Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Blessed Life of Those Who Walk in God’s Ways (Psalm 128) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Blessed Life of Those Who Walk in God’s Ways (Psalm 128) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine for a second that you finally acquire everything you
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ever wanted. You know you secure the
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promotion, you find the ideal spouse, you have healthy
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children, and you buy the house with the perfect backyard.
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Right, the absolute dream scenario for most people.
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Yeah, but instead of waking up feeling liberated and joyful,
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you wake up feeling utterly trapped.
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You look at the calendar and you feel suffocated by the sheer
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weight of maintaining it. All it happens all the time.
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It really does. You start fantasizing about
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running away, leaving the office this behind, escaping the
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relentless needs of the toddlers, and just finding an
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isolated beach somewhere. Well, welcome to reformed
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thinking. Today we are taking a deep dive
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into an ancient text that claims your natural desire to escape
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your responsibilities is the precise thing killing your joy.
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Yes, and that is a massive claim to make.
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It is because you know we live in an era of unprecedented
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information overload. You open your phone and within 5
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minutes you consume more conflicting advice about how to
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find happy happiness than a person a few centuries ago
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encountered in a whole lifetime. Oh, without a doubt.
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Yet clear, actionable wisdom for your actual daily life, the kind
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of wisdom that helps you make sense of a stressful Monday
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morning commute or a chaotic dinner time, feels incredibly
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rare. It does feel rare, and that is
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why our source material today is so shocking to the modern ear.
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We are looking closely at Psalm 128, and we are analyzing it
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through the lens of Charles Spurgeon's classic The Treasury
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of David, alongside historical commentaries from figures like
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John Calvin, Martin Luther, and several others.
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And what we have in front of us completely upends our cultural
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assumptions, right? Spot on.
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I mean, modern culture often treats our primary obligations,
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going to work, maintaining a marriage, raising children as
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heavy burdens. They are framed as obstacles to
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our self actualization. Right, like they are getting in
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the way of the real you. Yes, but this Psalm positions
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those very obligations not as burdens, but as the actual
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mechanics of divine blessing. OK, well let's unpack this
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baseline idea, because to understand where we are going,
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we have to understand the specific context of this text.
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Spurgeon notes right at the beginning that Psalm 128 is a
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song of degrees. What does that mean for the
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person reading it? The Songs of Degrees or the
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Songs of Ascents were the specific psalms sung by the
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Hebrew pilgrims as they literally walked uphill to
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Jerusalem for the annual feasts. So it was a physical journey.
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Very physical. They left their farms, their
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businesses, and their regular routines, and they made a
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demanding climb up into the mountains.
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So the phrase implies an ascent, stepping up.
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Got it. And context is key here.
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Psalm 128 follows directly after Psalm 127.
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Now Psalm 127 talks about the exhausting process of building a
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house, warning that unless the Lord builds the house, the
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builders labor in vain. Right.
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So a lot of raw effort and construction.
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Exactly. I mean precisely.
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Now in Psalm 128, we move past the raw construction phase.
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The physical building is done. We are looking at a picture of
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that house already built, adorned and functioning.
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Oh, I see. You build the foundation and
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then you step up into the enjoyment of what has been
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constructed. Yes, you step into the finished
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house. So to understand the destination
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of this built in blessed house, we first have to look at the
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inner life of the individual living inside it.
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Verse one of the Psalms sets the baseline.
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It says that blessedness is connected to two distinct
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things, fearing the Lord and walking in His ways.
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That is the core requirement. But I have to stop right there
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and push back on that first condition.
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How do fear and blessedness, which we generally equate with
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happiness, coexist? It is a great question.
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I mean, if I think about human relationships, fear and
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happiness do not mix well at all.
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If I go to work every day terrified of a demanding boss,
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constantly walking on egg shells wondering if I'm going to get
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fired over a typo, I am definitely not happy.
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I am miserable. Nobody wants to live like that.
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So what kind of fear are we talking about here?
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Is the text telling us to walk on egg shells around the
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Almighty well? That is a very natural tension
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to highlight and the commentators address it head on
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because the word fear carries so much negative psychological
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baggage for us today. To clear this up, we can look at
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the brilliant analysis provided by Robert Nisbett.
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OK, what does he say? He draws a sharp, necessary
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distinction between different types of fear.
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He points out that there is a terror that a warring rebel
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feels when facing a triumphant, offended sovereign.
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Right, that makes sense. Or there is the dread of
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fraudulent bankrupt feels toward a stern creditor who holds the
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force to throw them in prison, or a conscience stricken
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criminal toward a righteous judge.
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Yeah, that is The Walking on egg shells fear I mentioned.
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Spot on. It is driven by the anticipation
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of punishment and destruction. But Nisbet argues that this is
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absolutely not the fear the blessed person in this Psalm
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feels. So what is the alternative?
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If it is not the fear of punishment, what motivates it?
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Nisbet calls it a filial. Fear filial, so relating to a
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family dynamic. Yes.
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Think of the reverence a loyal child feels toward an honored
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parent. Or, even more accurately, think
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of the awe of someone who has been rescued from total
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destruction by a benefactor. Oh, someone who made a vast
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personal sacrifice to save them. That is right.
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In that scenario, your fear is not about being crushed by them.
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Your fear is an intense, consuming anxiety about acting
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unworthily of that immense kindness.
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Wow, so you dread offending the one who saved you out of sheer
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gratitude? Yes, you are terrified of
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breaking the heart of the one who loves you.
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That makes a lot of sense and it totally shifts the paradigm.
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It changes the motivation from selfish self preservation to
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outward facing gratitude. I want to please the benefactor
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because of what they have done, not because I am dodging a
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lightning bolt. It's an entirely different
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posture of the heart. But still, fear is a heavy
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emotion. Does carrying around this
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massive reverence weigh a person down?
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Actually, the commentators argue it does the exact opposite.
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Robert Layton has a fascinating insight to this psychological
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dynamic. What does he add?
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He notes that having this one massive, reverential fear of God
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actually swallows up all other petty worldly fears.
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It functions as an ultimate antidote to daily anxiety.
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Wait, how does one big fear cure 100 little anxieties?
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Walk me through the mechanics of that.
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Well, Layton says that if you are completely secure in your
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standing with the creator of the universe, you become largely
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undaunted by anything else society throws at you.
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Because the biggest issue is already settled.
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Precisely Think about the hundreds of tiny, vexing fears
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that consume our mental energy on a daily basis.
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We fear losing our status. We fear the opinions of our
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peers. We fear financial downturns.
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We fear aging. Yeah, that is basically the
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human condition right there. But if your primary overarching
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concern is simply honoring the God who secured your future,
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those other fears lose their leverage over you.
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Because if God is pleased with your faithful conduct, the
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shifting opinions of other people simply do not hold weight
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anymore. That is it.
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If you face rejection at work or a friends become estranged, it
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loses its sting because your core relationship is
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unshakeable. This central reverence displaces
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the chaotic noise of worldly panic.
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So the internal heart is settled, but the text does not
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let us just sit there in a state of internal peace.
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Verse 1 immediately connects that internal emotion to an
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external action. Right, walking in his ways.
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Yes, that walketh in his ways. Here is where it gets highly
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interesting to me. The religion being described
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here is very practical. It is not just an emotional high
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you get from listening to a good choir or reading a moving piece
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of theology in your armchair. No, it demands forward motion.
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Spurgeon points out that it is idle to talk about having this
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reference if you act like someone who simply does not
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care. If the heart is genuinely joined
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to God, the feet will automatically follow.
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The walk is the undeniable proof of the heart.
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Yeah, the physical action validates the eternal posture,
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and John Calvin observes something about this dynamic
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that speaks directly to how we view the world today.
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What does Calvin say? He points out that carnal
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reason, our natural, unspiritual way of assessing reality, tends
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to view human life as inherently miserable or at best dictated
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purely by random blind fortune. We look around and we see
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righteous people suffering and wicked people prospering, and
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human reason concludes that the universe is just, chaotic and
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unfair. Which is how a lot of people
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feel when they read the news. It looks like chaos.
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It really does. But Kelvin argues that true
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happiness is hidden under the guardianship of God.
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It is not always apparent to the physical eye, and it is
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certainly not measured by immediate material success.
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So it requires a different metric.
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Yes. To grasp this you have to
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understand the true happiness is relational to the Creator, not
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circumstantial. The walk you mentioned, walking
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in his ways, is the practical mechanism for staying under that
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guardianship. Meaning the blessedness promised
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here is not a guarantee of a trouble free life, it is a
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guarantee of divine companionship and approval on
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the path regardless of the weather.
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So if a person has this internal reverence sorted out and they
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are committed to walking in this path, what happens when the
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alarm clock goes off on Monday morning?
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Well, that brings us to verse, too.
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Right. It shifts from a general
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statement to a highly personal application.
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The text says, For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands.
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The source material insists here that God is the God of laborers.
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It promises A recompense, a reward for honest industry.
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He does. But I need to challenge this
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because it feels like there is a contradiction here.
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If we operate under the theological baseline that God
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gives us all things freely by grace, why is there such an
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intense focus on the sweat of the brow, or as Spurgeon updates
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it, the sweat of the brain? That is a very common hang.
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Up. I mean, in Genesis, work, or at
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least the painful toil of work, is framed as part of the curse.
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The ground produces thorns and thistles.
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So how do these commentators justify calling this daily grind
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a divine blessing? Why doesn't the blessing look
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like a life of easy leisure on a beach?
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That is a fantastic question because it touches on our most
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base assumptions about what a good life actually entails.
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We naturally equate blessing with the total removal of
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effort. Right.
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We think the goal is passive income and 0 responsibilities.
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Yeah, Hugh McMillan addresses this directly, and he dismantles
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that modern fantasy. He says that human dreams of an
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earthly paradise, a place without sorrow or toil, where
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life is just one continuous, effortless festival, are
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actually rooted in pure selfishness.
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Wait, so the desire to retire at 30 and sit by a pool is actually
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a moral failure in this view? According to Macmillan, yes,
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those are not holy desires. They are desires born out of
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sloth. He argues that in a fallen
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world, all true successes must be actively cultivated.
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You mentioned the curse in Genesis earlier.
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Yes, the ground does produce thorns, but the labor itself is
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the remedy, not just the punishment.
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Macmillan uses the brilliant metaphor of slaying the Dragons
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of selfishness and sloth to obtain any real reward.
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Slaying the Dragons, That is quite the image.
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If we received everything we wanted without a single ounce of
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effort, we would not actually possess the capacity to enjoy
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it, nor would it build our character.
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The friction of the labor is what forms the virtues of
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patience, endurance, and gratitude.
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So work is the designated arena for our human development.
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Precisely. I love that image, slaying the
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Dragons of selfishness and sloth.
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It makes the daily grind, whether you are writing code,
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framing a house, or doing the laundry sound epic.
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It reframes the mundane. It elevates the mundane to the
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realm of the sacred, and Martin Luther brings us down to earth
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with his characteristic bluntness.
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What does Luther say? He says that faith does not mean
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romantic idleness. It is not about sitting under a
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tree waiting for roasted pigeons to fly into your mouth.
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That is a very Lutherico of putting it.
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It is, he says faith means getting a house, getting a
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spouse and getting an ox to till the ground.
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Let's talk about that ox for a second.
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Having an ox means you have to wake up early to feed it, You
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have to clean up after it. You have to guide it.
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It is a massive liability and a huge responsibility.
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Yes. It is not a pet.
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It is work, right? And Luther is saying that God
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uses our diligence in managing that ox or managing our modern
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equivalents, like a team of employees, a budget, or a
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household, as the specific channel by which He blesses us.
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The labor itself is the conduits.
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Yes, Spurgeon points out that whether you toil with your
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physical body or with your mind, there is no difference in the
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nature of the blessing. The promise is that the labor
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will be fruitful and that the person performing it will enjoy
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the recompense. That is a massive comfort for
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anyone who feels like their daily tasks are invisible or
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meaningless. It gives massive dignity to
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ordinary work. And the text gets even more
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vivid about the result of that honest labor.
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It says Happy shalt thou be. One of the commentators points
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out that the Hebrew translation for this phrase is actually
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plural. Yes, oh, thy happiness is.
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Right. It is a heaped up, overflowing
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joy. It is not just a single fleeting
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moment of satisfaction, but happiness arriving in 1000
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different ways. That plural translation is very
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revealing. It suggests a multi faceted
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well-being that permeates every season of a person's life.
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How does that play out over a lifetime though?
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Well, RP McMaster provides a brilliant contrast.
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To illustrate this, he brings up a quote from the British
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statesman Benjamin Disraeli, who famously and cynically said that
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youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle and old age or regret.
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Oh, that is incredibly depressing.
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It is, but if we are honest, it feels accurate for a lot of
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people. You make mistakes when you were
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young, you fight to survive your middle years, and you look back
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wishing you had done it differently.
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Yeah, McMaster agrees that Disraeli's assessment is an
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incredibly sad and cheerless view of life's progression, but
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he admits it is entirely accurate for a life separated
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from godliness. So if you are living purely for
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yourself, that is the inevitable trajectory.
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Right. However, McMaster argues that
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when life is allied with the kind of reverence we are talking
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about, this filial fear and diligent, honest labor, the
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entire progression completely reverses.
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Oh I like that. How does it reverse?
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Well, youth is no longer a blunder.
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It becomes a season of wise purpose and setting, a good
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baseline. Manhood is no longer just a
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struggle for survival. It becomes a conquest, a season
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of fruitful production. And what about old age?
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Old age is not a bitter regret, it becomes an abundant memory
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and a glorious prospect of the future.
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So the challenge for the listener here is to view their
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current career or their daily chores not as a penalty to be
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endured, but as the designated arena for experiencing this
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heaped up plural goodness. Exactly.
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That is spot on. So the progression we are
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tracking moves from the internal heart, reverence in God, to the
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external hands at work in the field or the office.
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And now the text moves indoors. We step into the architecture of
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the domestic ecosystem. This is verse 3.
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Right verse 3 says Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by
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the sides of thine house. Thy children like olive plants
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round about thy table. Let's look at the specific
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geography of this vine metaphor. Why does the text specify by the
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sides of the house? It is an interesting detail.
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I read the commentary by Thomas Adams and he has a fascinating
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take on this spatial arrangement.
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He says she is not on the roof, which would symbolize A ruler or
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a tyrant. She is not on the floor, which
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would symbolize A servant or a slave.
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She is on the sides and equal stabilizing place.
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The spatial metaphors here carry a lot of weight.
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To fully grasp this, we have to look at the historical
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architecture of the time. What did the houses look like?
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Thomas Harmer explains that these ancient Middle Eastern
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houses were typically built around a central open courtyard,
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with the private rooms ranged around the sides.
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OK. So the sides were the living
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quarters. Yes, the inner private
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apartments. So the wife being by the sides
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indicates her active, faithful management of the home's
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interior life. She is the central stabilizing
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figure in the domestic sphere. And the vine metaphor itself.
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The vine metaphor also carries specific practical weight in
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that climate. A vine represents fruitfulness,
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but it also represents a need for a strong support structure.
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It relies on the architecture of the house.
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Right. And what does that vine actually
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do for the people living there? Well, John Gatsby provides a
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wonderful visual for this from his travels.
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He describes seeing massive vines trained over the streets
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and courtyards in Constantinople.
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Oh wow. Yeah, In a blistering hot
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climate, those vines provided essential shade, cool comfort
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and sweet clusters of grapes hanging right overhead.
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That sounds incredible. It is the godly spouse is
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described in this exact way, providing a sanctuary of shade
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from the harshness of the outside world, yielding the wind
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of consolation when the laborer returns exhausted, and offering
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clusters of comfort to the entire household.
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I can visualize those vines stretching across the courtyard,
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creating a kind of green sanctuary underneath.
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It is a place of absolute rest. A sanctuary from the labor.
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And then as we look around the table in that shaded courtyard,
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we see the children described as olive plants.
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WMM Thompson provides an observation from an actual olive
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Grove that I think completely changes how we read this first.
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Yes, the detail about the shoots.
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Right, he points out that the text does not say olive
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branches. It says olive plants or shoots.
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He describes walking through a Grove and seeing an aged,
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gnarled, venerable parent, Olive.
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Tree and what was around it. Springing up from the exact same
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root system right around the base of that old tree are
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several young thrifty shoots. They surround the parent tree.
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They literally seem to uphold and embrace it in its old age,
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and they are preparing to bear the fruit that the aging tree
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can no longer bear, or to take its place entirely if it falls.
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It is a stunning biological picture of generational
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succession and mutual support. The children are not just
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decorations at the table. They're not just mouths to feed.
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No, they have a purpose. They are active contributors to
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the Commonwealth of the family, drawing from the same moral root
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system as the parents. But Richard Cecil adds A
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sobering layer to this botanical metaphor that every parent needs
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to hear. OK, what does he point out?
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He notes that man by nature is a wild olive tree.
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A wild olive tree What does a wild olive tree produce?
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If you leave a wild olive tree to itself without cultivation,
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it produces small wild, bitter fruit that is largely useless.
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Yikes, so leaving a child to just figure it out on their own
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yields bitter fruit? Spot on.
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So the goal of parenting in this framework is not to take a wild
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tree and just hang temporary accomplishments on it, like
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tying artificial fruit to a dead branch.
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Right, you cannot just tape good grades and soccer trophies to a
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wild branch and call it a cultivated tree.
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That is precisely it. You cannot just teach a child
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good manners or send them to a good school and expect genuine
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spiritual fruitfulness. So what does it take?
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The goal is the painstaking cultivation of sturdy shoots.
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It requires deliberate daily effort to train those plants, to
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prune them, and to ensure they are drawing from the right root
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system. The table is not just a feeding
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station, it is a training ground.
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The objective is to raise shoots that actively contribute to the
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peace, stability and legacy of the home.
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Yes, that is the entire point of the table.
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Well, I have to. I'm stuck on the transition that
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happens next. We have built this beautiful,
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intimate, quiet dining room scene.
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The doors are shut. The family is eating the fruit
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of their labor under the shade of the vine.
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It feels incredibly safe. But then the lens zooms out
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massively. Let's take a sharp turn.
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Verse 4 issues what Spurgeon calls a nota binet, a command to
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mark this well. It says that this family
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blessedness comes explicitly from the Lord.
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It does not come from your wealth, it does not come from
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your healthy genetics, and it does not come from a perfectly
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executed chore. Chart acknowledging the source.
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And then verse 5 says the Lord shall bless out of Zion, and
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thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem.
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It feels like someone just turned on the bright stadium
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lights in a quiet movie theater. It is a dramatic shift in focus.
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Why does a Psalm that has been entirely about private family
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life suddenly bring in Jerusalem and Zion?
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What does a person's private dinner table have to do with the
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national church or the public welfare of the city?
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It feels jarring to our modern sensibilities because we highly
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compartmentalize our lives. We have our private family life
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in one box, our work life in another box, and our civic or
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religious life in yet another box entirely.
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And we prefer to keep the boxes closed.
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We do. But the Hebrew worldview did not
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operate that way. John Calvin provides the
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necessary synthesis here, and he uses a biological analogy to
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explain it. OK.
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What is the analogy? He argues that it is
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fundamentally unreasonable for a single member of a body to
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desire what is profitable for itself while the whole body is
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neglected. Meaning a healthy hand cannot
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survive for long if the heart stops beating.
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Precisely if Jerusalem falls, your private courtyard falls
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with it. Calvin insists that solicitous
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care for the public welfare of the church and the broader
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community is demanded of the individual.
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So your private blessing is inextricably linked to the
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public good? It is.
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So you were saying the bunker mentality, the idea that I can
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just barricade myself in my house, enjoy my fruitful vine,
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protect my olive shoots, and ignore the city burning outside
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is actually self-destructive? It is entirely self-destructive.
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The blessing is designed by God to radiate outward, not to be
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hoarded inward. How does that radiation work?
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We can look back to the priestly benediction in Numbers chapter 6
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to understand the physical mechanics of this.
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Think about the layout of the wilderness encampment.
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OK, the tents in the desert. Yes, the individual tents of the
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families were pitched all around the central Tabernacle in a
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massive square. When the priests pronounced the
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blessing from the center from the presence of God, that
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blessing radiated outward through the camp to each
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individual tent. Oh wow, I never pictured it that
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way. The same logic applies here.
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In Psalm 128, the Lord blesses out of Zion, which is the center
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of worship and truth, and that blessing washes over the
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individual household. So because the individual family
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receives their peace from that center, they are naturally
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invested in the health and purity of that center.
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Spot on. It is a reciprocal relationship.
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It is a progression from tent mercies to temple mercies to
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national mercies. Spurgeon describes this
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beautifully as having a Patriots joy combined with the Patriarchs
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piece. That is a great way to phrase
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it. It challenges you to look at
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your private household habits and ask very hard questions.
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Are the things happening at my dinner table strengthening or
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weakening my wider community? The way I raise these olive
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shoots, is it contributing to the good of Jerusalem or is it
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just creating more chaos for the city to handle down the road?
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That is the exact metric, yeah, the very metric the text demands
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we use to evaluate our parenting and our daily lives.
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And because the individual is connected to this eternal city,
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to Zion, the timeline of their impact extends far beyond their
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own brief lifespan. That brings us to the final
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verses. Yes, where we see the ultimate
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legacy of this blessedness. The Psalm concludes in verse six
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with the promise, yeah, thou shalt see thy children's
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children and peace upon Israel. It points to long life,
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continued piety in the offspring, and rest for the
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heritage of God. A multi generational view.
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Seeing grandchildren is described by several
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commentators as living your young life over again.
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It is the validation that the root system held firm, that the
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shoots took hold and are now producing their own fruit.
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It is the proof of the cultivation.
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But I have a serious question about that final phrase, peace
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upon Israel. Does this mean that the godly
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family, the one that feels the Lord works hard, raises their
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children well, and cares for the city, will never face external
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attacks? That is a fair thing to wonder.
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Does peace mean the total absence of hard times or
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tragedy? That is a very common and very
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dangerous misconception. Alexander Henderson provides a
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highly realistic commentary to correct.
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It What does Henderson say? He states clearly that peace
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does not consist in having no enemies or never being
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assaulted. He points out that there is an
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endless enmity against the people of God in this world.
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So the arrows are still flying. Yes.
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You cannot read the historical texts, or look at the lives of
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the prophets, or read the New Testament and conclude that
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obedience guarantees an easy, conflict free existence.
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In fact, it often guarantees the opposite.
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Right, So what kind of piece are we talking about if the arrows
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are still flying over the wall? The piece mentioned here is a
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spiritual rest amidst the warfare.
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It is an internal fortification. Henderson uses the historical
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example of the patriarch Jacob to illustrate this perfectly.
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OK. Let's look at Jacob.
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Look at his life. It was characterized by intense,
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almost constant conflict. He fled for his life from his
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brother Esau. He was sorely tossed about and
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cheated by his father-in-law Leavin.
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He faced severe famine, he wrestled physically with God,
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and he faced the immense tribulation of thinking his son
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Joseph was dead. Where is the peace in that
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story? It sounds like a life of
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constant anxiety. From the outside, yes, but
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eventually Jacob found rest in Goshen.
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His soul found a steady, unshakable peace because he
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became a prevailing Prince with God.
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He knew who held his future. So it is an internal reality.
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Yes, the peace upon Israel is not a lack of external pressure.
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It is an internal structural integrity that holds steady when
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the external pressure is applied.
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It is knowing that the house is built on the rock, so when the
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storm hits, the house does not fall.
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So if we tie this whole progression together, we can see
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the brilliant, unbroken logic of the Psalm.
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It starts in verse one with the internal fear of God, that
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filial revereacial awe. That is the starting point.
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That internal state leads directly to verse 2, which is
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faithful, diligent, honest work with your hands or your mind.
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That sustained, blessed labor provides for verse 3, the
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flourishing domestic ecosystem of the protective vine and the
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sturdy olive shoots. The chain keeps moving outward,
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right? That healthy family unit then
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contributes to verse 5, The building up of the church and
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the welfare of the city, and all of that combined ensures verse
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6, a multigenerational legacy of spiritual resilience and
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internal peace amidst A hostile world.
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It is a complete connected chain.
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If you remove one link, the whole thing falls apart.
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It truly is a master class in how macro level societal peace
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is constructed from micro level faithfulness.
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You simply cannot have the Peace of Mind Israel at the end of the
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Psalm without the individual walking in the fear of the Lord
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at the beginning of the Psalm. Because the massive historical
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outcomes that shaped nations are built entirely on the seemingly
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invisible daily habits of ordinary people working their
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jobs and eating with their families.
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Spot on. It all starts at that granular
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level. Let's bring this all the way
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down to the ground for the listener as we wrap up today.
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We started with the tension that modern life feels overwhelming
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and our daily obligations often feel like heavy, suffocating
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burdens we want to escape. That was the initial hook.
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But through the analytical lens of Spurgeon, Calvin, Luther and
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the others, we have seen a total reframing of reality.
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We trace the progression from the internal reverence for God
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outward to the sweat of our daily labor, inward again to the
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intimate shaded spaces of marriage and child rearing, and
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then outward once more to the welfare of the city and the
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legacy of future generations. It is a massive shift in
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perspective. Here's the final thought I want
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to leave you to Mull over. Consider that your daily,
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seemingly mundane tasks, Getting up and driving to the office,
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cooking dinner for your family, sitting around the table trying
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to instill a little bit of wisdom into your kids, and
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showing up for public worship are not distractions from your
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spiritual life. No, they are not.
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They are not chores keeping you from finding your true self.
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They are the exact raw materials God uses to construct
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multigenerational national peace.
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This perspective reframes the most ordinary, exhausting
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Tuesday into a matter of eternal weight.
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You are actively participating in the architecture of a blessed
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legacy. You really are.
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Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the source
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material. Keep pursuing truth with both
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your head and your hands.