Sermon Tone Analysis
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INTRO
When I was 16 my Grandpa gave me two sentimental gifts.
My Uncles old coin
A story to remember
The Keys Story
My Grandfather wanted me to know and be aware of the blessings in my life.
He wanted me to have prospective as to what truly matters.
This Psalmist calls us to have prospective.
But the call isn't to the keys in your pocket, but the promises of God written on your heart.
This is a Psalm that sets before us what all of us long for.
A life of deep abiding happiness.
And this Psalm says it can be ours.
That we can have happiness.
If you’re a note taker write this down.
If you just listen then put this at the front of your mind.
Those who fear the Lord are happy and blessed.
This is the guiding principle of Psalm 128.
It is a deep and rich reminder for all of us.
Today maybe you come in with a heavy heart.
Maybe you come in the pursuit of having more.
My hope is that the keys of the kingdom in the hand of our master would stir you to remember the truth written on your heart.
That God would unite your heart to fear his name and in that you would be overcome by joy.
We’re going through the Psalms of Ascent, the pilgrim songs sung by ancient jews on their journey to worship in Jerusalem.
For us on this side of Calvary they serve as the songs of Jesus that we sing as Pilgrims in this life on our journey to glory.
This is a Psalm that we would all do well to sing because it set’s in right perspective how we should live and what the aim of our lives should be.
So let’s walk through our passage together and see that it starts with Blessed Fear.
TRANSITION
I. Blessed Fear (v.1)
Psalm 128:1 (ESV)
Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways!
The Psalmist starts out with the object of blessedness, that is the one who fears the Lord and walks in his ways.
So for us to really get to the meat of this passage we have to answer a couple questions.
First, what does it mean to be blessed?
When we first moved to NC Hannah would often look to me to translate.
When co-workers would say, “bless it” or sometimes just “bless”
I had to explain that it was short-hand for bless their heart…and it wasn't actually a nice way of wishing God’s kindness on them.
So what do we mean by blessed in this Psalm?
To be blessed is to move through life with a settled depth of happiness that comes from walking with God and enjoying his fatherly favor.
To be blessed means to live the human life the way it was meant to be lived.
We will see how that blessing plays out in every aspect of life in just a moment.
But this gives us a really helpful starting place.
We can understand blessing as happiness in walking with and enjoying God.
That friends is where deep abiding joy is found, in blessedness.
This past week I was given a father’s day gift of a trip to ride roller coasters at Carowinds.
Now look I love theme parks, but let’s be honest they can be pretty miserable.
The whole thing is really a parable for how many of us live our lives.
You stand in line for upwards of an hour for 2mins of joy.
How often have we pursued things, chased after something for just a moment of satisfaction.
This Psalm tells us we can have something deeper than fleeting joy, we can have blessing.
Now the question is how?
By living in the Fear of the Lord and walking in his ways.
What does it mean to fear the Lord?
Dane Ortlund who wrote the massively helpful Gentle & Lowly has this to say:
To fear the Lord means to live as if God exists and is who he says he is.
It is to walk through life bowing to his kingship and remembering his gracious redemption.
To fear the Lord means to yield to his will and seek to walk in his ways as our gracious deliverer.
_Dane Ortlund.
The Fear of The Lord can be a bit jarring.
Especially if it is a concept that you have not been raised with.
This is not a dread or terror, not a fear that would cause you to run from God.
Godly fear of God attracts you to him.
God's holiness, his otherness, his majesty it stirs "awe and dread," but at the same time his people are "fascinated" and "entranced" by the Holy One.
This friends is setting God in perspective.
Nothing could be as wonderful, nothing as significant, as the almighty.
This is standing and beholding the vastness of the universe, the complexity of the atom, the beauty of your babies laughter and saying who could make this?!
It is a love for God as God.
And here precisely is where we have to lay the foundation.
Because this fear of God, it’s not a begrudging submission.
This is a matter of the heart, it’s a matter of desire.
In his immensely helpful book, Rejoice & Tremble Michael Reeves helps explain the difference between you and me just getting by and trying to be “good” people but instead to have a biblical understanding of the fear of God.
The fear of God as a strong biblical theme thus stands as a superb theological guard dog.
It stops us from thinking that we are made for either passionless performance or a detached knowledge of abstract truths.
It backs us into the acknowledgment that we are made to know God in such a way that our hearts tremble at his beauty and splendor, that we are remade at the deepest level.
It shows us that entering the life of Christ involves a transformation of our very affections, so that we begin actually to despise -and not merely renounce-the sins we once cherished, and treasure the God we once abhorred.
_Michael Reeves
Where is your heart this morning?
Do you love God for God?
Do you live in the fear of the Lord?
It’s been said that To fear God is to factor Him into every thought and situation, to live in the reality of God.
Again it is not a terror that keeps us distant from God, but a friendship that brings us under His intimate guidance.
Here is what is incredible about this, living this way results in blessing.
It results in a deep happiness.
The best part, anyone can get in on this.
Because of Christ we now have access.
We are blessed when we humbly walk in the fear of the Lord which means humbling ourselves in the gospel, taking Christ’s accomplishment as our own and allowing him to take our iniquities as his own.
So we see this blessed fear but the Psalmist then goes on to show the fruit of this blessing
TRANSITION
II.
The Fruit of Blessing
Psalm 128:2–4 (ESV)
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the Lord.
So we start with the principle of where we set our devotion, that we should walk in the fear of the Lord
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