As they try to predict future trends, many authors today regard the turmoil of our present age as a transition period. But they see dawning on the horizon a golden age of fulfillment. With the advent of the computer and the microchip, they see our age blossoming from an industrial to an information society, from a society based on heavy technology to one based on high technology. As the computer takes on more and more of our work, these futurists predict that the resulting leisure time will spell fulfillment for man.
On closer examination, however, this claim does not hold up. Although the computer has brought about a revolution in technology, with it have come even more pressures and frustrations. The computer has accelerated the pace of life so much that human beings are expected to keep pace with it. In Silicon Valley, young executives have to work 70 hours a week just to keep up with the new advances in software development. I visited a graduate student in the computer field at Stanford University who told me that the students working in the computer terminal room were spending 20 hours a day locked to the terminals trying to get time for their programs. I came away thinking, "Who is serving whom?" Though it has made an incredible amount of information available to us, the computer throws data at us so quickly we have less and less time to analyze it. Knowledge is up and wisdom is down, you might say.
In his book " America in Search of Itself," Theodore White reports on how the computer has changed the whole of reporting. Once reporters would follow candidates about, make notes of what they saw and heard, and reflect upon the day's happenings before they wrote their stories. In this computer age, however, newscasters have little time for such a luxury as reflection. Today a TV network receives pictures that are beamed from all over the world by satellite. That information hits so quickly that newscasters do not have time for reflection. Instead they piece together the day's happenings in five- and ten-second clips for the television news that night.
Everything comes at us so quickly. Our whole focus in life today is processing, categorizing, filing and charting. Why are we doing all this. Have we forgotten our ends? Jacques Ellul has written
The first great fact that emerges from our civilization is that today everything has become 'means.' There is no longer an end; we do not know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends. And we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere.
More than any other generation, we need a fresh outlook on how to live_and how to live fulfilled lives.
In Psalm 127 King Solomon shares two outlooks on life, the first of which leads to frustration, but the second to fulfillment.
First, the outlook that leads to frustration. Verses 1 and 2:
A Song of Ascents, of Solomon.
If the Lord does not build the house,
They who build it toil in vain;
If the Lord does not watch the city,
He who watches it stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
And to delay sitting,
Eating the bread of painful labors.
There is the outlook that leads to frustration. All of us hunger for fulfillment, and Solomon holds that the basic drive for fulfillment comes from our need to build, to create, or to preserve something. This outlook begins with an attitude of arrogance. Frustration begins when you think you can build anything, create anything, or preserve anything apart from God. This is the outlook that says it is up to you to build your house, your reputation; it is up to you to preserve your assets. Everything depends upon you, in other words.
To that Solomon says, "Vanity, vanity, vanity." The point is, if God is not involved in what you are building, creating and preserving, your efforts will be void of results. And that is frustrating, isn't it? The greatest building project of the ancient world was the Tower of Babel. It had wonderful organization, resources, vision, clarity of purpose, and tenacity, but it ended in total disaster. We are still trying to recover from its effects. The same could be said of the city of Cain. It's gone now. So is Tyre. Where are Samaria's beautiful houses of dressed stone decorated with ivory? Samaria too is gone.
Solomon, the master builder, spent 13 years building his own house. He had the best architects, the best craftsmen from all over the world, and the best materials. In seven years he built the Lord's house, and at the dedication God said to him, "If you or the kings who succeed you ever turn away from following me this house will become a heap of ruins.'' And it did. Solomon was not only a builder, he was a protector. In the height of his reign of righteousness he fortified all the leading defense cities of Israel. Archaeologists have discovered what they have called "Solomon's Gate." Solomon fortified his cities with gates made up of four interlocking gates, so that if an enemy penetrated the first gate he found himself locked in an inner corridor, faced with a second gate. Meantime, archers poised on the city walls took potshots at the trapped enemy. However, the kings who came after Solomon did not follow the Lord. God did not protect their cities, and they were overrun.
When I was ten years old my parents moved into a lavish, 4200 sq. ft. home. The only problem with that house was that it was located in a burglar-infested neighborhood. We were so paranoid about burglars that we had deadbolts on the front door, on the back door, on the master bedroom door, and even on the master bedroom walk-in closet where the valuables were kept. Inside one of these closets was a steel safe which was locked. It took a half-an-hour to lock up at night! As a child I had to deal with the fear and paranoia of trying to preserve our assets. Then one time while we were on vacation the house was robbed. The burglars just threw a boulder through one of the glass doors and walked in. If the Lord is not guarding your house all the locks are in vain. Psalm 28:5 says:
Because the wicked do not regard the works of the Lord
Nor the deeds of His hands,
He will tear them down and not build them up.
Solomon knows that the Lord is the ultimate builder. As the Lord and the designer of history, God will tear down the works of the wicked and he will build his own kingdom.
Secondly, Solomon says that not only is it vain to build without the Lord, but all work has a built-in frustration factor. Faced with this factor, the man who believes it is up to him to build his own assets, his life and his future just pours more hours into his work; then he thinks he will find fulfillment. He burns the candle at both ends. He gets up earlier and goes to bed later. But Solomon says that will not bring fulfillment, only toil: "He who builds, toils in vain (verse 1)." Just more drudgery, more frustration.
The word "pain" in verse 2 is associated with the grief and sorrow that comes because you have created an oppressive atmosphere for yourself. Rather than finding fulfillment in your task you will find yourself obsessed. driven, frantic, relentless and compulsive in your work habits. I have a friend from Nebraska who works in the aerospace industry. Whenever his company starts driving everybody hard, my friend takes his boss aside and says, "I'll bet you are the kind of guy who stays up all night to watch the corn grow." What he is conveying is, "Don't you ever go to bed? Don't you ever let go? Don't you ever relax?" No matter if the world rewards you for your efforts. Solomon says that all you are demonstrating is your arrogance and your weak faith; you will find no lasting fulfillment, only grief.
Yet we are all prone to this. When I built an addition to my home three years ago this is exactly what I wanted to do- get up early and go to bed late. I refused to enjoy life until that addition was completed. A new biography of George Lucas, the famous movie producer, describes this 30 year-old multi-millionaire as a restless, unfulfilled, frustrated individual. He does not have a good relationship with his wife. He cannot quit; he cannot enjoy life. The attitude that begins in arrogance will end in grief and frustration. That is the road of toil and frustration.
Now let us observe the outlook that leads to fulfillment. Solomon takes one phrase and contrasts the principle contained in it with the life of vanity. Verse 2.
For thus he gives to his beloved sleep
Do not take this to mean Solomon is saying that work is bad, that God is against building, preserving, or getting up early. That is the approach of the Eastern culture. Eugene Peterson writes:
[In Eastern culture] there is a deep-rooted pessimism regarding human effort. Since all work is tainted with selfishness and pride, the solution is to withdraw from all activity into pure being. The symbol of such an attitude is the Buddha- an enormous fat person sitting cross-legged, looking at his own navel. Motionless, inert, quiet. All trouble comes from doing too much; therefore, do nothing. The world of motion is evil, so quit doing everything. Say as little as possible; do as little as possible; finally, at the point of perfection, you will say nothing and do nothing. The goal is to withdraw absolutely and finally from action, from thought, from passion.
Solomon is not saying that. What he is saying is the first thing that leads to fulfillment is a change of attitude, an attitude that says God is a master builder, he is a preserver and he is a Creator. To be fulfilled is not what you do for him but to be involved in what he is building and preserving and creating, and that involvement is available to you by means of a gift. Of course, it is not wrong to get up early to work. Righteous men in the Scripture- Moses, Joshua, Abraham, for instance- got up early, but they were not racing frantically to catch the six o'clock train. When they got up m the morning they worshipped. They endeavored to find out what God was doing, what he was involved in, what he was building and creating.
A couple of weeks ago I visited a man from our congregation named Tom Smith who is in the hospital suffering from leukemia. His outlook was not good. He confided in me and said, "Brian, I am not really sure that I ever went 100 per cent for the Lord." I said, "Tom, the issue isn't what you can do for the Lord. The issue is, will you submit to what God is doing in your life now; will you let him build what he wants to build, preserve what he wants to preserve, create what he wants to create? Will you let him do that?" "Yes," he replied. A week later his countenance had totally changed. He had discovered that his leukemia was not as bad as the doctors had thought, and he was responding to treatment. But, most importantly, now he is fulfilled. He is thrilled that God is using his sickness to open up doors for ministry all over that hospital, to friends who are writing to him, and to relatives who visit him. He regards his sickness as a privilege to share Jesus Christ with others, and he is fulfilled in that work.
Notice, secondly, that Solomon says, "He gives to his beloved in sleep." Life's greatest gifts come not by our incessant labor or painful effort, in other words, but in sleep, in a state of total inactivity; when you are in a position where you can only receive. In the Scriptures we discover that life's greatest gifts came to individuals when they were sleeping. Did Adam toil through the singles bars to find his bride? Did he labor to write out resumes for a computer dating service? No. Adam slept, and while he slept God took his rib, and, Scripture says literally, "he built Eve." God built something beautiful. Man's first recorded words in Scripture are his appreciation of the gift God gave him while he slept. How did Abraham acquire the land as his inheritance? How did he acquire his son? He received those gifts while he slept. God spoke about his fears to him in a dream and said to him, "Indeed you will have a son, but it won't be by your efforts, and this son and his line will possess this land." David wanted to live a fulfilled life, he wanted to make a mark so he decided to build God's house, the temple. But the Lord spoke to him through the prophet Nathan while he slept, saying to him, "David you are not going to build my house for me. I am going to build you a house, and that house will endure forever. I will give you a seed of boys who will be kings, and that seed will culminate in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, whose kingdom will have no end."
So the great gifts of God come to us while we sleep. That is why the ultimate expression of trust in the psalms is sleeping. In Psalm 3 the king says, "I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me." Psalm 4: "In peace I lie down and fall asleep immediately [without care or worry] for Thou alone, O Lord, cost make me to dwell in safety." When we sleep we cease our labors, both of deed and of mind completely, and enter that quiet state when we can receive what the Lord wants to give to us. One of our pastors told me that when his family has a material need, instead of rushing out and buying it they always pray first, and thereby they allow the Lord an opportunity to give it to them.
Solomon says when you experience life on this basis it deepens your love relationship with the Lord. That is why he uses the word, "beloved," which was Solomon's original name, Jedidiah ("the beloved one"). The king is saying that the best gifts he received in life were those he got while he slept, not those he toiled and labored for. Solomon acquired wisdom as he slept. He did not toil through a ten-year Ph.D. program to become the wisest man on the earth. While he slept God gave him a spiritual gift, and that gift gave him the greatest wisdom on the face of the earth.
When I look back on my life I must say my greatest assets have been gifts. In terms of my education, I toiled for a degree in economics, but I never used it. I did not know it, but God was giving me a secret education to be a pastor all the while. After my internship here at PBC I thought I needed more training and more education to be a pastor so l should go to seminary. I set my wife aside to get her teaching credential so she could toil and labor to put me through seminary; and then we would consider having children. At the end of my second year of internship she said to me, "Brian, I want to start a family now." I said, "Wait a minute! How will I get my education?" I discussed our plans with Elaine Stedman, and she said to me, "Brian, why do you think God gives us children when we have no experience and can least afford them? So you will learn to trust him." So I decided, "OK, we'll start our family." Four months later the Board of Elders took me aside and said, "Why don't you stay here? We'll give you all the training you need, free of charge." That was nine years ago. Ever since God has placed me among a group of men who are not only godly in scholarship but godly in character. They have been such a wonderful example to me. I do not think I could have had a better education if I had gone anywhere in the world. Yet God gave it to me, and that has deepened my love relationship with him. Fulfillment comes when we get life's greatest assets as a gift.
Solomon uses children as an example of this gift, verses 3 through 5.
Behold, sons are an inheritance of the Lord,
The fruit of the womb wages.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
Thus are the sons of one's youth.
How blessed is the warrior who has filled his quiver with these;
They shall not be ashamed,
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.
I wonder if Solomon was thinking of the scene in Genesis 11, the great building project of the Tower of Babel? That society was driving hard to make a name for themselves, but their toiling ended in disaster. At the end of the chapter, however, we read that God appeared to the obscure family of Terah and announced that he would give them a gift of a son named Abram, and through that son (who later became Abraham) all the spiritual blessings on the face of the earth would come. Those who toiled without the Lord toiled in vain, while the family of Terah received an eternal gift that would bless all the nations of the world. How much toil does it take to produce children? It takes an act of love, that's all. While you sleep, God performs a miracle process of weaving and creating life.
There are many single people here, and some married people who cannot have children, so we have to ask ourselves, what is the broader application of this principle? In Wisdom literature, the sage would point out a particular example and from that example would come the universal principle. Jesus did not have any children (nor did Paul the apostle), yet Jesus adopted all of us as spiritual sons and daughters. Eugene Peterson makes the point: "The character of our work is not shaped by our accomplishments or our possessions, but in the birth of relationships." God's ultimate gift to us is not possessions but people. In this context our work is to nurture the next generation of believers.
Walt McCuistion shared that the greatest joy he had on his trip to India, in the midst of all the toil, frustration and sickness, was seeing the birth of a new son in the Lord. In India several years ago Walt shared the gospel with a bellhop in a hotel. On his return visit there recently, this young man shared with Walt the good news that the seeds that were planted bore fruit. He was now a follower of Jesus Christ and he had started a little house church. The birth of relationships is what makes life fulfilling, not your promotions or your assets.
If you have had any background in economics you know that if you are going to invest in this realm you need certain economic indicators that it is a worthwhile investment. So if you are going to use your time and build and preserve in this area, let me give you three factors by which to evaluate your investment. First, with any investment you have to know what are the wages it will pay. Your wages reflect the value of your work, the significance of what you do. Secondly, you need to know the initial capital outlay. Is the investment cost effective? What is the marginal utility versus the marginal cost? Finally, you need to know the ultimate return on your investment: when is the payoff? Solomon touches on all three of these factors when he talks about children in these verses. Verse 3:
Behold, sons [I take this to mean children] are an inheritance of the Lord,
the fruit of the womb wages.
In Scripture, when used of employment of men, this word "wages" speaks of payment for services rendered. But the interesting thing is that when God uses this term in the Old Testament it is never used for services rendered, but rather it is used of a gift. "God never hires his servants. They work for him freely, out of love and thanksgiving, and he rewards them for their faithfulness out of his grace." (Pope) The point is that such work is so significant a price tag cannot be put on it.
Then Solomon uses the word "inheritance" to mean that this work provides a permanent, abiding, not a temporary, possession. Nothing is more frustrating about work than to give all your efforts to a particular end and then to come back from vacation and find that your efforts went for naught. When you use your work to nurture relationships, on the other hand, any changes you are involved in that occur in people's lives last forever. There are your wages. Significant, aren't they?
Is your investment cost effective? Verse 4:
Like arrows in the hand of the warrior, thus are the sons of one's youth.
How blessed is the warrior who fills his quiver with these.
Some translations read, "Whose quiver is filled." But it is the choice of the warrior to fill his quiver with arrows that makes him blessed. When you choose to invest in living assets, Solomon is saying there is a tremendous initial outlay. As some couples view the cost, many of them conclude that it's so expensive in terms of time, money and effort to invest in children that they should put it off until they're older, until their assets are more stable and they've accumulated money. Solomon is saying, "Don't do that. Don't wait until you are old to have children. Have them while you are young, because they increase, not diminish your effectiveness." My children have done more to give me a spiritual education than all the seminaries in the world could have done. At first, however, it is true that children are a tremendous responsibility.
A passage in Isaiah uses the metaphor of an arrow to describe the young Lord Jesus:
The Lord called Me from the womb;
From the body of My mother He named Me.
And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword;
In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me,
And He has also made Me a sharpened arrow;
He has hidden Me in His quiver.
And He said,
"You are My Servant, Israel,
In Whom I will show My glory."
Jesus was not wasting his time as a young man. God sharpened him and refined him like an arrow and then concealed that arrow in a quiver. When God finally used that "arrow " it was supremely effective.
Solomon is saying that when we work to develop sharpened arrows, that work may be concealed for a long time, but we will have great effectiveness in the next generation. We will not see the results, but our effectiveness will be great nevertheless.
Have you ever asked yourself what was Moses' greatest contribution to God's plan? Some would say his part in establishing the nation Israel. Others would say his part as the great law giver, the administrator of justice. But I would say that Moses' greatest accomplishment was that for 60 years he polished and sharpened an arrow which he hid in his quiver, and that arrow was Joshua. Joshua was a greater extension of Moses' ministry than all Moses' lawgiving ever was. What was the Lord's greatest accomplishment? It was not the miracles of healing, his feeding of the five thousand, etc. Jesus poured himself into twelve select arrows, polished them and hid them in his quiver, but boy did they fly in the next generation! What was Paul, the great church planter's greatest accomplishment? For 16 years he focused in on one arrow, Timothy, and thereby saw his own effectiveness go on to the next generation. My first assignment here at PBC was Jr. High. I picked a handful of those kids and met with them each week for three years at Denny's. We studied the Scripture, ate hot fudge sundaes and played together. To tell the truth, I did not see any appreciable effectiveness in that ministry. But most of them are juniors and seniors in college now, and I am just thrilled over their effectiveness as Christians. I have had more satisfaction from nurturing those kids than any public teaching I have ever done. Yes, the work you put in in establishing relationships is cost effective. There is tremendous initial outlay, but your labors will continue to be effective in the next generation.
Then thirdly, what will be the final return on your investment? Describing these ones as "arrows in the hand of the warrior," Solomon says that when you invest in them,
You will not be ashamed when your enemies speak with you at the gate.
When you invest in living assets you have the best retirement program possible. Some of our pastors have shared with me they cannot afford to invest in a retirement program and enjoy their children at the same time. They have decided, therefore, not to lay aside money for retirement but to spend their money on their children, to enjoy them, to invest in them, because they know their children are their retirement. When you invest in children, or when you nurture lives spiritually for the next generation, you have a ready defense when you are attacked, because you have created a broad base of support. In ancient Israel, when someone had a grievance with another he did not come to the city gate alone and face him. No, Mr. Israelite showed up with his whole clan just like Ben Cartwright and Hoss and his sons in "Bonanza" days. The spiritual principle is that if you have loved those of the next generation and poured your life into them, when you are attacked spiritually, or when a crisis hits, you do not need physical assets. You have people who surround you and love you because you are godly, because you have poured your life into them, not into material things. Those you have nurtured surround you, and thus your life is impenetrable. "How blessed is the warrior who has filled his quiver with these!"
Thus we learn that investing in people does indeed return the best wages, it is cost effective, and it yields the best possible future return. Are you frustrated in your work? Have you been building and preserving in vain? Are you obsessed, driven, compulsive, unable to let go? Remember that fulfillment in life is not proportionate to how many hours you work or do not work. [lather fulfillment comes from working for what endures, and what endures is what God is building, preserving and creating. God would love to let you in on that if you will but take a few minutes to check in with him and that short period is called sleep. Take the opportunity to let him give you as a gift what you have always been working and striving for.
May God grant us the grace to see his eternal gifts, our true wages, and lasting inheritance, and to enable us to make the choice to fill our lives with the investments of countless sons and daughters in his kingdom.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you that you did not design life so that we might ultimately be frustrated. Thank you that you desire our fulfillment. Yet we confess that many times we have built in vain, we have labored in vain, because we did not check in with you to see what you were doing. Lord, open our eyes to see the great investments that are all around us, the secretary at work, the neighbor's child, our business partner who might be discouraged this week. Make us sensitive to all these great investments around us, and give us courage to spend our time and money to build an inheritance that endures forever. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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