Are You Building a House or a Home? - Part A

Is your focus on property and projects or is your focus on people? Are you building a house or a home? So you can build up projects for temporal profit or you can build up people for both temporal and eternal profit. What is your focus in life?

Is it your career, your wealth, your accomplishments, or is it something deeper? Today on Connect with Skip Heitiger, Pastor Skip begins a message all about building something that will make a difference both now and in eternity. Right now, here's Skip and Lenya to share some exciting news about a trip to the Holy Land. I'm guessing that many of you have thought about, talked about, maybe even dreamed about visiting Israel.

Well, let's make that happen. Lenya and I are taking a tour group to Israel next summer in 2024. And I can't wait! We'll start in Tel Aviv, head north to Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River. We'll spend several days in Jerusalem and see the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, and so much more. And we'll wrap it all up with a swim in the Dead Sea. Now, I've been to Israel many times, like over 40. In fact, I can honestly say, though, that visiting the places where the Scriptures unfolded, where Jesus lived out His earthly ministry, it never gets old.

No, it doesn't. The incredible sightseeing will be punctuated by times of worship and teachings that you'll never forget. And Jeremy Camp and Adi Camp will be with us to lead worship. Make plans to join us next summer in Israel. See the itinerary and book this Israel tour with Pastor Skip Heitzig at inspirationcruises.com slash C-A-B-Q.

That's inspirationcruises.com slash C-A-B-Q. Okay, let's open up to Psalm 127 as we tune in to what Skip has for us today. I want to end by talking about priorities. And priorities is the art of managing your life according to what's most important rather than what's most urgent. Again, it's the art of managing your life according to what's most important rather than what's most urgent. I read that Henry Ford noticed a weakness in most all human beings, he said, is that we want to do too many things at one time. And it was said that Henry Ford would wake up in the morning and his eyes would open and he would immediately think of dozens of things he thought he needed to get done.

He had so much energy that what he would do is get up and run around his property, he said, to run off excess energy so that his mind could think clearly about what was most important rather than what was most urgent. So today we are looking to the future. And with looking to the future, making a choice, what will our priorities be regarding our families, our marriages, there's a lot of things you might consider as being important, your job occupation, your status position, your schooling, education, but I submit to you there are things far more important than those things. I read an article recently about Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, and it was an article that said 1,300 letters written by President Truman have recently been discovered and given out to the public for their perusal by the Harry Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. What's unique about these 1,300 letters is they were all written by Truman to his wife and that they made a practice early on in their marriage, a rule of thumb, that every day they were apart Mr. Truman would write a letter to his wife.

Now just consider that. Here you have what is arguably the most powerful man in the world with very heavy decisions to make, meeting with other power brokers in the world, but he thought it was absolutely important to sit down every day and to write his wife a letter. There's a man who managed his life according to what was most important rather than what was most urgent. Now not everybody keeps those priorities.

We can look around our culture, even our own church family, and we can see that marriages erode over time and that is my great concern is that after you do a series on marriage that many marriages, once this is off our radar screen, just sort of tend to erode and the relationship becomes one of convenience. There was a couple in Atlanta, Georgia who discovered that My Fair Lady was being played on Broadway. It was something they always dreamed of doing, going to New York City and seeing that play played out on the Broadway stage.

So they took their vacation money, went to New York City, bought the tickets, went into the theater. They had great seats, seven rows from the front, right down by the orchestra pit, and the husband, before the show started, looked around and noticed that every single seat was taken, was packed, except for one seat. That was the seat right next to him. So during the intermission, he turned over to the lady on the other side of the empty seat and asked about the empty seat. She said, that seat belongs to my husband. We would go to the theater quite regularly, and we would regularly, but he died. And so he expressed his condolences to her and his wife did as well. And then the husband said, but you would think that you'd be able to get one of your other family members or friends to take that seat. This is such an important play. And she said, oh no, they're all at the funeral.

Now wouldn't you say that that relationship deteriorated a bit? Let's look at Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It's vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. For so he gives his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. Now we're reading a Psalm and it's a very short Psalm.

It's packed full of truths, however. And whenever you're dealing with any of the Psalms, you're dealing with Hebrew poetry. And just a word about Hebrew poetry. The way the Hebrews did their poetry was so different from the way we Americans do our poetry. We like to rhyme words and we have a certain meter and rhythm and cadence and rhyme.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. He goes, you know, there's a lot of that kind of rhythm and rhyme. The way the Hebrews did their poetry is they didn't think it was important to rhyme words, but to rhyme thoughts, ideas, concepts. So it's called Hebrew parallelism because a statement would be made and a similar statement that amplifies the first statement would come after that. Or a statement would be made and a contrasting statement would be given. You basically you basically have both in this Psalm.

You have a statement followed by an amplifying statement, by another amplifying statement, but then it turns into a contrast. So you have two parts of Psalm 127. Verses one and two form the first section. Verses three, four, and five form the second section.

And both sections are a contrast to each other. In the first section of the Psalm that we read, it describes the self-initiated labor living for temporal things. The second section deals with the home life, marriage, and family as God pours out his blessing. So in the first part, the priorities are projects and property. In the second section of the Psalm, the focus is on people.

Not projects, not property, but people. So the first part is the wrong focus. The second part is the correct focus. And as you can see in your outline in your worship folder, you have a house built on vanity versus a home built on values. So like the sermon title implies, are you building a house or are you building a home? Is your focus on property and projects or is your focus on people?

Are you building a house or a home? So you can build up projects for temporal profit or you can build up people for both temporal and eternal profit. Now look back at your Psalm and you'll notice right after it says Psalm 127, it says in your Bible a song of a sense. Does it say that? A song of a sense. That is songs for the upward climb more literally. There are 15 of them in the book of Psalms. Psalm 120 through Psalm 134.

They were used in two ways, corporately as a nation, liturgically for the priesthood. Every year, three times a year, the Hebrews around Jerusalem, around the nation would get out of their houses, get out on the road, and hike up to Jerusalem for those three feasts. As they would walk on the road, they'd pull out these 15 songs of ascent because you go to Jerusalem, you're climbing the hill. It's 2,500 feet above sea level.

Most of Israel is lower than that. So you're walking up, ascending toward Jerusalem to the place of worship and you would sing these songs as a family and as a congregation. That's how they were used corporately. They were also used liturgically because the Mishnah tells us that there were 15 steps from the court of the women in the temple of Jerusalem that went to the court of the Israelites. So the Levites would stand on those 15 steps and they would sing out the Psalms of ascent. So we're reading not only something that deals with our marriages, our families, and our priorities, but these were part of the ancient hymn book that the Hebrews used in the temple. You'll notice also it says not only a song of ascent, but it says of Solomon.

Notice that, of Solomon, meaning this Psalm was probably written by King David's son, Solomon. Now if you know anything about Solomon, you know that he would be very qualified to speak about what we just read. He was a builder. He built cities and walls and fortifications and so he knew a lot about building and guarding cities, but he also knew a lot about family life because he had how many wives? 700 wives and 300 porcupines, I mean concubines. He had a thousand women in his life.

You'd be an interesting guy to interview. Now look at the first couple of verses. This is the house that is built on vanity and notice the repetition of the word. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep. Notice the threefold repetition of the word vain. That is so Solomonic, right?

It's one of his favorite words. You know some of you remember the book of Ecclesiastes, which was a period that Solomon had in his own life, sort of a crazy maddening time when everything that he tried to build and pursue and use to fill up his life just was so empty that in that time, in that book, he uses the word vanity or vain 35 times and twice he uses the phrase vanity of vanities. All is vanity. That's the superlative use of the word as if to say there's nothing more empty, futile, or vain than this. A life without God is empty and here he uses the word three times in this Psalm.

Vanity or vain if you try to build a house or watch the city. Now, when it says house verse one, unless the Lord builds the house, what house is he talking about? When he says, unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. What city do you think he was referring to? Probably Jerusalem. That's the city he lived in. That was the capital of the nation. Now, when he says unless the Lord builds the house, what was he referring to?

Whose house? Now, you might say, well, his own house probably was the temple because the temple was called in the Old Testament the house of the Lord, you remember. So, he's probably speaking about guarding the city of Jerusalem and building the temple of the Lord.

Now, here's the background. His dad, King David, made Jerusalem the capital of the nation. He fortified the city of Jerusalem and it was in David's heart, it was his lifelong dream to build the house of the Lord, but the Lord said, David, sorry, you're not going to make that dream. You're not going to build the temple. You're not going to build my house. You're a man of blood, a man of war.

You've shed much blood at your hands. So, you won't build my house, the temple, but your son who comes after you will build my house. It's interesting that both David and Solomon were builders. They knew what it was like to have that deep drive within the heart of man to build something, to be successful, and to preserve what you have made. As soon as Solomon becomes king, he undertakes the massive building project of making in Jerusalem the house of the Lord.

This is what he did. First of all, he made a treaty with the Phoenician king named Hiram, who was the king of Tyre up in Lebanon. Solomon knew that he needed stone, but he also needed wood.

So, in exchange for Israeli oil and wine and wheat, he wanted Lebanese cypress and cedar wood. So, he sent 30,000 woodcutters from Israel up to Lebanon to cut the wood down, bring it down by boat, down to Joppa and up to Jerusalem. Not only that, but he gets 183,000 workers, 80,000 stonecutters, and 3,300 supervisors.

I'd probably want to be one of those if I could have had a choice. Had a choice. He had that many people working on building the temple. He was quite successful. He was able to build a temple that today would cost in the billions of dollars to make. He was able to build that in seven and a half years. He spent seven and a half years building the house of the Lord.

But listen to this. He spent another 13 years building his own house. So, it kind of shows you where his priorities are. So, he builds his own house. He builds the house of the Lord. And when they dedicate the temple in Jerusalem, the Lord said this, if you or the kings who come after you ever turn away from following me, this house will become a heap of ruins. If you turn away from me or if the people who follow you turn away from me, this house, this temple, will become a heap of ruins. So, he says, unless the Lord builds the house, unless the Lord's behind this, anointing this, doing the work, this is all for nothing.

It's vanity. The Lord's got to be behind it. Notice he also says, unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Anytime you build a city in those days with walls around it, you got to guard it. Now, Solomon was not only a builder, he was a protector, a guarder of cities.

I wish today we were standing in Israel in the city of Megiddo. I would point out to you an interesting archaeological discovery called the Gate of Solomon, a Solomonic gate that he made that he made in different parts of the land wherever he built fortification cities. And the Gate of Solomon was a corridor of four interlocking gates so that if you were an enemy and you could penetrate the first gate, you'd find yourself in a stone corridor and you'd face the second gate. If you got past the second gate, you'd face the third gate and then the fourth gate.

Meanwhile, there'd be soldiers above you standing on the ramparts taking potshots at you with their arrows. It was very difficult to penetrate the gates of Solomon. But what happened? After building the city and fortifying the city, after building the house of the Lord in his own house, Solomon eventually fell away from God. And the kings that came after him broke the covenant of God. So God stopped protecting the city and allowed it to be destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonian army.

And the whole group of that nation went into captivity for 70 years. So here you have this builder, this achiever, this magnanimous workaholic saying unless the Lord builds the house and unless the Lord guards the city, it's all emptiness, futile vanity. These verses could be addressed today to the workaholic overachiever, the person who likes to build and guard his or her own empire. This could be addressed to those who work hard to build the house, the organization, the corporation, or the church, but their own home is in disrepair. Their relationships are in disrepair.

That's a house that is built upon vanity. I found an article in the magazine Scientific American by a gentleman named Yuri Brofenbrenner. Some of you have heard of him. Only if you have a counseling background probably will you have heard of Yuri Brofenbrenner. He was a Russian-American who examined American culture, American life, and especially American families, and he looked specifically at problems that face the American family. And he was warning of forces that are causing the family in America to deteriorate. This is what he wrote, quote, the demands of a job that claim mealtimes, evenings, and weekends as well as days, the trips and moves necessary to get ahead or simply hold one's own, the increasing time spent commuting, entertaining, going out, meeting social and community obligations, all of these produce a situation in which a child often spends more time with the passive babysitter than with a participating parent, close quote.

So we all applaud hard-working entrepreneurial parents. What we have to be careful of is that our labor and our watching is not in vain, that we're working on people not just on projects or property, but that we have the right value system, the right priorities. Notice in verse two he satisfies now the thought. It's vain for you, empty, to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep. It's easy to see what this verse is talking about, the forced artificial lengthening of the day where you are managing your time, you're trying so much in the 24-hour period and you're adding anxiety on top of your labor. So you build it all day long, you guard it all evening long, and then you toss and turn all night long.

That's the idea. The Living Bible renders it, it is senseless for you to work so hard from early morning to late at night fearing that you'll starve to death. Such is the life of the empire builder. He says it's vain, it's demanding, it's vain for you to rise up early and to sit up late. It's excruciating. It says to eat the bread of sorrows. In other words, you're busy but you're bummed out.

Ever met a person like that? How come you're so bummed out? Because I'm so busy. Busy, busy, busy, bummed out, bummed out, bummed out.

You're eating the bread of sorrows. That concludes today's study from the series Keep Calm and Marry On. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Right now, we want to share about a special resource that will help you understand the vital role of fathers in a family. Men in America need to step up and take responsibility for raising the children they father. Boys growing up without male influence get involved more easily in drugs, crime, and socially destructive behavior, and they are likely to repeat the cycle of abandoning their children. Dads make a difference. That's the title of a critical issues package that is a must for men of any age or stage of life. As a father and a pastor, I'm deeply concerned for the families in our nation. It's clear that so many destructive trends are related to the lack of a dad's influence in the lives of their children. We need to educate men on what biblical manhood truly means. The dads make a difference package includes seven of Skip Heitzig's most important messages to men along with the full hour video documentary Where's Dad?

hosted by Skip. I think it's safe to say that the family is under attack today. I know that's a phrase that you have heard me say. In fact, I'll tell you the truth. I've said that sentence for 40 years and every year it's been true. And today it's truer than ever before.

It is worse than ever before. Get this package in either digital download or on CD and DVD when you support Connect with Skip with your gift of $50 or more. You'll be joining us as we take Skip's Bible teaching into more major cities.

Request the Dads Make a Difference package online at connectfascip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. And we're excited to give you more content from Pastor Skip and this ministry right to your mobile device. Be on the lookout for our first text message welcoming you to the group.

That's coming your way. If we've connected with you through prayer or a monthly resource and in the weeks ahead, we'll let all our listeners know how to join in. And tomorrow, Skip wraps up this message and the Keep Calm and Marry On series with an encouraging study about the rest God wants for you. A man wasn't made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man.

It's a gift. And so the Lord gives his beloved sleep. It's a time to quit, not to worry and to worship your word. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.