C, First Sunday of Advent - Psalm 25:1-10 Good and Upright is the Lord

There once was a working-class man, who became king.    He treated his palace staff as though they were royalty; he even refurbished the workers’ living quarters to palace standards.  The new king was compassionate and kind; he wanted the best for his servants having been a labourer once too. 

But in time his staff became conceited and loathed the king — even his generous rule.  They got up to all sorts of revelry in their plush living quarters and after a short time it looked more like a pigsty than the property of the palace.  They destroyed their regal residence, and the name of the king was slandered inside its wall. 

In fact, his servant subjects had completely rejected his rule, and they credited themselves with the prosperity which had been bestowed upon them.  The king knew about this and was grieved in his heart.  But rather than rid himself of these workers, he patiently and continually encouraged them to renew their allegiance to him and his rule so that peace and harmony would return once again to the servants’ living quarters.

In time the king had a son, but the staff had become so rebellious and distracted by their own importance they didn’t even realise the king had borne an heir to the throne.  This boy knew nothing of the working-class life from which his father had come.  All he had ever experienced inside the walls of the palace was his princely life. 

So, the king lovingly sent his son, to live as a working-class servant boy, to experience life outside the palace walls, so he might better understand his father’s kingdom and better lead the country when he became king.  The boy went to work and live with the palace staff; no doubt he very quickly got some real-life experience. 

Picture what this young boy walked from… cleanliness, prestige, excesses, good manners, honour, and respect.  Now picture what he walked into… dirtiness, coarseness, hard work, debauchery, drunkenness, disrespect, disunity and fighting.  This was hardly an inheritance for a king!

King David was an earthy working-class man too.  He grew up as a shepherd boy.  But God saw that this lowly boy became king. 

David seeks God’s mercy in Psalm 25, saying, To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; 2 in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. 3 No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.  4 Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long. 6 Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord.  8 Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. 10 All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  (Psalm 25:1-10 NIV)

King David knew where he stood with the Lord; he knew he was a sinner.  In the very next verse, after what we have just heard, David pours his heart out to God, saying, For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great. (Psalm 25:11)  David knew the Lord’s way was loving and faithful.  However, for a sinner like David to keep the demands of the covenant is impossible, and it brings this cry of contrition from his lips — for the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my sin, though it is great. 

For the sake of God’s name, these inspired words from David among others, needed to be fulfilled in the advent of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.  So we do well to see this Psalm, and all Psalms—in fact, the complete Old Testament—fulfilled in Christ.  Jesus needed to come into the world as a servant; the creator needed to be created, it was advantageous for us that God make his advent amongst us.

 We—like King David and the rebellious workers we’ve just heard about—need a Saviour.  None of us can keep God’s covenant, and, therefore, receive God’s loving and faithful ways.  All of us left to our own devices become treacherous without excuse; before God our best work still brings us shame.  We all need Christ’s coming and his supreme sacrifice.  In fact, we do receive God’s faithfulness and loving guidance, but only because of Jesus Christ.

In this Advent season as we prepare for Christmas, the coming and birth of God amongst us, let’s focus on two things.  Firstly, the heights from which God the Son came to dwell among us.  And secondly, the lengths and depths to which he went, so that we his sinful rebellious and treacherous servants might be saved.  In clearly hearing and grasping the sanctity and privileged position of Almighty God over against the utter depths to which we and all people have slumped, only then do we even begin to truly appreciate just what the grace of God is and how privileged we are to receive it!

Look at it from the point of view of the son sent to live in the servant’s quarters.  How much would the contrast have struck him between princely exuberance in which he had lived and the squalor and filth into which he was delivered?  Think of the shame and despair he could have felt!  Had he done something wrong, did his father, the king, still love him?  Had he been sent to the palace quarters to die with the sacrilegious servants?

Now let’s use Psalm 25 to see Christ’s advent — from his point of view.  To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.  Jesus came from heaven to us, he came from timelessness to a point in time, he the creator was created as a weak baby, he came from infinite knowledge and power, to be born by a mother who was pregnant outside wedlock, and grew to be the son of a lowly Nazareth carpenter.  He was handed over to treacherous men, and put to shame because of our sinful ways.  It looked as though his enemies had triumphed over him.  And yet, he still trusted in his Father who sent him into his fallen sinful creation to save us.

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long.  God taught him his paths and showed him the way that led straight to the cross.  Jesus knew the truth, he was innocent and we are guilty.  Yet Jesus’ hope remained in God all day long and now we are called to faith in him who was faithful to his Father’s will for our benefit.

Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord.  Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.  Put yourself in Jesus’ place.  How great would God’s goodness and mercy and love “seem to be” if it was you he had sent to die.  Our sin and rebellious ways have continued from of old, right back from our youth.  God remembered them and placed them on his innocent Son.  How good was that for Jesus, who is good?  How good is this for us, who are not good?  Yet we walk in freedom while the Almighty King of the universe, in all goodness and godliness, walked the way of the cross.

 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  Christ came as King and humbled himself and became obedient unto death, death on a cursed cross.  This is the loving and faithful way the Lord walked even though he kept every demand of the covenant.

As we reflect on Christ’s first coming, and wait for Christ’s second coming, know that all the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for us, because Jesus Christ has kept the demands of the covenant.  So be humble, repent, seek what is right, and allow him to teach you his way. 

By your Holy Spirit, Lord, give us the power to trust your Word, to watch, and to pray.  Amen. 

B, Last Sunday of Church Year Proper 29 - John 18:37-38 What is Truth?

John 18:37–38 (ESV)  Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.

What is truth?  Pilate askes Jesus this question, after Jesus not only speaks about, what is truth, but speaks the truth of his kingdom.  God’s kingdom is, God’s kingdom was, and God’s kingdom will be as we proclaim at the end of every Psalm, “Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever more”.  And the great resurrection proclamation of the church, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!”

Yet ringing in the hearts and minds of all people from the first in God’s creation is the question, “Did God actually say?” (Gen 3:1) Tripping us up to place his Word second to ourselves and everything else.

God’s kingdom, despite its existence is not seen by humanity.  If it were so, God would not have had to speak through Moses, Aaron, and others, his priests and prophets of the old covenant.  God would not have had to send Jesus Christ to be the new Israel through which all people can be blessed!  And he wouldn’t have had to send the Holy Spirit after the Ascension, to call, gather, enlighten, and make us holy through pastors faithfully preaching God‘s Word and administering his sacraments.  Without the action of the Triune God, no human would see or seek God and his kingdom.  The only kingdom we see without God, is of this world!

However, Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36 ESV)

The only way God’s kingdom is seen is through Jesus Christ’s atonement in God’s law.  The Son had to step into the void and fulfil what vain humanity couldn’t do!  Jesus Christ became Israel!  Out of “Galilee of the nations”, came the only one who could truly bless the nations of all time!

Yet even in Jesus’ time on earth, the disciples struggled to see his kingdom coming.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit was sent for the sole purpose to continue turning us away from our motives to Jesus’ motive, so God’s kingdom could be built, within us, with us, and for us. 

God’s kingdom is hidden, but not to those whom Jesus allows the Holy Spirit to make it unhidden through his Word.

Jesus said to Pilate, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37d)

In the English text there’s a hidden irony.  It’s partially revealed in Pilate’s response, “What is truth?”  But there’s much going on in this exchange between Jesus and Pilate, that’s missed in English translations of God’s Word!

We know the riddle of God’s kingdom, that it’s hidden and only seen by faith, generated within by the Holy Spirit when we receive God’s Word into our hearts with our eyes and ears.  However, hearing how the Greek word for “truth or true” is constructed, deepens our understanding of Pilate’s and Jesus’ discussion, and exposes the farce of Pilate’s hand washing and allowance of the Jews to crucify Jesus.

The Greek word for truth is made up of two words, “not and hidden”.  Jesus is the one who makes heaven truly known, or unhides the reality of heaven to us!   Therefore, those who are unhidden hear and heed his voice and receive the hidden kingdom not of this world.  So, when Jesus unhides us with his Word we see his kingdom unhidden in his world.

The craziness of Pilate’s action comes about, despite Pilate finding no guilt in Jesus. He found nothing hidden in Christ! Yet contrary to his conclusion, he turns Jesus Christ over to the Jews for crucifixion.

Listen to the discourse with Greek meaning of the word for truth inserted in its place.

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to what is not hidden. Everyone who is not-hidden listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is not hidden?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”

Pilate responds to Jesus with classic political double-speak, “What is not hidden? There’s hiddenness in everything!” Or in today’s language, “everyone has a truth!” But after this he asks the Jews if they want him to release, “the king of the Jews”. 

Regardless of Pilate being sarcastic or not, he has been allowed to see two things, Jesus’ innocence, and his kingship.  He has answered his own question, “What is truth? What is ‘not hidden’?” This innocent king is the unhidden truth! But the revelation of truth continues, not just of Jesus, but of Pilate too, who knowing the truth unhidden before him, hands Jesus over to death.

What is not hidden? Pilate’s hidden political motives for pleasure and popularity become unhidden, in the path of least resistance in his leadership over the Jews and having to answer to Caesar.

Because Jesus is not hidden, he is like no other! His un-hiddenness reveals the truth, not just of God’s kingdom and his Word, but of those who think they’re hiding their reality from him!

God is a God of love! But he is also a God of justice! As you move towards your last breath on this earth, God lovingly has placed before you his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Why? To unhide your hiddenness! All things we’ve sought to hide since Adam and Eve hid themselves in the Garden of Eden. He seeks to call you out of your knowledge of good and evil into the light of perfection found only in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  He does this “in you” by the Holy Spirit, when you hear his Word.

If any of us, having been unhidden, return to hide from what Jesus has unhidden, that is ourselves, we endanger ourselves, by stepping out from under Jesus’ protective Word of truth.  Jesus unhides the motive of all human thoughts, words, and deeds.  The Holy Spirit wills you to be repentant!  Those who resist repentance, resist the justice that fell on Jesus at the cross. If God’s justice doesn’t fall on Jesus Christ, then God’s justice has to fall on those who do not listen to his Word!  Being unhidden without Jesus, before God on judgement day is a bad place to be!

The feelings you feel when God’s Word of Law convicts you, makes you want to hide what’s been unhidden!  We all understand this, for sure, as it’s in our nature to run and hide.  However, the Holy Spirit comes to gather and enlighten you in God’s Word of Gospel.  So, rather than running and hiding from the light, you can run unhidden into the light and loving forgiveness of God.  Listen to Jesus’ voice saying, “Come!  The Holy Spirit wills you to come and confess your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ!

At the start of God’s Revelation to John, we hear that having been unhidden by his just love, he “has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”  (Revelation 1:5b-6)

The unhidden reality is that you are priests of God in his kingdom.  This now is seen only by faith, revealed by the Holy Spirit in God’s Word.  We call this the priesthood of all believers.  You were unhidden and given the right to be “children of God” priests in your baptism.  Now the Holy Spirit seeks to lead you out of this place, prepared to practise your faith amongst those to whom God leads you in everyday life.

When he comes, he promises all will see him, the kings, the politicians, those who have excluded him from their lives, those who have pierced him at the cross and pushed him aside and hidden themselves from their call into his baptismal priesthood.

God is the Alpha and the Omega!  The beginning and the end.  Will God find you uncovered in Christ, or will he uncover your reality hidden with this world? 

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. (Revelation 1:7 ESV)

With Pilate, all those who have pierced Jesus, literally, “kicked him out”, will wail on account of him.  Their wailing will occur because they will be chopped, cut down in their kingdom, because his kingdom will come and discontinue all other kingdoms!  In his justice and love, God has the first and last say. 

Before this finally occurs, you and I have access to the unhidden truth, to be unhidden, so that what we seek to hide can be bound to the cross.  We now have the freedom through Christ’s blood, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be unhidden before others, so they too can have sins bound and be sinners set free by what Jesus unhides at the cross and in the unhidden truth of his Word.

What is the truth?  Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”(John 14:6 ESV)

Even so, your kingdom come! Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 26 Proper 28 - Mark 13 "Final Day Failure to See Failure"

On January sixteen, two thousand and three, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in the United States of America, launched space shuttle Columbia into a sixteen-day orbit around the earth for an extensive scientific mission.  It never touched down!  In the sixteenth minute before it was due to land, mission control lost contact with the orbiter as it broke up on re-entry over Texas and Louisiana. 

The greatest fears were confirmed as video from the media was broadcast to the US nation, unbeknown to mission control in Houston, who were still trying to reestablish contact with Columbia.

A chunk of foam, not unlike the expander foam you can buy at a hardware store, just twenty-one to twenty-seven inches long by twelve to eighteen inches wide, that’s about half to three-quarters of a metre by thirty to forty-five centimetres.  It broke off the large propellant tank strapped under the shuttle, just eighty or so seconds after launch, smashing into the reinforced carbon-carbon covering the left wing of the orbiter.

There were concerns over the incident by some at NASA, but it was dismissed because it was unbelievable that foam could damage, let alone, destroy reinforced carbon-carbon on the wing of the Columbia.

The scientific mission of Columbia was ended, ironically,  by a scientific impossibility, as some believed.  However, in the aftermath of the disaster, it was shown through experiment that foam could destroy reinforced carbon-carbon, when it’s travelling at high speed.

The fracturing of foam was known to NASA.  Yet people at NASA control still kept sending astronauts into orbit knowing brittle bits of foam were being dislodged.  Some of which earlier had caused damage to one of the Atlantis shuttle’s solid fuel rockets without catastrophe, since these are ejected after launch, not needed for re-entry. 

However, the damage to the Columbia space shuttle orbiter proved fatal on re-entry, due to catastrophic destruction of the left wing’s protection from the foam collision on take-off.  Therefore, without this protection, the super heating that occurs on re-entry, opened the vehicle for destruction, and the crew was lost.

The great pleasure in NASA,  and the accomplishment of a successful mission dissolved into NASA’s and the United States’ realisation of their greatest fears. What they had marvelled over as their greatest achievement brought about their greatest fears, destruction and death!

The disciples marvelled at the stones and the buildings of the Jerusalem temple, to which Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2 ESV)

This was not the first temple but the second.  Solomon’s temple had long been sacked, and in its wake, Herod set about to construct the second temple.  Last week we heard in Solomon’s Psalm one hundred and twenty-seven, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.” (Psalm 127:1–2a ESV)

However, the Jews didn’t take heed of God’s Word, nor the four hundred years of events that led to Jesus’ coming.  Rather, they vainly trusted in themselves and their deeds, forgetting what led to Israel’s and Judah’s destruction and desolation.  Hear the unbelief of the people when God sought to call their vanity to account through Jeremiah…

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 7:3-4, 8–11 ESV)

From Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus prophesy the reality of Jerusalem and its temple in the end times.  After the destruction and desolation, that saw their forefathers exiled to Babylon and beyond, having not remained under the warnings from God in his Word, they continued refusing to listen to Jesus, the Son of God, and sought their own desires causing desolation and destruction.  

In these last days, in which we have been since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the church continues to test God with its opposition to his Word, and fails to heed its warnings, as it seeks to place its trust in culture and the authority of the mob.

Our General Pastors’ Conference and General Convention of Synod, like NASA, like the Jews, has not listened to God and his Word, nor the advice of previous synods, nor two thousand years of Christ sustaining his church from desolation and destruction. 

At best, what is done has occurred through apathy, as a deception of the “abomination of desolation standing where here ought not be” (Mark 13:14)  That is, evil in the place of Christ, masked as an angel of light, working through mischief to lead the apathetic into a unity of ignorance that’s false and leads to destruction.

At worst, like those who lead others into deception, some are acting with deliberate disobedience before God and his Word, by placing themselves over the Word of God in seeking to conform the church to the catastrophic cultural corruption all around us.   

So, like NASA and the pressure upon it to be popular and positive, the church is led into negatives that lead to the worst.  Without addressing the issue that was the worst, the worst occurred at NASA.  Nothing was learnt from the “sins of the past”.  Nothing was done about the foam breakage issues, until it was too late.

The greatest fear in front of us in God’s church, is that we become lost to our baptismal salvation, like the crew and vehicle of Columbia.  In ignorance, we trust in the word of others, rather than God’s Word, and tempt finding ourselves on the wrong side of God’s judgement.  

We can lose control and burn up so close to salvation, through apathy and deception, or active wilful disobedience.

Don’t let what others say, “is a harmless little piece of foam”, when it can destroy your baptismal faith!  Don’t allow your faith to become a piece of foam that destroys you.  Don’t let that which is meant to protect you become dislodged so that it destroys you!  If you think this can’t happen to you, I invite you to open God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to show you that it can, and has, to God’s chosen people, who had “the temple of the Lord”, that ultimately, he allowed to be destroyed in 70AD.

Speaking of NASA and the disaster, a shuttle chief engineer said, “I feel ashamed!  So, who’s guilty? I’m not just going to say the program managers are. We’re all guilty. If you don’t speak up for your own system and you’re victims of this environment, we’re guilty too!” (Rodney Rocha – NASA Shuttle Chief Engineer, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

How do we galvanise ourselves against our greatest fear, eternal death and destruction?  On judgement day it’s no good saying to God, “I believed in Pastor Heath!  I believed in the bishops!  I believed in the LCANZ!  I believed in what I felt, in what “I” thought about God.  We have to believe “the Word of God”!  To open it!  Read it!  Pray for understanding, worked in you by the Holy Spirit, so you stand in submission under Jesus Christ and his Word!  God calls you to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

Jesus says to you who desire to fear and love God, who fear eternal death over earthly death, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:5–6 ESV)

The seemingly harmless pleasures, “the pieces of foam”, within each of us, within our congregation, parish, district, and synod, can destroy us and bring eternal desolation.  Therefore, be strengthened in the Word of God to be on guard against your sinful self; the evil within.  Be strengthened against the cultures of chaos working through others; the evil from without!   Be strengthened against the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not be; that is, the devil, the evil one, inside and outside the church!

Since Christ ascended into heaven, the commonwealth of God’s holy church has always been tempted into becoming common by losing the holiness of its wealth.  Two thousand years into the end times, some have lost sight of what makes us holy, that sets us apart from the world, as God’s children, as his commonwealth. 

This commonwealth community of God is a republic of repentance.  Our eternal wealth is built on the knowledge of our failures having been forgiven.  The Holy Spirit leads us as a republic of repentant sinners constantly being forgiven in Jesus Christ.  The fragility that fractures this faith, is your human spirited apathy or wilful disobedience to participate in the Holy Spirit’s republic of repentance. We’re being made one as the Holy Spirit works common repentance, reviving us as God’s renewed public property, a holy commonwealth in Christ.

Your fear of failure needs you to understand your weakness and ability to fail!  If you don’t, you will place your faith in yourself; the very thing that causes your failure.  Failure to repent, to know you need to repent, is catastrophic!  

An accident investigator of the Columbia tragedy said, “This was a known failure. But I think failure to imagine being wrong, the failure to imagine the consequences of failure, are catastrophic.  And I think it’s this whole notion of the failure, to imagine failure.” (Patrick Goodman – Accident Investigator, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

Like NASA, the Jews failed to recognise their failure to follow God’s Law and their failure by trusting in the temple the Lord gave them, rather than his Word.  When we fail to recognise our failure and the forgiveness offered because of our failure, and place faith in what fails us, we become like those who believe in the temple, rather than God who gave the temple.  And like those who believed a cheap piece of foam couldn’t harm reinforced carbon-carbon.

The only safe ship that will deliver you through the atmosphere of failure and death into eternity, is the eternally enduring coverings of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh!  Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 25 Proper 27 - Psalm 127 "Little Pigs"

We all know the tale of the three little pigs who built three houses to protect themselves from the big bad wolf. 

A house of straw was built by the first pig whose labours proved nothing for the big bad wolf to huff and puff and blow the house down.  He runs to the second pig who built his house of sticks.  But his house also succumbs to the wind of the wolf, albeit with a few extra huffs and puffs.  They then find shelter in the third house that their brother had built out of bricks. 

The wolf cannot blow the house down and is tricked into climbing down the chimney with the idea he can devour the three little pigs once inside.  However, at the bottom of the chimney is a boiling pot of water put there by the pigs.  The wolf is scalded to death in the boiling cauldron and as nursery rhymes go, they all live happily ever after.

The three pigs now live without fear, trusting in what they’ve achieved, to pursue whatever they desire to do.  Like winning the lottery, they live limited only by what they can imagine. 

Fast forward to a time in the future.  Where are those three, aged pensioner pigs now?  How have they fared in the wake of the wolf?

They’ve got families now!  Little pigs upon little pigs litter their properties!  Prosperity has also seen the three little pig enterprise grow into a massive operation.  In the eyes of many outside the organisation, these three porkers of pleasure have become what the big bad wolf was, ruling their kingdom in their power and glory.

But really, how healthy are the three pigs?  Yes! They have become masters of their domain.  Yet all three live in suspicion of each other.  The two pigs that fled to the third pigs house of brick, ride on the rigorous planning and work the third little pig always seems to produce.  Two pensioner pigs and their families live in laziness, loving the life afforded to them by their brother.  But this third little pig resents them for their life of ease while he, a workaholic, can’t stop building and planning for the future.

But his work has taken its toll!  The stress of keeping his enterprise afloat sees him riddled with cancer with days to live.  There’s a new big bad wolf in the house and he can’t escape it.  Nor is it any better for the other two and their families.  Their life of luxury sees them suffering from all the diseases of a delightful life.  Now that their brother is dying, and his children will inherit the dynasty, they will not be able to continue affording the medications that mediate their lives.  Their attitude to working and life is so engrained they now resent the third pig as a big bad wolf for not giving them more of what they have selfishly taken.

As listeners and observers of this extended fable, built on the three little pig nursery rhyme, you will have identified with events that have recently occurred in the media, the community, and perhaps even your own life.  If not the events, perhaps the health struggles, or the feelings with which you daily deal, living with others.

We are all builders of some sort.  It’s in our DNA to build stuff.  We get this from God, our Heavenly Father.  He is the eternal builder; he created heaven and earth!  Yet what we build shows that although we get the gift to build from God, we use it in a way that does not please God.

In Psalm 127, King Solomon the builder of the temple in Jerusalem, raises up the reality that the Lord God is the true builder and keeper, and the consequences for us when we usurp him.  As we’ve heard, Solomon says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (Psalm 127:1–2 ESV)

Three times we hear that unless it comes from God, works are worked in vain.  In fact, this word, “vain”, means a deed of destruction rather than construction, and a deed that brings desolation rather than habitation.

Unless the Lord builds, those who build, construct with destruction.  Unless the Lord watches, those who watch, watch their destruction.  It is for desolation that you rise early and delay rest to carve your idols.  To “carve your idols” is the literal meaning of “eating the bread of anxious toil”.

We all pray to our Father, “your kingdom come”.  However, how often are we led into the temptation to build our own kingdoms?  But for what?  Solomon spells out the reality… vanity that leads to destruction and desolation!

If we return to the three little pigs there are three shelters built, a straw house, a house of sticks and a building of bricks.

Those of us who build straw houses trust in things that are short lived.  So much of what’s relied on today are straw houses built for immediate gratification.  Here today gone tomorrow, knowingly temporary at best.  The easy road that leads to destruction.

Then some build houses of sticks, that are transitory as well.  They might last a lifetime.  However, they too become dwellings of destruction and desolation.

Those who trust in the first two dwellings, do so to their detriment.  Trusting in the third dwelling brings destruction too but it’s different, it’s built of brick!  This is the place where most dwell, having fled the transient houses which have not served us well in this life.  But this house of brick that seemingly protects us from the big bad wolf, that seemingly drowns all the big bad desires in life, is actually the dwelling in which the spirit of our destructive desires, seeks its daily resurrection in those who trust in its walls.

The fairytale temptation to build our own kingdom might seem all good in a house of brick.  But the house remains to decay in this world, long after your frame has decayed in its grave.

Unless the Lord, our Father, builds the house, we do so in vain!  The kingdom, the power, and the glory are his, not ours!  What kingdom are you building for yourself?  As I’ve mentioned, we’re all builders, it’s in our nature!  But what does your building exalt?  What god is glorified?  In what kingdom is your trust?  Whose power is working in your world? 

In this Psalm God invites you to look into yourself and see the kingdom you’re building, the power with which one builds it, and for whose glory you’re building it!  In his word God reveals human construction as destruction and humanity’s efforts for habitation as bringing desolation.

The second half of Psalm 127 Solomon speaks about habitation, through producing children.  We hear, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” (Psalm 127:3–5 ESV)

It seems the little pigs after surviving the big bad wolf, set about making more little pigs!  Many in the church today see the future of the church as children. 

So, by the will of man children are produced, by the will of man children are thought of as the church, and by the will of man the children flee the straw idol that’s been constructed for them in the fairytale minds of others.  Every child of God is presented with a kingdom coming, then they’re encouraged to embrace the straw, stick, or a brick kingdom that’s not built by God!  Some reject these, only to flee to other fairytale dwellings.  But some realise the grave reality of our situation, trusting what our Maker tells us in his Word!

The reality of the matter is this:  pigs don’t build houses!  That’s a fairytale!  Likewise, humans don’t build heaven!  Worse than a fairytale, building your kingdom is a deceptive lie that brings eternal desolation and despair!  When one tries to build heaven, they’re just creating a place in hell!  The kingdoms we humans believe we’re building are myths and mirages, vanities that lead to destruction, desolation and despair.  In a huff and a puff these houses are blown down forever! 

Still, there’s another little pig who didn’t build a house, nor ran away, but allowed himself to be built as the foundation and cornerstone of the Father’s eternal house.  He was nailed to a tree in time,  even though he was with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the beginning to create all things.  In this holy house, God’s house, the devil is truly cooked!  He knows it!  And he rages in these last days to deliver as many as possible into destruction and desolation!

However, you are holy bricks in this holy house of God!  If you believe in the Cornerstone, you have the right to be God’s children. You are the bricks being baked and built into the eternal kingdom of God!  Gathered together and built by the Holy Spirit into an eternal dwelling!  Built into a holy place where Jesus is worshipped through repentance of sin, confessed that he is the resurrection and the life, for the forgiveness of your sins and the sins of those around you.

As God builds you into his house, you’re in his kingdom, in all his glory, in all his power, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.