There is progress in life, there is progress in history, because the Lord is building, working, and watching with man; and man is learning. slowly, alas! and by stages that seem imperceptible each moment, visible only over a long range of generations that the one way of life, the one fountain of blessing, is the taming of his self-will to build, and watch, and work with God.
I. The great concern of man's life on earth is the discovery and establishment of a harmony between himself and God. The concord of man's thought and activity with God's is the secret upon earth of all true, real, and abiding work.
II. Man, we say familiarly, is the architect of his own fortune. It is a poor limitation; he is the architect of his own character and his own destiny. By the house of life I mean those principles and habits of moral judgment and action which are the true house of the soul, wherein it dwells and from which it comes forth to work benignly or malignly for itself and mankind. Of that house man is the architect, not God; that house he is daily building, and that building will abide and be the home or the prison of the soul throughout eternity.
III. If you would build wisely, look to the foundations. Christ is the one Rock on which the house of life must rest if it is to escape the floods and fires by which all that is perishable must perish, and be lifted on high among the imperishable things through eternity. The question, "What think ye of Christ?" is the vital question for every one of us.
IV. And build daily in conscious, blessed dependence on the co-operation of a higher hand. There is One working with you, working in you, who alone can make your building of the house of life a large and lasting success.
J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiii., p. 103.
References: Psalms 127:1. C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays,p. 1.Psalms 127:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. i., No. 12.Psalms 127:3. W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 369. Psalms 127 S. Cox, The Pilgrim Psalms,p. 155.