We're so thankful for our youth staff and all that they do and we're thankful for the work that you're going to do this summer and we're thankful for our staff here at the church of diligent workers serving the Lord. You know we've been on a little bit of a journey together in our call to worship by laid out some of the scriptures that started in Psalm 120 as we've been preaching our way through the Psalms of Ascent. It's a bit of a reminder of the road we've traveled together. You know we started here in March and I think about now we live in Chattanooga and a number of you ask me what are the things you miss about Dallas and as I think about it there are really three things. First of all we miss our family we used to have family dinner every Thursday night and we have six children and four grandchildren so they would gather around they would bring their friends and strays and we just have this crowd of people we'd have just mass quantities of food and laugh and play in the yard and have a great time and so we miss our family. Secondly we miss a number of our friends just friends that we've known for a long time and I've had a little bit of a sense of loneliness in my heart not because you haven't grabbed onto me and loved Lara and I well but just the sense of you know Tommy Baines my buddy I've known him for 20 years and I simply miss him and he'll never be replaced but we're adding on some new friends and we're getting closer together too and the third thing I miss from Dallas is the Mexican food. I don't know if you know it but Chattanooga does not quite have the cuisine in terms of text mix that we have in Dallas and so it's heartbreaking and I mean we're glad we're here don't get me wrong but if anybody's traveling in Texas and they have a flight if you would just get me some cheese enchiladas rice and beans and just throw it in your carry on I would love to have it but you know we've been on a journey together over these months and we're working our way through the Psalms and we come to a Psalm that basically screams out at you fear the Lord as the scripture scriptures were being read you notice in the very first line of Psalm 128 blessed is everyone who fears the Lord who walks in his ways and then look in verse four of Psalm 128 it's that word be hold remember I told you about the word be hold the word be hold is it's like somebody waving a red flag or a red shirt and they're saying look at this behold thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord and so there's this sense of the fear of the Lord being the core of this Psalm and I want you to notice a little bit about this person and the first verse it says blessed is everyone who fears the Lord it's not exclusive everyone any single person can fear the Lord and then I want you to notice what happens in their life it's this is a bit of a parallelism in the Hebrew language a number of you know this but in the Psalms and the Proverbs in particular they have this parallelism where in verse one it says blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and then it's almost like there's this dot dot dot and the dot dot dot it's meaning it's an equative sentence it it means someone who fears the Lord does what he walks in his in the ways of the Lord and so if you fear the Lord you walk with the Lord and that's why this concept of integrity this idea of say what you mean and me what you say has been on my heart because many times in the church there's this bifurcation of what we know and how we live and I want you to know a person who fears the Lord walks the way they believe let me give you an example that look over in Proverbs chapter one Proverbs one in verse seven says the fear of the Lord there's that phrase again the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom now the word they're beginning it has a bigger meaning than just kind of the start of a journey it means it's the core it's seminal it's germane to knowledge and to wisdom so the fear of the Lord is this this center point of our lives and listen to this verse the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and then here's that parallelism again this time it's antagonistic and it says this fools despise wisdom and instruction so it's pitting a person who fears the Lord against a fool a foolish person who doesn't regard the Lord in the way they live now knowledge is given to us it's it's like this big reservoir of knowledge of who we are what's going on in the world and how we fit as a believer in the world that's this concept of knowledge but the word wisdom means skillful living skillful living the scriptures teach that as you know so you live and they go together and this concept of fear of the Lord is a is a concept that means you by God's grace have been giving an understanding of who God is and who you are and what's going on in the world and so you live accordingly now I want you to understand that it's critical for us to get this point in our understanding of our life because if we don't we're going to live as hypocrites we're going to live as people who say one thing and who do another you know the Lord has given us ample reasons to fear in fact some of you when you think of the fear of the Lord you simply think you know what I'm bad and the Lord is mad and I'm in big trouble I mean it's like I'm busted I sinned he caught me and this is a mess and you're afraid and you know what that's really at the core of this phrase there's the core of this phrase that means you're in trouble I remember when I was about 12 years old I spent the night with some friends of mine Dennis and Danny now Dennis and Danny were great friends a lot of fun they were twins and we had gone to bed and at about two in the morning they woke me up and I said what's going on and they're like let's go we've got something that we want to do I'm like great so I jump out of bed when you're 12 you tend to sleep in your clothes so I just was ready to go I'm up ready to go and we headed out and we started to pick oranges off the trees and the idea of fun was we were going to throw the oranges against people's garage doors until their lights came on and then we were going to run so we've got to stack oranges our pockets are filled with fire and oranges boom it's the garage door we wait no lights okay and we fire another one boom finally the lights come on then we go over to the next door neighbor we kind of go over here it's like okay you know we fire these these oranges wow hit the garage door so we had the neighborhood pretty lit up by around 230 then we snuck back to Dennis and Danny's house well lo and behold we got caught that morning a number of the neighbors met in the front of the Wilson's house and we're just in big trouble I'll never forget they drove me home and sat me down in front of my mom and dad and my dad looked at me and I figured this was a no-brainer I was just fixing to get a weapon right it's just kind of the way it worked I I deserved to spanking and my dad was happy to give it to me but you know what he pulled a fast one on me his eyes filled with tears and he said some of the were some of the most hurtful words he could have possibly have said to his 12-year-old son he said Tim I'm so disappointed in you it just crushed me it just crushed me and from that day forward even as a little 12-year-old I set my mind toward pleasing my father I simply said to myself if I have a decision to make I'm going to ask myself the question that should give me clear thinking and that is will this make my father happy will this please my mother and father and as I answered that question before I got into trouble I found myself being rescued why because I wanted to please my parents I wanted my mother and father to smile when they thought a little Timmy I didn't wanted to pull their hand go where did we get this kid what is wrong with this kid like they do with some of you and so I got to thinking about that as I was studying the past few weeks and I thought isn't the fear of the Lord like that the sense that we want to please him and so many times when you come to my office for counseling one of the things I ask you is I simply say what were you thinking what were you thinking when you decided to have an affair what were you thinking when you decided you you were out of town and no one would find you and so you could do whatever you wanted to do in anonymity what were you thinking when you bought that pornography what were you thinking when you that that idea of what you were thinking well this concept of fear of the Lord is so full and the reason it's so full is it's more than just you're in big trouble because you see God is a just God and he's a loving God and if God punished every single person for every single sin they ever committed he would he would still be a loving God because he's a just God and if he's a just God then he must punish every single sin committed by every single person who's ever lived and so in your brain right now as his child you're thinking well Lord are you gonna punish me for every single one of my sins and what the Lord says is I'm a just God I will punish every single sin of every single person but for you I punished my son Jesus instead of punishing you I'm going to punish Jesus do you see what happens to the concept of the fear of the Lord when you really understand who God is it's more than just it's gonna make him mad it's the Lord is just and he's also merciful and he's loving and so when we ask ourselves the question will this make my father happy there's a richness to it there's not this sense that I'm trying to earn his approval there's this sense that I live what I believe I believe my God to be a just and a loving God now as you look at this Psalm you're going to have a temptation overcome you and I want to address it the idea that I just expressed to you is kind of summed in the little phrase fear will make it clear you ever notice that when you're thinking clearly so often it's because you're in a right relationship with the Lord the fear of the Lord has made it clear for you if you're ever in a situation where you're not sure if you have doubt then don't do it then don't do it it's it's this idea I want to please my father the fear of the Lord makes my living clear to me I don't need to do that I have a fear of the Lord he loves me he's just he's merciful now in this Psalm there have been teachers in the last couple hundred years who've come up with a concept called the prosperity gospel the prosperity gospel basically says if you do certain things for God then he'll do certain things for you I read a quote from a New York Times the New York Times ran a series on the prosperity gospel and the preachers of the prosperity gospel and they said this about it it said they're defining it they say if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously then God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold and they basically went through and listed a number of preachers who preach this prosperity gospel in other words preachers who say if you give me ten dollars God will give you a hundred if you give me a hundred God will give you a thousand if you give you get the idea this idea that basically you obligate God and so if you look at this Psalm and you follow along and you're thinking and you're brain you're thinking so it says if I do these certain things then God will do these certain things if if I do this God will greatly bless me I want you to know that's not what this Psalm is saying you must discern as a believer the difference between principle and promise the difference between is this a principle of the Bible or is this a promise of the Bible and there's a principle within this Psalm that God blesses his people but you can't extrapolate and move forward and say so if you give me a hundred bucks God's going to give you a thousand you can't get that from this text but they're getting it and they're preaching it even the New York Times put the prosperity gospel in quotations because even the people who run the Times know that that's not the gospel and so I want to warn you as you read passages like this to not immediately claim it as a promise but recognize that it's a general principle of the Bible that God blesses his people and so with that said I want to move on to the core of the text because I want to give you a little sense of what's going on here if you notice you see these beautiful images that are described in the text this idea that you'll eat the fruit of your hands that you'll be blessed that it'll go well with you your wife will be a fruitful vine within your house your children will be like olive shoots around your table be hold thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord and in order to make this last point let me just sum it up in this little phrase the curse is reversed because if you go back to Genesis 3 you're going to find that the curse of Genesis 3 is the antithesis of what's listed in Psalm 128 man will now have to work hard to get to get fruit out of the ground women their childbirth process is extremely painful and so you'll notice that the Lord is reversing that curse if you will he's turning it around and he's saying this person who fears the Lord this person who recognizes all that God has done for him the Lord will bless him the Lord will strengthen him the Lord will cause that person to walk in a way that has integrity it's connected he lives the same way everywhere he goes and this is this huge picture of blessing imagine if you were a Jewish person who lived a thousand years before Christ what would you want you would want fruitful crops you would want to have a wonderful wife and you would want to have a lot of children this is the picture of blessing I remember one time I was on a mission trip to Mexico and the man of the house was in a hammock at about noon and I looked at him and I said Carlos why are you still in the hammock and he said well my wife is up working there's fruit hanging off the trees and there's chickens and pigs and turkeys at my feet I have everything I want want you to notice that the Bible doesn't teach that the Bible doesn't teach that we live lives of ease the Bible says that you get fruit for your labor the idea of being blessed is the idea of someone look at verse two you shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands to labor is a blessing to have a job and to do it diligently and to be compensated for your job that's a wonderful blessing from the Lord it's a wonderful blessing to have a job it's a wonderful blessing to get paid for doing what you do you know one of the struggles this concept of this prosperity gospel is that we all know people who give to the Lord and yet and yet they don't they don't necessarily have lives of great wealth and we all know very godly people who are unable to have children we know very godly people who are unemployed right now and so if you went to a church that preached the prosperity gospel you would have a lot of tension right now because you'd be saying what's wrong with me what's wrong with me something must be wrong with me God's not blessing me of course if you took a little time and thought about it you would realize wait Jesus was born into a poor family he gave his entire life and he didn't receive a bunch of riches when he walked on earth Paul walked everywhere he went he didn't have the Cadillac version of camel you know that he rode all over the place but what's going on you know there's a bit of a non-sacritor here when you really put your thinking cap on in fact Paul the apostle had a thorn in the flesh a physical ailment that he prayed three times for the Lord to take it away and the Lord said no my grace is sufficient for you but what does that do to the concept of the prosperity gospel it blows it up it makes it foolishness and I want to encourage you as a godly person I know that in our culture we long for prosperity it's how our culture is organized it's what you're taught in school you're taught a commerce a commercial version of American history you're not taught a spiritual version of American history so we're hardwired for prosperity but let me just say to you you never want to compromise your godliness in your pursuit of prosperity now it's not they're not mutually exclusive you can be godly and you can simultaneously be prosperous but I want you to know some people are tempted to compromise their godliness in order to gain prosperity and I would I would challenge you to repent of that mistake to pursue godliness pursue first the kingdom of god and he will add these things to you if it is his desire for you you know I have a friend and Dallas's name is Robert Rowling and Bob owns all the Omni hotels he has a number of holdings but one of his holdings one of his ventures is that he owns all the Omni hotels all over the world and back a few years ago Bob and his wife Terry got involved in the battle against pornography they decided that this was an insidious evil that needed to be eradicated from our culture and so Bob and Terry labored tirelessly in order to try to get pornography out of our culture. Bob went to work one Monday and he asked his general manager do we have pornography in the Omni hotels system and his general manager said yes we make a lot of money when people watch those movies and Bob said I want him out and the general manager said seriously Bob said I want pornography out of the Omni hotel chain and so the general manager got to work on that came back to Bob a couple days later said Bob we can get pornography out of our hotel but there's a couple catches one it's a tremendous revenue stream two the people who provide the movies give us the televisions for free and so if we pull their movies we've got to replace the television and Bob Bob asked the question every business person would ask at that moment he said what will it cost me to replace the televisions and the general manager said one million dollars and Bob said do it he wasn't going to compromise his godliness for prosperity you see this scripture says that if you fear the Lord you walk in the ways of the Lord do you do it perfectly no but do you do it intentionally yes you intentionally set your face toward the Lord and you say I'm following him I'm gonna answer a single question every day until the day I die and the question is will this make my heavenly father smile you know as Bob said at his desk over in Las Calinas right outside of Dallas we talked about this and other things he was so free I don't think I've ever seen a guy spend a million dollars with greater joy he's so free and I want you to be free I want the chains of prosperity and materialism to be ripped from our hearts that we might pursue the Lord and that we might simply ask ourselves the question day after day week after week year after year will this make my papa smile now father's days next Sunday you might be thinking I want you to think about your papa all week long think about your earthly father think about your heavenly father and ask the spirit by grace to well up within your heart in such a way that you say with everything in me and everything that I am I want to bring a smile to the face of my heavenly father as I serve him with joy with the great joy of a person who fears the Lord let's pray together father you've gathered us here to hear your word we thank you for this beautiful picture of blessing bountiful fruit wonderful marriage wonderful children and Lord we pray that you would so bless this church but Lord if that blessing cost anything there's only one person who could purchase it and that's the Lord Jesus Christ we can't purchase it with any good works or meritorious works is given to us by the free grace of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and so we find great delight in you our heavenly father and we do fear you for your judgment is real and the reality of your judgment is known now and will especially be known in the future at Jesus's return and so we live these lives Lord until your return I pray holy spirit that you would work in us in such a way that we would simply say will this please my heavenly father and may we through the power of Christ and the fellowship of the spirit do our very best to walk in a way that brings a smile to your face abba father as we love you and we have this reverent fear for who you are and for what you've done we pray in Jesus name and all of God's children said amen would you please stand for the benediction if you would turn your face toward your heavenly Father and hear these good words may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord causes face to shine upon you and be gracious to you may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace both now and in the life everlasting amen