body according to that he hath done,

whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror

of the Lord, we persuade men. So Paul said, because

of this, he's going to go out and try to

persuade men or talk to people about it. So you,

at some point I, at some point in the future,

will be found standing before God. And that's not a risk,

that's a certainty. The risky part of the variable in

this equation is an issue of timing. But you'll get there.

I'll get there. And when we get there, we're going

to be answering questions about how we build our house.

In some ways, accept the Lord build the house. In

other words, accept unless the house is built to God's

specs or his involvement. And I really think I mean

talking about talking about the judgment, talking about standing before God.

These two verses out of the New Testament indicate, well,

the one uses the words just judgment. The other is

judge that you may receive for deeds done in the body.

In other words, it's very very clear that it's what

I do with my body. Now, what are you doing

with your body? I'm going to propose to you that

one of the things you're doing with your body is

thinking what happened? What happens in your mind? What happened

in your head is actually important. And I think, what,

what do you think the judgment will look like? I don't, no, don't.

I have no experience with this. This is just simply

some of my thoughts. But I think it's going to

come down to two basic questions. One is, what do

you think? What do you believe about Jehovah, his Son, Jesus,

the Holy Spirit, and the plan of salvation. Is it

a deal, deal or no deal. That's something that happens

entirely in your head, in your mind, part of your

body yes, but it's it's your thoughts, it's your beliefs.

And then question two in the at judgment, I think

in light of that, you've answered that you believe that

you believe that God is Jehovah, is legitimate, his claims

are legitimate. The next question is, in the broad sense,

will be so, how has that changed your treatment of

your fellow human beings, first, your family, fellow believers Christians,

and your relationship with the entire human race? How? How

do you build? How are you building? And so thinking

about that, thinking about the fact that you are building

your house your personal life. There's another there's a verse

in Corinthians somewhere where I believe is Paul writing said,

take heed, how you build? There on? He was talking

about a foundation, gold, silver, precious stones. Would hay stubble

remember those verses? What you build will indeed be tried

by fire. So let's just go through these things in

the next few minutes. Here your personal life, and then

we'll go to your family life. But your personal life,

what happens with you that you will need to answer

for kind of first in that your faith, your personal faith.

A week or two ago, Joel preached a message about

faith and that what that is. But I'd like to

remind you that when it comes to faith, there's no

we about it. We do a lot of things as

a group, as a group, as a team, as an

Andre's a lot of a lot of life is group effort.

But when it comes to faith, there's no we about it.

Abraham the classic example of faith. We can look at him.

Romans four to three says for what saith the scripture

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.

Abraham's belief in God took him a long ways. Abraham

is an example of faith for a large part of

the human population on earth, broader than just Christianity. You

have Judaism, you have Muslims, you have kind of under Christianity,

you would have the Jehovah's witness, you have the Mormons.

There's a lot, a lot of people who point to

Abraham and say, yeah, Abraham was a man. He was

a man of faith. Abraham followed God even though it

seemed kind of blindly. He went out not knowing whither

he went. So, as you look at your faith, your

personal faith, what do you really believe? Recognize recognize your

humanity and the fact that you are growing and maturing you,

you are in this process of progressive sanctification. I read it,

I read, I read a definition of faith, and this

was a by Craig Localso localso he wrote this in

nineteen ninety two. But he said this, faith is giving

as much of yourself as you understand to as much

of God as you understand at that moment. Faith is

giving as much of yourself as you understand to as

much of God as you understand at that moment. Understanding.

We recognize from that that we're not we call it

at the same place. We're not all at the same place.

We don't see, we don't understand identically. But faith is

giving God, believing in God. For your personal faith to

be successful, it must be done God's way Proverbs three,

five and six. I printed that one in the bulletin

just because I was thinking about it that when I

was putting that together. Trust in the Lord with all

that heart, lean not unto thine own understanding in all

thy ways, acknowledge him. He shall direct thy paths. That's

a key in this personal faith scene. Remember Samuel Samuel Bold,

the prophet Samuel the Boy said speak for thy servant here.

Didn't make a lot of sense for him to do

that in that way right then, but he did. He

was given a message to give to take to Eli

that was no, No, was no fun. Number two. Another

aspect of your personal life. I'll point at the boys

a little more than the girls, but maybe it applies

to both. But your personal finances, You ever think of

that you're building, you're building a financial house, let's call it.

If you got any money in your pocket, it's probably

a fact. What kind of financial house are you in

the process of constructing? John D. Rockefeller? You ever hear

of him? Read about him? Rockefeller the wealthiest man ever

seen in America. I don't remember which years it was,

but I read an article a little blip about him,

that he amassed a huge wealth by the time he

was in his forties. But he got sick and was

told by doctors that he was not going to survive

another year. It was at that point that he he

was wealthy. At that point he was in the oil

oil refining business in the US. When he was faced

with death. When he when he realized that he was

going to be leaving his wealth behind, he basically started

giving to set up charities, funding funding, tried to turn

his wealth back to the good of man. Something about

that change, something about his changing perspective of his personal wealth,

altered his health. He actually went on to live quite

a few more years, died in his I don't know,

seventies eighties. Deuteronomy eight eleven, when the children of miserb

were getting to Canaan, to is to Canaan, God had

some Moses in that long sermon that he gave them

about one of the sermons in Deuteronomy is what I call.

Somebody called them, and I thought it fit. Said this

in Deuteronomy eight eleven. Beware that thou forget not the

Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments and his

judgment and his statues, which I command you THEE this day,

lest when thou hast eaten and art full. Though anyway

he goes on a little farther. But remember, but thou

shalt remember the Lord thy God. This is verse eighteen.

For it is he that giveth THEE power to get wealth,

that he may establish his covenant, which you swear unto

thy fathers. In other words, you children of visually you're

going to be You're going to get this land. You're

going to get the land that you didn't really work

for properly. But be careful when you get the wealth.

So consider, consider your personal finances and what kind of

a house you're trying to build and why, because that

you'll get to answer for your friendships. That's another one,

your personal friendships. And again this is thing you take

with you. But build build these build these things out

carefully in accordance with God's laws, in accordance with in

consultation with God's people. Because the people you share life

with have a profound and lasting impact on your future decisions. You, incidentally,

you don't get to make all the you ever think

of that, the unfairness of not being able to make

all of your decisions at one time. Why couldn't it

be that in life I could just simply when when

it suits me, when when i'm when I'm feeling on

top of when i'm when I'm not feeling out of control,

I could make just just sit down and carefully make

all the decisions. Life doesn't work like that. You you

get to make decisions, you're forced to make decisions. Twenty

years from now, you'll have to make a decision and

it's not easy then, but remember build friendships God's way,

by his criteria, also be that kind of friend. Decide, Note,

how are you building your family life? And I'm going

to race with the clock here. Your relationship with your spouse,

that is part of that is that is some that

is now moving into the territory where where my decisions

affect others. But it's something that we have. We have

these relationships. Men, love your spouse, love is Christ loved.

That's self sacrificing. Wives, women submit respect. Those are all

biblical Remarriage after divorce equals adultery see Matthew six. But

build these family connections per God's per the master blueprint,

God's instructions. Your relationships or interactions with your children children,

in the context of the Hebrews, was probably a little

bit different, different than ours. But accept the Lord's principles

be allowed be used. They labor in vain. That that

was the way. One one commentator wrote, that's how he

described this verse one of Psalm one twenty seven. Except

the Lord build the house, they labor in vain. That

build it. If you're not going to bring God's principles

into it, it is a useless. It is a it

is a fruitless endeavor. God said of Abraham, I know him.

He'll commend his family after me. Another part of your

family relationships is your relationship with the preceding generation. Think

about that. Children, teens, you get to have it. You

get to relate possibly to two preceding generations. People my

age tend to relate to one preceding generation. Your father,

your mother. Respect is to be shown. We didn't quite

get to it. Adult Sunday school lesson, we read a

proverb that talks about how to relate to your mother

when she is old. I noticed that we didn't quite

get there. Remember, understand that there's wisdom to be gleaned

from interactions with the previous generation. You were to care

for them. Care for them needs to be given when

they're in physical or social decline, end of life. That's

part of part of the family house that you're building

or family family life. What kind of a house are

you building with regard to your family, church life? And

this one I do actually do not have. I don't

have a lot written down, but it's kind of an

interesting things. As I progressed through these three points, it's

your personal life, personal decisions, and what kind of a

house are you building? And are you sure you have

the Lord's bring God's principles into that construction process. You

because you in your personal life, your personal finances, your

personal friendships, all of that, you be you the individual,

your faith, your finances, your friendships, You are indeed the

responsible party. Family. Your decisions affect them, but it feels

like it's one. Finally, at some point they also stand

before God. Church life is even. I would say the

next step removed Matthew sixteen sixteen. Jesus said this about

Simon Peter's statement. Peter answered and said into him, thou

art the Christ, the son of the Living God, verse seventeen.

Jesus was impressed with that and said, yeah, good, good ones,

say good one. Peter. Flesh and blood didn't review reveal

that to you, But my Father with yours in heaven

revealed that statement to you, that that Christ is the

son of the living God. Said but I send to

thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I

will build my church. I personally believe that the rock

he's referring to as the statement or the or the

that that declaration, the fact that Jesus is the Son

of God. It's on that solid thing Christ will build

his church. I don't believe that the church is in

the in the hands of any one individual to shape

it or push it or shove it. Yes, there's a

local congregation that agrees to work together, agrees to break

bread together, live lifefe together. We call that fellowship, call

it living, living together, living life together. Over the last

number of years here this congregation. Joel's announcement this morning

about Uncle David going elsewhere. We've had people come, we've

had people go. That does not affect, That does not

negate or change my personal responsibility. I have a responsibility

for my faith in God, God's instruction to me. I

have responsibility to my family. Yes, we have interactions, and

I'm happy to be part of a church. And I

see a church as a as a natural it's it's

it's the effect closer to an effect than a cause.

That may be an You can you can come tangle

with me on that concept if you like, is the

church a cause or an effect? Well, I'm i am

five minutes past my my self imposed stopping time. So

just think about that, think about accept the Lord build

the house they labor in vain, that build, that accept

the Lord, keep the city. The watchman waketh. But in

vain it is vain for you to rise up early,

to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows.

In other words, don't just don't just burn yourself out

trying to get this all done without God's involvement. For

so he giveth his beloved sleep. Or God God allows

his beloved to sleep, to rest, to relax, if he's

involved in their in their house building, in their church building.

Jude twenty twenty one. He closes and not quite closes

his letter with that, but he says this, but ye, beloved,

jumping back to this concept of building, building up yourselves

on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the

mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life. Thank

you for your attention. Let's have a closing. Some