In 2019, Sam Altman, the founder and CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, released an article on his blog titled, How to be Successful. In it, Altman provides 13 thoughts on how to achieve success. In the article, you can read points about compounding yourself, self-confidence, taking care of business, getting good at communicating, working hard, focusing, being bold, networking, owning assets, being driven. Most of what Altman writes, in my opinion, could have maybe found in a Fortune cookie or in other business blogs, but none was as trivial as to where he concluded his thoughts. He concluded them by stating that he was born incredibly lucky. The prescription for success that Altman gives is not very novel or particularly insightful, but Altman shows us that according to him, success is bound up in your work, work ethic, and chance. Most of the things he writes, however, we wouldn't disagree with because they're commonplace. We would say that as Christians, we believe that one should be hardworking, that you should gather a good counsel of individuals, that in the multitude of counselors, there's success. But the point of greatest contention that we would have with Altman is the exhausting, self-elevating, self-reliance that he speaks of. It was all about self-glory, how great I am, how lucky I am, how hard I work, how focused I was, how much I could own, and this is where success is found. At a church anniversary, we could be tempted to the same ways of thinking like Altman, that we speak of our accomplishments, our successes, what we've built, what we've done. And Psalm 27 stands as a corrective agent to that end, reminding us that the work that we do, whether in the church or at work, is not about us. It is God working, and if he does not work, it's not truly success. It is work that is done in vain. It is not actually accomplishing the goal that it's supposed to. All work is supposed to bring God glory, not you or I. And so Solomon, as he pens this to Israel and to us today, reminds us that it is God who is building, who is working in and through his people, throughout all the ages. And so Solomon reorients not just our work, not just the definition of success, but all those things together. And he tells us this, that success depends on the Lord. He outlines for us that this success is found in depending on the Lord in our work and depending on the Lord for our future. And so this will serve as our outline this morning. We can look at our first point, which will look at verses 1 and 2, depend on the Lord for our work. If you see, Psalm 127 begins with a superscription. In it we are told that this is a song of ascent. These are songs that were sung by Israel as they were making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as they traveled to the temple to worship. Instead of singing songs like, Insuency Spider or The Wheels and the Bus Go Round and Round, they were singing songs like, Unless the Lord builds the house, then we labor in vain. That's what they were singing on their road trip. Given that this song was given to be sung on the way to Jerusalem, where they look to worship God in the temple, by the man who built the first temple in Jerusalem, I would argue that it is telling us more than just how to succeed in work generally. I think it's likely speaking to the specifics of building God's house, the temple, watching over God's city, Jerusalem, and the toiling of God's people for provision. All that to say, Solomon's song here does generally teach us about depending on the Lord in our work, but specifically it teaches us to depend on the Lord as his church. Though this sounds self-explanatory, the question is, do we actually live this out to be true? Do we actually depend on the Lord for him to work in and through us as he builds his church? Maybe I uniquely feel this burden and I struggle with this myself as your pastor, but I can so easily think that the success of the church depends on if I preach a good Sunday sermon or if we launch these particular programs. But what the scriptures teach us time and time again, what Solomon tells us here is that it depends on the Lord. This is the temple was the place where pilgrims gathered to worship. The church now is where God's people gather, even though we are still pilgriming to the new heavens and new earth. In verses 1-2, we are given three mentions of the word vain. We can build, watch, entirely see work all in vain. Staying is useless. Seeking protection is worthless. Working hard at all hours of the night and day are pointless. It's futile and empty. It will lead to failure unless the Lord is the builder, unless the Lord is the protector, unless the Lord provides. For Solomon, as he saw the building and protecting and working of God amongst the people, he knew that it was not just done by man, but it was done by God. God used human agents to build the temple. He gave watchmen to stand over the city walls at night to ensure that residents were safe. And he gave provisions so that people could rest as an act of faith, knowing that God was in control. This Psalm does not teach us an abdication of responsibility, meaning it's not teaching us that God builds, God protects, God provides, so all that we need to do, it doesn't really matter, we can just sit on our hands. There's something participatory here. There's something that we are still called to participate in. Think of the job of a foreman on a construction site of something like the barge calipha or the sian tower. These massive building projects, without direction, they would fail. If the workers, if construction workers were just working on their own path with no direction, it is doubtful that any of these buildings would still be standing. That is not an insult to construction workers, it's just the reality that we are people in need of direction. Whether it would fall for the sake of building code or structural integrity, it is likely that these buildings would not stand. The master builder, the site foreman, must give direction so the project succeeds. Otherwise, our buildings would fall over like a jenga tower. Or maybe something more familiar to all of us, think of building a piece of ikea furniture. Without directions or someone giving you instructions, you are likely making holes where you shouldn't, putting shelves or parts where they don't go, and you end up looking at something that's more like a Frankenstein mess than the Billy bookshelf that you intended to make. In each of these cases, we are reminded that we need direction or a director. The same is true for the church. There are far too many who think that they can do the work of the church on their own. Maybe they might not say that outwardly, but maybe they are believing that inwardly and it's reflecting in their actions. Trusting themselves instead of trusting the Lord. And that kind of living leads to church closures instead of church flourishing. About the gospels, we see Jesus tell his disciples to be a people of dependence on him. Think of John 15, where he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing. That he is the vine and that we are the branches. And to bear much fruit, to be a functional vine, we must abide in him. This is both an individual activity, but also a collective one as we as individuals abide in Christ, as we find our home in God. And we individually bear fruit. We collectively share in this fruitfulness. Or Jesus says in Matthew 16 that he will build his church, that Jesus will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It is Christ's church. He is the builder. He is the foundation. And we in part have been given the privilege to be workers. The Old Testament saints sung this as they looked to Jerusalem. As they thought of the working of God in the midst of the temple. And we sing this as we think of God working in the church. And what we should see just as they saw is that success is only found in and through the Lord. The success that we speak of, I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, that it's doing something worthy. It's actually accomplishing the goal. And the goal that we are after as a church in all of our work is the glory of God. It's not about us being praiseworthy. It's not us being seen as relevant, us being seen as cool, or us even being a bustling church. There are many bustling congregations all across North America that have distorted God's word, the Bible, and the saints as a result. That are teaching to glorify man and the things of this world instead of our God. The successful building, watching, and working of the church are found in dependence on the Lord, His word and His spirit. And if we fail to have that grounding, we fall into the error of not following our foreman of our faith, Jesus Christ. So would we depend on Him? Would we look to Him? Would we look to His Scriptures? Would we know that there's freedom that He calls us to? There's freedom from self-reliance independence. In most cases, the movement from dependence to independence is what's seen as maturity. Think of a child. As they grow and they get potty trained, you're like, this is maturity. They don't need me. But the paradox of Christian maturity is that we are people moving from independence, thinking that we don't need God, to dependence. Being freed from self-reliance to God, dependence. And in this, we are reminded of the gospel, that we are people that are saved, not by our own works, not that we can do something for God, that we are going to somehow gain His favor. No, it is by God sending a son, by dying on a cross for our sins, that we are saved. It is the reliance on God and God alone that man is made right with God. And if you've yet to believe in this gospel, the truth, that Christ is the only one that leads us to God, that He is the only way to salvation, see the unique offer of Christianity today. There's no way that you or I can be made right with God on our own merit. It is only Jesus that makes us right with God. It is only His working. And the application for the believer this morning is to apply the gospel truth to our gospel ministry, not to tirelessly work thinking that we are going to gain something of our own merit or our own working. It's God working through us as we depend on Him, just as we do for salvation. We cannot leave this posture of dependence. But this deliverance to dependence is not to lead us to be sluggards. It's not to lead us, like I said earlier, to sit on our hands. It's not to be lazy in the work of ministry, saying, God's on the move, He's building, protecting, I'll take a nap. The work that we are called to in the household of faith is to see that God has called us to be His workers, to rely on Him and look to Him. Israel sung this as they likely built the first temple, speaking of God being the builder, the watchman, and the worker. Or even in the second temple age with Ezra and Nehemiah, they sung this looking to the Lord as they returned from exile. Now we sing in as we serve our church, looking to the builder, watcher, and worker, knowing that this is not just done by us, but for us to see that is God working through us. That He has given us each member of this body a variety of gifts for the sake of the edification and building up of one another in Christ. Not in our own strength, not in our own strategy, but in the power of the great builder, Jesus Christ, to whom we rest upon. One point of application for us to consider, what does dependence look like here? It's looking to God's plan, it's looking to Jesus Christ, it's not to somehow present our own preferences, our own strategies and be like, okay, this is what God needs to do because this is what I want to do. No, we come back to the Scripture, we come back to the Lord and we entrust ourselves to Him, knowing that He is a good builder, knowing that He is a better plan than we do as He works to will in us. Let's look at our second point to depend on the Lord for the future. Look at me at verses 3 to 5. God moves from speaking of building cities and building buildings and working to speaking about families. The best way that we can think about this is that as we build homes or temples, as we bring cities and watch for the protection, it is natural to speak of the family, to speak of the populace of that building, of that place. What Solomon tells us here is that the growth of God's people, its lasting future is given by the Lord. The holy heritage of faith is something that God must provide. The success of a city or a church will be determined by its population. That doesn't mean how many people we have. What it's marked by is its youth and its children, both literal children but also children in the faith. If a country or a province does not have children, it will stagnate economically, societally, and what we see here, religiously. This is not to say that every person in the church needs to have as many children as humanly possible. The false teachers who have taught that from these verses, there are those who do not have children like myself. Does that mean that we somehow have failed when it comes to these verses? No? What Solomon highlights for us here as it relates to the church is that for the church to have a future, the youth must be wielding the faith and be seen as a blessing and benefit. Whether these are actual children or children in the faith, as Paul even speaks of the church of Ephesus, they are to be growing in the knowledge of God. We are to see them as a blessing because this is where the longevity of the church is seen and known. On this point, there's a temptation for parents and disciples in our church and other churches to want to keep our disciples in our building, in our community. But what Solomon points out here is that children in the faith are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. For an arrow to accomplish its purpose, it must be fired. Disciples are the offensive means of witness to our world. And there will be times where it will lead children and people who have served in our congregation faithfully for many years to go elsewhere for the sake of the kingdom. And what I posit to you this morning is that this is not failure. This is success. They are living out their intended mission of being offensive forms of protection and progress for the kingdom of God. We do not need to hoard God's artillery or ammunition. We need to see that God is the warrior who sends his children wherever he pleases. I think we are failing if we are not doing the work of raising the next generation to love and serve the Lord. That is failure. Whether that generation comes biologically, by adoption, by discipleship evangelism, if we fail to disciple them, that is failure. God's means of advancing and prolonging his people from the Old Testament to the New is a means of multiplication. In the creation mandate, we are told to be fruitful and multiply. In the Great Commission, we are told to make disciples of all nations. God has made it so that longevity and success to his church from age to age is a means of multiplication. And so it is a call to disciple well the children of this church. It is a call to disciple well all nations, all people. And this blessing is not something that we can achieve on our own. Solomon tells us that this perogany, this blessing, this populace comes from the Lord. It is only what God can bring. So as we look to the future of evangelism and discipleship at Bedford Presbyterian Church, we must be a people who are depending on the Lord. Asking for the reward of disciples. And then once we have received these disciples to depend on him in the work of discipleship. The future of this church for another 50 years or 100 years or whatever the Lord may have for us does not depend on us. It is God giving us people whom we faithfully disciple. And the amazing thing is that this has taken place in our church. It is taking place now and it's taking place over the last 50 years. There is a real enemy that presses in against our gate that tries to shame us and discourage us that tries to tell us that we have failed in this work. We prevail against him by knowing rightly that God is working in the midst of this adding and subtracting by the means of seeing disciples built up and sent out. May the legacy of Bedford Presbyterian be more of an Antioch where people come and serve are brought in and brought up and sent out for the sake of the gospel. That the children of the faith of this church would go to do gospel work and ministry like missionaries church planters church for violations or that they would be equipped to be good church men and women across our city our province our country and world. Though at some points in our history this has taken place due to unfortunate circumstances. That God has used dark Providence to advance his kingdom in the HRM and beyond. We can know that God is a great warrior and a great worker. That he has still used the ministry of our church and so to this end we can rejoice. So what application can we take from this point. It is the central cry of this song to depend on the Lord to depend on him in the work and depend on him for the future. For this particular point it is trusting Christ in what we can't control. The ways in which discipleship and the ways in which he may send those in our church to serve elsewhere. We trust him knowing that he is doing a good work amongst us and through us. As well as God using us in his service that he would use our treasure our time our talents in all of these things for the sake of him building his church. In all of these things we depend on him. The success of the church is one that only God can produce. It is this posture of dependence on the Lord and this posture of looking for his glory that will lead to longevity and growth. Not our glory but his and his alone. We are calling out and looking to a God who is good. Who looks to us as his children. Who cares for us as a father does a son. He doesn't look at us like employees or hogs in a wheel. He is sovereign and his ways to bless us and lead us may be ones where he humbles us. He disciplines us and he seeks to prosper us. True success is not self exalting. It's not self aggrandizing. Is that which makes God most beautiful and most glorious. That brings his name the most glory. This is what dependence exposes us to and leads us to. That it's not about us. It's about the Lord working through us to accomplish much for the praise of his name. At our anniversary we are tempted like I said at the beginning of the service to be like Sam Altman. Looking to our accomplishments, our people, the pastors, the building, the money, the so on and so forth. What we've done. Look what we've built. Look at you and me. But Psalm 127 undoes all of that. It shows us that the building of the church is the work of God. Its purpose, its worth, its value is not contrived by man. Is God using fallen people like you and I to show his infinite power and glory. So as we look back on the work and as we look to the future. May we be a people looking to God's glory and not our own. Being content with what he has done and will do and trusting in his plans to advance his kingdom not just our building. May God do a great work in and through us for many more years until he comes again. Let us pray.