Singing Psalm 127 to ponder what it might be like to form a worldview starting with yourself
There are things people might take initiative to achieve in life, things that would provide them with basic needs for shelter, sleep, food, and relationships.
They might build a house with security systems, getting up early to work and staying up late to keep working. They may say it’s good to build new and think they can keep this structure and its surroundings secure with a good alarm system in place. They form a worldview based on what seems right to them. They want to decide for themselves whether or not to get sleep and how much. They might medicate themselves to force their bodies to comply with the flexible or rigid schedule they designed.
They might eat whatever is inexpensive and convenient and do it quickly so they can get back to work. Or they might eat rich, decadent foods that interfere with not only their digestion but also their sleep. Or they eat a healthy diet thinking that will keep them alive and well for many years. They form a worldview by doing what is right in their own eyes.
They might think it’s within the scope of their own choice to extend beyond themselves to make friends with others as long as those others are both desirable and willing, whether many or few. They choose to remain single or to marry.
They might extend further beyond themselves and their own bodies to start or grow a family or to disrupt pregnancies. They choose the latter sometimes by coercion or fear of shame, financial distress, fear of missing out, or wanting to continue to go to school or work, or to be free from the “disruption” of children, unaware of how they can bring delight. They form a worldview based on a choice of their liking or concede to thinking they are choosing the lesser of two evils.
When attempting to live your life independent of the Lord, you are starting with your own thoughts or the thoughts of others who influence you. You form a worldview and you live it out.
You think it will go well. You think you are in charge of you and aren’t hurting yourself or anyone else who can object, have a say, or know any better about it. Yet you sense an uneasiness within, an underlying worry. What could you possibly be missing?
Is it conceivable that all you are doing for yourself could be done for no good ultimate purpose? Are there negative consequences if you ignore the God who made you? Can you really form a worldview as if he didn’t exist or have the right way for you to walk in it?
Starting with yourself because of who you are, you form a worldview that revolves around answering these questions:
“What do I want? How can I get it for myself?”
Singing Psalm 127 to ponder what it might be like to form a worldview starting with the Lord
Singing Psalm 127 helps you form a worldview where you begin with one whose thoughts are higher than yours. They are higher as the heavens are higher above the earth. The Lord debunks the independent life as vain, much ado about nothing, leading you nowhere good. You have nothing to fear when the one who made and sustains the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them is with you. He precedes you as you build friendships and homes, work, eat, drink, and sleep.
You form a worldview based on God’s provision and timing for where you live, for protecting you, for giving you gainful employment, for providing food and rest, friends, and family in their right portion and place. With God in his right place as your portion, he leads you to have no need to desire other people or things inordinately. Because the Lord promises to be with you, he commands you not to be afraid even when things are happening that seem frightening to you. You form a worldview based on God’s promises. You wait anticipating him to fulfill them.
He gives to whom he would various gifts: places to live, security, sleep, food and drink, friends, spouses, and children who are rewards from the Lord. Children bring both happiness and protection by the Lord’s hand when they are grown. It would be difficult to be afraid of those who oppose you as they stand together with you in the Lord Jesus. You form a worldview with those whom the Lord would bring from your own body as you think of what the Lord has in mind generationally.
It may be that he has in mind to bring you children as the fruit of another‘s womb and not your own. Although Amy Carmichael did not have biological children, you can read here what she said to the Lord. Single or married, ask the Lord to show you how you can live in undivided devotion to him.
“Pop theologies baptize the longings of sinful hearts: health and wealth, significance and security, self-esteem, power to get what you want. But the Holy Spirit is in the business of changing what you want.” *
The Lord lovingly changes your desires according to what he thinks best to give you, the longing to worship him, ability to build friendships, wisdom to build a home with him and others, bear children in love, and/or to love children whom others have borne. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him — a far cry from doing what is right in your own eyes.
You can’t “read the Lord’s favor or disfavor” by how troubled or easy a person’s life is but how they respond when what they desire is delayed or does not come to pass. **
How singing Psalm 127 leads you from agonizing self-centeredness to joyful surrender bringing about both comfort and courage is unexplainable. Singing it by any tune carries you to form a worldview by reforming the one you had before. This is not just alright with you but you welcome it as the gift that it is. You know that what he both gives and withholds are good gifts of grace and mercy from his generous, wise hand.
The one who loves you way more than you do purchased your body with the blood of Jesus so that it is no longer yours to use however you see fit, but he has plans for your body that glorifies him and grows, matures, and ultimately benefits you even as you suffer along the way. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
He leads you to offer your body as a voluntary, living sacrifice, as he enables you to serve him and meet the needs of others, holy and pleasing to him. He leads you, a willing refugee, to himself who is your good shepherd and your real refuge. He has green pastures and quiet waters waiting for you.
The things he would have you do, you do with joy — miles away from doing only what seems right to you.
You form a worldview that is utterly dependent upon the Lord. This worldview turns the self-directed worldview on its head. You now think about how you can please the Lord in every aspect of your life.
Is where I live, where I am getting my security, who I spend time with, how I work, what I consume, how I eat and drink, how I sleep, what I think, how I rest, how I communicate, pleasing to God?
God initiated life for you wanting you to bring all your thoughts and concerns to him before his throne of grace. He wants you to believe not only that he exists but to trust that he rewards all who seek him.
You strive to please God, follower of Jesus, not for earned acceptance because he is already pleased to give you a seat at his table, to make you a part of his family, his bride.
You are not striving to please him to earn anything from him since he has already been pleased to give you himself. You are not striving to please him to get him to do anything for you. He’s already done everything for you, giving all you need in himself.
You are not striving to please him to win his favor. Jesus won his favor for you at the cross not against the will of the Father but by his initiation. The Holy Spirit within you brings it to mind. You are loved and have been adopted by the great and matchless triune God.
You strive to please him in response to his choosing to initiate with you and love you. You love him because he first loved you. You form a worldview based on the order of love that starts and ends with his.
You did nothing to get yourself born, and when you were born, the umbilical cord between you and your mother was severed. Similarly, you do nothing to be born again, except the proverbial umbilical cord between you and the Lord is never cut. You were re-created to depend upon him for everything. He promises to “supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
You now form your worldview starting with the Lord. You are willing to wait for him in every aspect of your life because he gives you himself, he loves you, and he never goes back on his promises. He is with you. Because he is with you, you need not to be afraid of anything and can move about with joy. You love him back. He will never fail you. He will never leave you, for he is yours, and you are his. ***
Starting with the Lord because of who he is, you form a worldview that revolves around answering these questions:
“What does the Lord want? How can I give it to him?”
“O Lord, command what you will and give what you command.” — Augustine
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” ~ Psalm 127:1a
June 11-14, 2022
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* David Powlison, Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers, 2003, p. 219
** David Powlison’s, God’s Grace in Your Suffering, 2018, pp. 11-14
*** For more, enjoy David Powlison’s, God’s Grace in Your Suffering, 2018, the rest of the Psalms, and the entire Bible. You can find a wonderful display of how the Old and New Testaments of the Bible tie together in this sermon by Pastor Cliff Blair.