Reverence & Reward

Psalm 128:1-6 July 27, 2025 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis The fear of the Lord—understood as filial reverence expressed in both attitude and action—is the pathway to genuine biblical blessings, which God faithfully gives according to his own timing and type rather than our specifications.

Series

Psalms

Type

Expository

Tone

didacticpastoralpolemic

Method

grammatical-historicalredemptive-historicalcanonical

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

57 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #18

"Applies the three-part ordering to the congregation with direct instruction. Critiques contemporary culture (social media hustle culture) for emphasizing effort without examining the worthiness of goals."

Doctrinal loci· 13 surfaced

Sanctification · 13 Christology · 11 Theology Proper · 10 Soteriology · 7 Ethics / Moral Theology · 6 Bibliology · 5 Ecclesiology · 5 Pastoral Theology · 4 Providence / Sovereignty · 3 Anthropology · 2 Covenant Theology · 1 Doxology / Worship · 1 Eschatology · 1

Bible citations· 34

Illustrations· 4

C.S. Lewis and the Unexpected Legacy historical example · unit #11 — Illustrates the timing-and-type principle using C.S. Lewis's life. Shows how a man who never had biological children of his own became a spiritual father to millions through his literary work—demonstrating that God's rewards are real but often come in unexpected forms.
Misplaced Drive cultural reference · unit #14 — Illustrates the tragedy of misaligned desires through general observation of driven people pursuing worthless goals. Sets up the more specific illustration to follow.
Wealth Without Wisdom personal story · unit #15 — Provides a concrete, personal-memory illustration of wealth without wisdom—a man who gained resources but spent them on garish displays revealing spiritual poverty. Makes the abstract principle of ordered desires viscerally memorable.
Marriage and Eternal Priorities personal story · unit #29 — Personal story illustrating how the pastor and his wife discerned their proper ordering of values early in marriage—focusing on the two eternal realities: people and God's word.

Theological claims· 13

Belief that God rewards those who seek him is essential to Christian faith, not peripheral to it. unit #3
Human beings are anthropologically constituted to be motivated by rewards—this is how God made us, not a corruption of our nature. unit #4
The church's reaction against prosperity gospel has led to an over-spiritualization of biblical rewards that undermines the motivation structure God designed. unit #5
Mark 10:29-30 establishes that New Covenant believers should expect both temporal and eternal rewards, but the form of temporal rewards requires faith and discernment rather than rigid literalism. unit #9
Biblical faith in divine rewards requires trusting God's sovereignty over both when and how he gives blessings, not demanding specific outcomes on our timetable. unit #10
Mature Christians must cultivate a proper ordering of desires, wanting better things more than lesser things. unit #12
The ability to delay gratification for greater rewards is foundational to human flourishing and is the primary predictor of socioeconomic well-being. unit #20
When we learn to love the process of obedience itself, we gain both immediate reward (daily satisfaction) and increased capacity to wait for ultimate rewards. unit #23
These three attitudes toward reward—proper ordering, delayed gratification, and love for the process—are not peripheral to Christian discipleship but woven into the fabric of New Testament ethics. unit #24
The church is the epicenter where God's two eternal priorities—people and his word—align, making it the natural focus for Christians with properly ordered desires. unit #30
The fear of the Lord is the biblical mechanism that produces blessings across all domains of life. unit #34
The modern church's inability to understand the fear of the Lord stems from the destruction of filial reverence in parenting, which historically provided the experiential category for understanding divine reverence. unit #38
The fear of God produces real blessings, but receiving them requires ongoing trust in God's sovereignty over both the timing and form of those blessings. unit #46

Quotations· 2

"Filial fear is a holy inclination of the heart generated by God in the hearts of his children, whereby they, out of reverence for God, take careful pains not to displease God and earnestly endeavor to please him in all things." — Breckel (unit #40)

"To fear the Lord is to be deeply aware that everything I do, say, and think, or don't do and say is open to the all-seeing eyes of God, my creator, father, and judge. And therefore, I am to be genuinely concerned to live in such a way as to please him and keep my conscience clear before him." — unnamed Dutch theologian (unit #41)

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Full transcript

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0 · The pastor frames the sermon's purpose: equipping the congregation with two interpretive tools for reading Psalms—how to understand reward language and the fear of the Lord

Be seated. If you'll open your Bibles to the book of Psalms, we're in Psalm 128 this morning. Psalm 128 is an extraordinarily brief psalm. I chose it because I wanted to continue something we've been doing through this series, and that is I want to give you the sort of toolkit for how to read the psalms in general. And this particular psalm is going to give you two toolkits for two particular things you'll see over and over and over in the book. Like one being, you're just going to see when you read psalms and Proverbs in particular, you're going to see a ton of reward language. And so I want to talk about how to understand the reward language of the scriptures. And then you're also going to see a lot about the fear of the Lord. And I want to talk a little bit about what it means to fear the Lord.

1 · Full reading of the primary text

The psalm itself, as I mentioned, is quite short. We can read the whole thing rather quickly. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. You shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel.

2 · Announces the sermon's two-part structure and transitions into the first major section on reward language

So the first thing let's do this morning, let's break this sermon into two sections. And the first section will just be understanding the reward language in the Bible.

3 · Establishes the theological centrality of reward to Christian faith by anchoring it in Hebrews 11:6

Reward language is central to the essence of Christianity. Hebrews 11.6, without faith it's impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. What's the essence of Christianity? It's a faith relationship with God. And you can't be a faithful Christian without believing that God rewards those who seek him.

4 · Moves from the theological claim about Christianity to an anthropological claim about all humanity

But it's not only central or foundational to Christianity. It's actually foundational to humanity. Proverbs 16.26 is making an anthropological assertion about the nature of human beings. It's basically saying, what makes us tick? Proverbs 16.26, a worker's appetite works for him. His mouth urges him on. Do you understand what that means? Proverbs 16.26, a worker's appetite works for him. That means that we are motivated by the rewards that come from our effort. Just as people, that's who we are. We're motivated by the rewards that come from our efforts. That's why we exert effort, generally speaking.

5 · Identifies a pastoral problem: the church's over-correction against prosperity gospel has resulted in the opposite error—an over-spiritualization that evacuates biblical reward language of its motivational power

So we really do need to have some clarity about the reward language in the Bible. And not in some way that it blows it all up and mystifies it or supernatural or spiritualizes it. See, we have a big problem on this subject. And that is because there's this whole subset of heresies related to the so-called prosperity gospel. And I have a really deep concern that in an effort to avoid that error, we have plunged into another error. And we have over-spiritualized and over-transcended the reward language of the Bible so as to make it mean almost nothing but you get more of Jesus or something like that. And in an effort to overcome some of the wrong assertions that the prosperity gospel makes, I believe we have actually spiritualized and really taken away some of the basic motivation structure that the Bible offers.

6 · Develops the theological claim by connecting it to pastoral observation—that Christians lack godly motivation because they've been taught that biblical rewards don't apply to them

The Bible actually does have a motivation structure that's consistent with both the nature of God, Hebrews 11, and the nature of man. We work for rewards. And if we blow this up and then we look around and see a bunch of Christians who are less motivated than ever to be godly, we might ask, maybe that's because you told them that all of the rewards the Bible promises aren't for them. And that they should just be happy to do the right thing. And so we have to be careful when we think about this. There is, of course, some truth to the spiritualization of reward language in the scriptures. It's just, it's not as simple as we want it to be.

7 · Analyzes the motivations behind over-spiritualization—pastoral convenience and theological defensiveness

Think about why we would want it to be simple. We want it to be simple. And let's say we want it to be spiritual and not physical, maybe for two reasons. One, we distance ourselves from the prosperity error. And two, we have an easier way of talking to people who are Christians who are not experiencing temporal blessings. There's going to be people who hear this text today and think, I'm not experiencing this. And we might, instead of saying, well, let's think about it. And, you know, the logical answer is probably, well, just wait. You know, I waited patiently upon the Lord. You will reap good things if you do not grow weary. But you've got people here who would say, I'm not experiencing these blessings. I'm trying to walk with the Lord. And this great temptation would be to sort of assert that all those blessings are really, but you have Jesus. It's like, well, yes, but is that how the Bible talks? Because we don't want to be smarter than the Bible. We can't be smarter than the Bible. I think the passage that gives us the most clarity on these issues is something Jesus said in Mark 10, 29 through 30.

8 · Exegetes Mark 10:29-30, emphasizing Jesus' explicit promise of hundredfold temporal rewards in this life alongside eternal life in the age to come

This is where Jesus says, if you don't leave any, if you're not willing to leave everything for me, you're not my disciple. And Peter says, we have left everything for you. And listen to what Jesus says in Mark 10, 29. I truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions. And in the age to come, eternal life.

9 · Draws the theological principle from Mark 10: believers should expect real temporal blessings, but the type of blessing requires discernment—God doesn't promise literal multiplication but real, tangible blessing in forms that may differ from expectations

This is helpful for all these tensions I've described. It tells us that indeed in the new covenant with Christ, we should still expect temporal blessings as we follow God. You see that? It says that right there. It also says that that those blessings will be of a type that requires some discernment. He's not saying that if you leave your father, you will get. What's the ratio here? A hundredfold. He's not saying if you leave your father, you'll get a hundred biological fathers. So this loosens the language. This loosens reward language in the Bible a little bit without destroying it. We say God is going to bless me if I follow him. He's going to bless me in real ways. But also those ways may not be exactly like I'm expecting.

10 · Synthesizes the Mark 10 exposition into a governing principle: trust God with both timing and type of rewards

So the basic idea here is that we trust God with the timing and the type of reward that he gives us when we follow him. The timing and the type. We have some confidence of his faithfulness and he will reward those who seek him. He will bless the man who fears him. We just don't want to get overly specific in a sense of saying, and therefore it must be exactly this at exactly this time. So if you're being kind of a whiny pot about something God isn't doing for you, that's not fearing the Lord. We'll get to fear the Lord in a minute. The fear of the Lord would basically say, God, I trust you that you will reward me for seeking you and that those rewards will be good, but they will be according to your timing and your type.

11 · Illustrates the timing-and-type principle using C

Here's an example. In Psalm 128, we're told that the man who fears the Lord will have an overflowing, you know, sort of family legacy or so forth. And I was thinking about old C.S. Lewis this week and I was thinking about how, well, you know, he did eventually get married and he had two step-sons. And he had good relationships with those step-sons, but the biological father was still very much a picture in that situation. And so even after their mom died, these kids had just gone through a lot. They'd gone through a divorce, sounds like a dad that wasn't so great. They watched their mom die of bone cancer and wound up, you know, the step-sons of C.S. Lewis. It's a busy time. Anyway, so C.S. Lewis did have kids in some sense. But really, I would point to the fact that well before this, are there other people that you can think of that have raised more children on the basic nature of Jesus Christ than C.S. Lewis with his Narnia trilogy? So in some sense, he never had kids of his own, but Jesus' words in this passage are true. He devoted himself to serving the Lord, and he wound up being the father in a reasonably true sense to millions of children. That's what I mean. God will reward us, and they will be real rewards, but we don't get to call the timing or the type in precision.

12 · Transitions to prescriptive application: three attitudes believers should cultivate toward rewards

I think that's all coming out of this Mark 10, 29 statement from Jesus. So those are some things to think about with rewards. I'd like to talk also just quickly about the ideal person and their ideal attitudes toward rewards. I would want you to have three attitudes toward rewards. The first one is I would want you to have a proper ordering of loves, a proper ordering of rewards. I would want you to want the best things more than you want the less best things, right? That would be very important to just being a mature human is to want better things more than you want less things. And so the Bible has plenty of instances where Jesus and the Scriptures remind you that there is an order of things you should be seeking. Matthew 16, 26. What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world but lost his soul?

13 · Reinforces the ordering-of-desires principle by referencing last week's sermon on Psalm 19, showing continuity in the series and canonical support for hierarchical desires

That's a statement of a hierarchy or an ordering of loves. We saw last week that David, after paying real tribute to creation, says, But there's something even better, and that's Scripture. More to be desired than gold or honey are God's laws. So there is an ordering to what we should like.

14 · Illustrates the tragedy of misaligned desires through general observation of driven people pursuing worthless goals

And one of the most tragic things you'll experience as a people watcher is you'll see someone who has been blessed with a ton of tenacity and drive but terrible taste. And they will spend all of their God-given potential in self-discipline and drive to get things that are stupid. It's a real rough thing to see. I remember, and this is, by the way, mostly what you see in the world are people who are, honestly, you should emulate them in their drive and their tenacity. But what should make you cringe is the things that they spent their life trying to accomplish. So they have the ambition and the drive. They just don't have a proper ordering of desires, a proper ordering of rewards.

15 · Provides a concrete, personal-memory illustration of wealth without wisdom—a man who gained resources but spent them on garish displays revealing spiritual poverty

About an hour south of me, deep in the Ozark Hills, you get all these little really small towns south of my place that I grew up. You get all these really small towns, and they're all, of course, dying. And, you know, mostly trailers and stuff like that. And there was somebody who made it big. I don't know how, but he made it really big. You know, probably multiple millions of dollars somehow. Honestly, it was probably like an auto accident or something. He probably got hit by a truck. I don't know. But anyway, he got a bunch of money, but his taste did not improve. And so in the middle of this town full of trailers and a case, he's in a Dollar General, you've got this huge stucco mansion that's pink with Cupid fountains, you know, nude Cupid fountains all over. And it's just like, man, like, I would love to have your money. I would not love to have your taste.

16 · Applies the illustration to the congregation's varied situations

So one of the big reminders as we think about reward language is, you know, we haven't all been given the same hand of cards from the Lord. Some of us do have more drive than others. And we think, well, that's kind of unfair. God gave some people more tenacity, more drive than others. It's like, well, it kind of evens out sometimes because some of us actually have a better sense of what we should be seeking. This psalm, you know, has a good ordering of rewards. This psalm has a good ordering of blessings. This is how I would make your taste if I could.

17 · Returns to close exposition of Psalm 128, extracting a three-part structure of properly ordered desires: blessed work, blessed family, blessed church/kingdom

Essentially, let's go back to the psalm real quick. Psalm verse 1, blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. First thing we see is a blessing on his work. Verse 2, you shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. You'll be blessed and it shall be well with you. So that's one blessing I think you should want. You should want your work to be blessed. Next, we see his family is blessed. Verse 3, your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall be the man who be blessed who fears the Lord. So I want my work to be blessed. That's a good thing to want. I want my family to be blessed. That's a good thing to want. And the third is, is like he wants the kingdom to be blessed or the church. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

18 · Applies the three-part ordering to the congregation with direct instruction

So that's a good starter point. A good starter pack for good desires. Here's three things you should want. These are good things to want. You'd want your work to be blessed, your family to be blessed, and your church to be blessed. So make sure you pay attention to your taste, not just your tenacity. It seems like all the social media stuff is all about hustle and not about like, well, what are you hustling for? Do you have like a reasonable desires that are good for you and good for others? I see that that gets neglected a lot.

19 · Summarizes the first of three ideal attitudes toward rewards and transitions to the second

So number one would be what you'd want in terms of reward seeking. Make sure you've got good taste and that you have a properly ordered set of rewards that you're seeking.

20 · Introduces the second ideal attitude: capacity for delayed gratification

Number two, make sure that you have an ability to sustain your effort for delayed rewards. What you need is you need the ability to pursue rewards that don't come easily or quickly because those are the best ones. You could pretty much just, again, evaluate someone's ability to delay gratification and just pin them on the socioeconomic chart like pretty much dead on. This is essentially what separates. In America, anyway, this is essentially what, for the most part, separates class and economic well-being. It isn't race. It isn't, you know, it's literally just do you have the ability to delay gratification? If so, I can chart you in a certain place and if not.

21 · Connects delayed gratification back to Psalm 128, showing that all three categories of blessing (work, family, church) require patience and sustained effort over time

So the second thing is just like having an ability to pursue rewards that don't come very quickly. And all of the rewards listed in Psalm 128 are like that, right? They're all things that take time. Work by definition is a ladder of accomplishments leading to payoffs down the road. Raising a family is very much that way. And of course, having a passion for the church, having a passion for your local church or the kingdom at large, that's a long-term vision.

22 · Summarizes the first two attitudes and transitions to the third

So I want you to have really good taste. I want you to be good at delaying gratification and pursuing the rewards that have a big gap between your effort and when you reap.

23 · Introduces the third ideal attitude: loving the process itself, not just the outcome

And third, a love for the process itself. What do I mean by that? Well, this psalm is not saying that this man is doing all this to be blessed. That's not what's happening here. He just loves God. He just loves God as a person. He has a relationship with God. Are motivations and rewards a part of that? Of course, because he's a human. But boy, when you get to the point where you learn to just enjoy the process, the ability to wait for extended periods of time for the payoff becomes massive, right? If I learn to just love parenting day in and day out, if I learn to just love the basic habits of caring for my wife day in and day out, and that process is rewarding in and of itself, then down the road, see, all that time I don't need payoffs. I don't need, it's not as transactional. I just love doing the stuff. I love the process. And as I love the process, I grow in my patience because I'm basically getting rewarded every day.

24 · Summarizes all three attitudes and connects them to the broader New Testament command structure, showing that these three virtues are not add-ons but integral to Christian obedience and discipleship

So these are the three things that you would, as I studied the Bible, that you'd want to raise your kids around and you would want to be about as well. Good taste, a proper ordering of values, of rewards. Number two, the ability to suspend the need for immediate payoff. And three, learning to love the process, learning to love the work itself as an act unto the Lord and so forth. And of course, you know, depending on your understanding of Christianity, you probably see how this is all woven in to all of the command structure in the New Testament. When we're told to do things, it's, it's this, all of this stuff is part of it. It's, it all works together in kind of a harmony. This idea of being able to do the right thing, even if there's not an obvious payout, it's just an expression of loving God.

25 · Uses Habakkuk 3 as a prophetic example of someone who embodies all three virtues—loving God in the absence of visible reward, demonstrating that faithfulness to God transcends (but does not eliminate) the reward structure

In the book of Habakkuk, in chapter three, he says this to the Lord, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food. The flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like deers. He makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with strained instruments. So he is able to say, I still want God to do stuff for me, but also I love God. And even if there's no fig on the tree, even if nothing comes of this in my lifetime, I'm still glad that I'm walking with God.

26 · Synthesizes the three attitudes with the timing-and-type principle from earlier, then announces a hermeneutical move: testing the anthropological claim against Jesus as the perfect human

So those three things, taste, delayed gratification, and loving the process. That seems to be, with all the biblical data, that seems to be how we should be oriented toward rewards. And you add that stuff to this idea that I will trust God with the timing and type. And then you kind of wind up with, that's how a mature Christian thinks about rewards. Now, when I say things like, this is how a mature Christian thinks about things, when someone says that, what we should always want to do is we should want to test that against Jesus. Anytime we make an anthropological claim, and I say, this is what a human is, well, let's see. Because we have the perfect human, and we can look at the perfect human and see if I'm right or not.

27 · Demonstrates that Jesus perfectly embodies the first two attitudes (love for the process, delayed gratification) and that he explicitly uses reward language in John 4, proving the pastor's framework is Christologically sound

John 4 would be a great proof text for me to prove that I'm right. Because in John 4, we see, number one, that he does take pleasure in the process. He has just finished talking to the woman at the well. The disciples come up to him and say, hey, have you eaten at all today? This was a problem for Jesus throughout his ministry. And have you eaten at all today? And he says what? What does he say? He says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me. So his reward structure, fundamentally, is just to do God's stuff. Walk with the Father. He loves the process. Number two, his ambitions are certainly extended over a period of time. If you've ever read in Hebrews where it says to fix your eyes on Jesus, who took the cross and forsook the shame and looked to the joy, Jesus is perfect at this. He is perfect at delaying gratification for big rewards on the back end. In John 4, he says to the disciples, do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields are white with harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages. See it? Reward language built in. Does he love the process? Yes, he's happy to just do the work. Does that abandon his desire or his understanding of rewards? No. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. So Jesus is both process-oriented and reward-oriented.

28 · Shows that Jesus also embodies the third attitude—proper ordering of desires—with God's will as supreme and seeking the lost as subordinate

And finally, he has proper-oriented loves. Jesus has got a real clear structure of what he's seeking. The first one is to do the Father's will, and the second one is to seek and save the lost. He's got a proper orientation of the things that are important.

29 · Personal story illustrating how the pastor and his wife discerned their proper ordering of values early in marriage—focusing on the two eternal realities: people and God's word

Gwen Ange and I were pretty young. Our kids were all babies. I remember the room we were in. So this would have been probably 2000 or so. So probably about 20 years ago or more. We had one of these formative 20-something married talks where we tried to figure out what we should do with our lives and whether we were doing, whether we were on the right track or not. And I kind of obviously would talk the most in such a situation because I have opinions. And anyway, so I kind of made a big theological, you know, display of like, well, this and this and this and this. And Ange, and this was one of those moments where you realize, like, God gave me the person I need. After I got done with all of that, she said, so basically what you're saying is there's only two things that survive death, people and God's word, and so we should probably just spend our lives on those two things. I was like, yes, that's what I'm saying.

30 · Draws the theological principle from the illustration: Christians should align their values with God's values by investing in what is eternal

And so very early on in our 20s in Wesley's bedroom, actually, we were sitting there talking probably because he was in there. And we came to this conclusion. Our ordering of what's important to us should match what's important to God. What lasts past this life? Two things, people and his word. So let's just invest in those things. And we kind of wound up seeing that the church is the epicenter of where those two values align. And that's why we've been in the church in the way that we have for all these years.

31 · Direct application challenging the congregation to examine their actual priorities against their stated values

So what about you? I think the big question is, is are your things, the rewards that you're seeking, do they line up to show that you have good taste? Or did you receive probably subconsciously from the world or the devil? Have you had a set of values that just actually when you coldly analyze them, you realize, if I pursue these with my life, I will have wasted my life. Like, think about that for a minute. What are you spending your life on? What are you spending your self-discipline on? What are you spending your tenacity on? Like, what is the target for you? I think that it's important to understand that we all can say these things are the most important. God, family, church, whatever. I would ask you to really take a moment to look at your life and ask, does my life look like I have a proper ordering of loves and values?

32 · Major structural transition to the sermon's second section on the fear of the Lord

Now, let's talk about the fear of the Lord. If you look at this passage, this short passage, you'll see that this guy's awesome life is bookended and brought to you by the fear of the Lord. It's like you could take a picture of this guy. He's sitting at a fireplace and his wife is making banana bread or cheesecake. My wife made me a cheesecake. I had some cheesecake last night. You know, something like that. And he's got, you know, kids and grandkids or whatever. And he has a love for the Lord. You know, he's just in this sweet thing the Lord has done. And let's say we're making this a video. At the end of the video, we would just say, like with the small captions at the end, brought to you by the fear of the Lord.

33 · Demonstrates the literary structure of Psalm 128:1-4, showing how the fear of the Lord brackets the catalog of blessings, establishing it as the causal agent

Where did all these rewards come from? They came from the fear of the Lord. Read verses 1 through 4. And see this bookending of the fear of the Lord. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. You shall be blessed and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.

34 · Establishes the biblical-theological claim that the fear of the Lord is the engine of blessing

So if you want to understand, once you've figured out that, yeah, you would like rewards and you think you have a pretty good sense of the most important ones and you'd like those, and you're ready to invest kind of a sustained period of effort to get the bigger ones, I will just tell you the way to do that is to fear the Lord. Fear the Lord is, in the Bible, the thing that blesses people. Let me just read some passages to you. Proverbs 22, 4. The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor in life. Psalm 34, 9. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. Proverbs 14, 27. The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life that one may turn away from the snares of death. Psalm 25, 14. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. Proverbs 19, 23. The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied. He will not be visited by harm. There's tons of verses like that.

35 · Adds a second layer to the biblical theology of blessing by connecting fear of the Lord to wisdom, and wisdom to blessing, creating a two-step causal chain

But then I could go and I could grab all of the verses that talk about when you become wise, you get a lot of blessings. Right? And there's a lot of those verses that say a wise man is going to be a blessed man. And then I could just take you to Proverbs 9, 10 and say, well, where does wisdom come from? Wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 9, 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is insight. So what I'm saying here is that the structure of Psalm 128 is this man's got a great life. He's got all the things that are meaningful and good. And it's brought to you by the fear of the Lord. It was brought to him by the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is what produces blessings, real blessings in the life of the Christian, both in this life and in the life to come.

36 · Applies the fear-of-the-Lord principle polemically, contrasting it with fear of man

So one of the things I would just tell you is you're fearing something right now. And I would say you need to really consider, make sure you're not living for the world's approval. Because I will just say, like, I could take a snapshot of your mental health and it won't be great. And I could take a snapshot of your spiritual health and it won't be great. And I will just say, like, brought to you by the fear of man. You need to understand what you fear. Whose gaze you're living under. It will dictate the outcome of your life. I see many Christians who simply can't trust the Bible fully because some of it is offensive to the culture. I'm like, well, you're just being foolish. You're abandoning the fear of the Lord for the fear of the world. And they will not help you in any of these ways. You should just trust God. How about that is like every sermon forever. You should just trust God. We should just trust God.

37 · Transitions to defining the fear of the Lord by acknowledging the widespread confusion on the topic and setting up a cultural-historical diagnosis for why modern Christians struggle with it

So let's define the fear of the Lord. For my entire ministry, the church has been confused about the meaning of the fear of the Lord. I would say that some of the most persistent questions I've received over 20 years of ministry have to do with the fear of the Lord. They just, people, Christians, just have trouble with it. And I would do my best to answer it. And of course, you know, I have like a very high preference for older documents. And so I was noticing something. It took me a while to pick up on what it is. American Christians in particular, Western Christians in particular, struggle with the concept of the fear of the Lord. And older Christians never did.

38 · Offers a cultural diagnosis: modern Christians struggle with the fear of the Lord because therapeutic parenting has destroyed filial reverence in the home, which historically served as the experiential foundation for understanding divine fear

And you don't ever see this kind of troublesome thoughtfulness about the fear of the Lord in anything that's old. And the reason for that is because we used to fear our parents in a righteous way. And now parenting has been, this is my theory, by the way, this piece. This is the conclusion I've made after watching all this. There used to be a way that a, even a great home had fear as an element to it. And it was called filial reverence is the old term. And we have so messed up parenting with therapeutic language that parents don't know how to be fearsome anymore in any kind of meaningful way. They are so worried about being harsh and so worried about not being their parent's friend or their kid's friend. So worried about the soft side of the winsome gospel that they have actually not learned how to cultivate a sense of reverence and awe in their home from their kids toward them. And so I think the reason why I've had to swat these flies for, I guess, more like 30 years now in ministry, why so few Christians in America can grasp the meaning of the fear of the Lord is, is that we have really just torched the fundamental cultivator breeding ground for this sense. And that is, you used to have homes where the parents were beloved and feared.

39 · Defines the fear of the Lord using the historical term 'filial reverence

They would play catch with you. They would absolutely take care of you. Also, they held a certain amount of weight with their presence that you did not just immediately forget. And we've buried all of this goodness with all of the examples of abuse. It's another foolish thing to do. Rather than just say, well, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's pretty much all we do. But anyway, all that to say, not my theory. Americans really have trouble. With this understanding of the fear of the Lord. And the Bible is really clear. And everybody's been simple about this forever until recently. And that is, it's just a phileo reverence. Phileo reverence. Phileo just means something you owe your parent. Reverence is just awe, honor, weightiness.

40 · Provides a Reformed theological definition of the fear of the Lord via Breckel, emphasizing its dispositional nature (God-generated) and its practical expression (care not to displease God)

One of the Dutch reformers. One of the Dutch reformers, Breckel, said it this way. Phileo fear is a holy inclination of the heart generated by God in the hearts of his children, whereby they, out of reverence for God, take careful pains not to displease God and earnestly endeavor to please him in all things. And so I think that there's a reason, like, why the daddy God people struggle so much with so much in life. These people who are so overemphasizing the gentleness of God and overemphasizing the he gets us aspect of God. They don't have the fear of God. And you can see it by the way they live. This is why, you know, when we do women's ministry, we've got to be super careful that we're not leaning into what is really massively produced in that particular space in Christian literature, which is the daddy God doctrine, right? Is the fear of the Lord present in our women's ministry? Like, that's a really important question. Are when the ladies gather, are they thinking, I don't want to displease God? Or is the tone of most gatherings, God has to defend himself against why he's let me go through this or that thing. So we want to make sure that the fear of God is normative in our gatherings because it is the path of blessings.

41 · Adds a second, more contemporary definition emphasizing God's omniscience and the believer's response of conscience-keeping

Another writer who also happens to be Dutch, another theologian modern, says this. To fear the Lord is to be deeply aware that everything I do, say, and think, or don't do and say is open to the all-seeing eyes of God, my creator, father, and judge. And therefore, I am to be genuinely concerned to live in such a way as to please him and keep my conscience clear before him. I think this captures the essence of what the Bible means when it repeatedly tells us to fear God. So if you want to understand that, it's going to be more difficult for you unless you happen to be fortunate enough to grow up in a home where there was a filial reverence that was not toxic, not sinful, but godly. If you had that, I think you'll probably understand the fear of the Lord. If you didn't, I think it's going to be harder.

42 · Transitions to a second dimension of the fear of the Lord: it is not only attitudinal but also behavioral

Okay. Now, one last thing we should say is that this is not merely an attitude. When you see Psalm 128, the fear of the Lord is not something, a feeling. It's consistent with and synonymous with action.

43 · Demonstrates from Psalm 128:1 and Job 28:28 that the fear of the Lord is inextricably linked to obedience ('walks in his ways,' 'turn away from evil')

Psalm 128, 1. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and who walks in his ways. In Job 28, 28. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding. Fear of the Lord is not only an attitude. It is an action as well. It is a lifestyle, not merely a feeling.

44 · Uses the Hebrews 11 account of Noah to demonstrate that reverent fear produces concrete action (ark-building), which results in blessing

For instance, in Hebrews 11, I mentioned the first part with the reward structure that you've got to believe God exists and that he rewards those who seek him. The first example the writer of Hebrews gives to prove his point is Noah. And he says, by faith, Noah, warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household. Was he blessed? Yes. Was he blessed in the categories we were describing earlier? Yes. Was that blessing a consequence of the fear of the Lord? Yes. Was that fear more like action and not only like attitude? Yes.

45 · Uses the Abraham-Isaac narrative to show how God himself defines the fear of God as demonstrated obedience

So fear is not only an attitude, it's an action. The very next example he provides is Genesis. Josh already, or it is Abraham. Josh already mentioned Abraham. There's a classic moment when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac and the angel of the Lord, who is probably Christ, stays his hand and says, now I know you fear God. So if you're asking yourself, how do I know if I fear God? You can see evidence of that in your actions. You can see that in the way that you carefully measure your behavior, your plans, your goals against what God wants. You can see that in the way that you sort of move through your day thinking about the fact that you do live your life with a God. You can see that in the way that you confess your sin.

46 · Synthesizes the entire argument: fear of God produces blessings in work, family, and church, but receiving them requires trusting God's timing and type rather than demanding immediate, specific outcomes

Do you fear God? If you do, I think you'll be blessed. And I think you'll be blessed in very particular ways. The truth is, is that being a Christian is awesome. It's a wonderful, precious gift because God rewards those who seek him. We get to walk with God. I get to love the process of just walking with God. I do get blessings on my labors. I do get blessings on my family. I do get blessings on my church. But all these blessings come according to the timing and the type that God chooses. So I can't, like, fear God all my way to getting the blessings and then suddenly stop fearing God and be a Veruca Salt and say, But I want an Oompa Loompa now, Daddy. You know, I can't do that. If I'm going to get the reward, I have to trust that God will give me the reward he wants to give me.

47 · Major structural transition to the Christological conclusion

Now, let's end by doing what's most important with the Psalms always, and that's, like, where's Christ?

48 · Begins the Christological reading by identifying Jesus as the perfect fulfillment of Psalm 128—the archetype of the blessed man whose life is defined by filial reverence for the Father expressed in obedient action

Jesus is the archetype of this psalm. He is the most blessed man with the most blessed household, and it was all brought to you by the fear of the Lord. It says in verse 1, Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord. Jesus had filial reference for the Father who walks in his ways. Jesus did a marvelous job, a perfect job of obeying the Father and walking in his ways. Jesus says, I live to do the will of the Father. It wasn't just an attitude. He was taking action.

49 · Applies Psalm 128:2 (blessed labor) to Jesus, arguing that his three-year ministry and especially his cross-work are the most fruitful labor in history, producing countless sons and daughters brought to glory

The next thing in the psalm says, You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, and you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Here's a marvelous truth. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a three-year period of work that has produced more than the three years Jesus endeavored in his earthly ministry. It is absolutely, incomparably, the most productive period of work ever recorded in the history of the world. God did indeed bless the labor of his hands. Let's shrink this down. For about six hours, Jesus did a very particular work. You can expand that. You can think about this. His cross, whether you count that as hours or a day, is literally a very small amount of work. And look at all God the Father has done with this effort that Jesus put in. When he took on sin so that he could then take on the wrath of God against sin, and he engaged in the work of the cross, God has blessed that by producing, well, by bringing many, many sons to glory, many sons and daughters to glory. God, has God blessed the work of, God blessed the fruit of Jesus' labor? Absolutely.

50 · Applies Psalm 128:3 (fruitful wife) to Jesus by identifying the church as the bride of Christ

Now it says in the psalm that your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. And does Jesus have a wife? Here's where we get into that type and time kind of thing. Does Jesus have a wife like we do? Well, not exactly. It's something better than that. It's something bigger than that. It's not entirely spiritualized. I mean, the bride of Christ is the church. The point being that as a consequence of Jesus' faithful work under the fear of the Lord, he fell asleep without a bride and woke up with one. One born from his wounded side that he shed his precious blood to purchase and to purify so that he might present her to himself without wrinkle, spot, or blemish.

51 · Applies Psalm 128:3 (children like olive shoots) to Jesus via Isaiah 53, showing that his posterity is the countless redeemed

Does he have children? Yeah and no. Time and type. Isaiah 53 says that because of his great sacrifice, there will be no end to his posterity. He will bring many sons and daughters to glory.

52 · Completes the Christological reading by showing that Jesus is not only the perfect fulfillment of the psalm but the source of all blessings to the church

And then we see, Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children's children. Peace upon Israel. Well, Jesus has been so blessed that he is really the engine of blessing for the entire church. And so what we see in Psalm 128 actually is a nice little outline of why we all have reason to boast in Christ and the cross alone. Because there's one man who showed up and did this perfectly. And so now we can see millions of Christians, not just in this period of time, but throughout history, throughout the world, all walking with Jesus, all learning how to fear him, all learning how to encounter his blessings. And we could say, this is all brought to you by the fear of the Lord. Specifically, the fear of the Lord from Jesus, the Lord's anointed, toward the Father, who executed the most brilliant and perfect work and brought all of the blessings to us.

53 · Adds a final dimension to the Christological reading: Christ's work not only produces blessings but makes possible the very relationship with God that enables us to fear him—he gives us both the model and the means

Including, including we now have a relationship with God that will allow us to learn how to fear him.

54 · Provides concrete instruction for how to approach communion in light of the sermon: celebrate Christ's work, then petition God to cultivate the fear of the Lord more deeply

So here's what I would suggest for communion. First of all, celebrate the marvelous work that Jesus has done. That's what Jesus wants us to do every time we celebrate communion. Secondly, ask the Lord, you've been so good to me. I can see that the fear of the Lord is so important. I don't know if this is the shaping value, virtue of my life. Would you make it so? Teach me to fear you, Lord. Teach me to fear you more, O Lord.

55 · Closing prayer synthesizing the sermon's themes: praising God for the reward structure, asking for help to fear God properly without entitlement, and petitioning for faith to live out the week in light of these truths

So let me pray for us, and then you come up and get the elements, and we'll partake together. Father God, we praise your holy name for how much you love us and how faithful you are to show your love by teaching us how to follow you and how to seek rewards. Romans 2 tells us that we should, by faithfulness and well-doing, seek glory, honor, and immortality. And Lord, we want to. We want to pursue the rewards you've set before us. We want to do that in fear. We don't want to be demanding. We don't want to be entitled. We don't want you to have to answer to our opinions. But Lord, we do accept what your Bible teaches, and that is that you have great things planned for those who seek you. Would you help us to seek you, Lord? Would you help us to fear you with this filial reverence that is communicated so clearly in Scripture? And God, would you just fill our hearts full of faith? Let us walk out of here, and the next week, eager to live life unto you. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen.

56 · Formal closing

Amen. Thank you.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Jul 6, 2025

Political Power, Purity Spirals, and the Perfections of Christ

The path to political greatness is not the pursuit of power for its own sake, but the pursuit of the character that defends the defenseless — a pattern perfectly fulfilled in Christ, who frees us from idolizing or abandoning imperfect human institutions.

Psalm 72:1-20

Jul 13, 2025

Asaph's Odyssey

The local church is God's appointed place where discouraged believers encounter truth not as abstract proposition but as embodied reality in a community of faithful people, enabling them to discern the true end of the wicked and persevere in holiness.

Psalm 73:1-28

Jul 20, 2025

Science & the Scriptures

Scripture must hold a superior position to creation in our lives because only scripture provides the interpretive framework necessary to rightly understand the natural world and our place within it.

Psalm 19:1-14

July 27 · This sermon

Reverence & Reward

The fear of the Lord—understood as filial reverence expressed in both attitude and action—is the pathway to genuine biblical blessings, which God faithfully gives according to his own timing and type rather than our specifications.

Psalm 128:1-6

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

What does Psalm 128 promise to those who fear the Lord, and what specific kinds of blessings does the psalmist describe across verses 2-6?…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we trace the arc from God's design of human motivation, through the fear of the Lord as its proper channel, to the blessings that flow when we trust God's timing and learn to love obedience itself.

Prayer

A Prayer for Reverent Trust in God's Rewards

Father, we stand amazed at your character—you are a God who rewards those who seek you, who blesses the work of our hands, and who delights…

Family table

When You Want Something Badly

In the sermon, Chris talked about how we're made to want rewards—and how learning to wait for good things (instead of demanding them right n…

Couples

Fear, Reward, and the Process of Obedience

What did you hear in this sermon about how God rewards those who fear him—and did it shift how you think about blessing in your own life?…

Memorize

Psalm 128:1

This verse is the theological pivot of the entire sermon—it establishes the direct connection between the fear of the Lord (filial reverence in attitude and action) and genuine biblical blessing that forms the pastor's central claim. Memorizing it anchors believers in the conviction that reverence toward God is not peripheral religiosity but the actual pathway to God's faithful rewards across all domains of life.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

What does Psalm 128 promise to those who fear the Lord, and what specific kinds of blessings does the psalmist describe across verses 2-6?

Psalm 128:2-6

→ How do these particular blessings—work, family, provision—differ from what you might expect if you only thought of spiritual blessings?
The sermon argues that modern Christians have over-spiritualized the reward language in Scripture. What do you think we lose when we treat God's promises of blessing primarily as spiritual or eternal rather than also temporal and concrete?
According to Mark 10:29-30, Jesus promises that those who leave houses, family, and lands for his sake will receive these things back 'with persecutions'—and then eternal life. What does the phrase 'with persecutions' tell us about how we should expect God's rewards to come to us?

Mark 10:29-30

→ Can you think of an example from your own life or the life of someone you know where a blessing came in a different form or timing than expected?
The sermon identifies three attitudes that mature believers cultivate toward reward: proper ordering of desires, the capacity to delay gratification, and love for the process itself. Which of these three feels most foreign or underdeveloped in your own spiritual life right now?

→ What specific situation or relationship in your life would change if you grew stronger in that area?
The fallen condition focus of this sermon is that we often fail to truly fear the Lord—we either demand rewards on our own timetable, or we've become so skeptical of reward language that we've lost trust in God's promises altogether. Which of these two errors most accurately describes your own struggle, and what would it look like to repent of it this week?

Psalm 128:1
Jesus perfectly exemplified the fear of the Lord—he feared the Father and received blessings on his work, bride, and offspring that now flow to the entire church. How does understanding that Christ's faithful obedience secured blessings not just for himself but for us change the way you think about your own obedience and the rewards God promises?

Isaiah 53

→ In light of the gospel, what is one concrete way you can grow in the fear of the Lord this coming week?

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday Hebrews 11:6

The writer of Hebrews does not treat divine reward as a shallow addition to faith—it is intrinsic to pleasing God. We cannot genuinely approach him while denying that he rewards those who earnestly seek him; to do so is to doubt his character and his generosity. This is the bedrock: faith and reward are woven together in Scripture because God himself has woven them together.

Tuesday Proverbs 16:26

Even appetite—the most basic human drive—works by the logic of reward; the laborer's hunger motivates him to work. This is not sin or selfishness; it is the design God built into our humanity. We are creatures who respond to incentives, and God does not scold us for this reality but uses it as the mechanism through which blessing flows into our lives and work.

Wednesday Mark 10:29-30

Jesus promises that those who leave houses, family, and possessions for his sake will receive them back—but 'with persecutions' and 'in the age to come.' The blessings are real and multiple, yet they arrive on God's timetable and often wrapped in hardship we did not anticipate. Faith means trusting that the reward Jesus promises will come, even when its form surprises us or arrives years after our sacrifice.

Thursday Psalm 25:14

Those who fear the Lord receive the gift of intimate knowledge of his covenant—and with it, the blessings woven through that relationship. Fear of the Lord is not servile dread but filial reverence, a careful concern not to displease the One we love. This reverence becomes the channel through which God's blessings flow into every dimension of our existence: work, family, provision, and joy.

Friday Habakkuk 3:17-19

Habakkuk imagines total loss—no harvest, no livestock, no visible blessing—yet declares, 'I will rejoice in the Lord.' This is the maturity of delight in God himself, in the relationship and obedience that connects us to him, regardless of circumstance. When our deepest reward becomes the joy of faithfulness and nearness to God, we are liberated from desperation about timing and form—and we find we are already rich.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

A Prayer for Reverent Trust in God's Rewards

Father, we stand amazed at your character—you are a God who rewards those who seek you, who blesses the work of our hands, and who delights to give good gifts to your children (Psalm 128:1-2). We confess that we often shy away from speaking of divine rewards, fearing we might slip into self-seeking or presumption. Yet in our caution, we have sometimes stripped away the very motivation structure you designed into our nature. Forgive us for the disbelief that lurks when we doubt whether you truly intend to bless our faithful obedience.

In the gospel, we see that you have rewarded Christ perfectly for his reverent fear of the Father (Isaiah 53). His blessings on his work, his bride, and his offspring now flow to us as members of his body. We are not left to chase rewards of our own design, but invited to trust your sovereignty over both the timing and the form of your gifts. Grant us, we pray, the grace to cultivate a proper ordering of our desires—to want better things more than lesser things—and to learn the deep satisfaction that comes from loving the very process of obedience itself (Psalm 128:2).

We ask you to teach us the fear of the Lord—that filial reverence marked by careful concern not to displease you—so that we might receive the blessings you promise to pour out upon those who walk in your ways (Proverbs 19:23). Give us patience to delay gratification for greater rewards, wisdom to discern your timing, and hearts that find joy in your word and in your church, the epicenter where your eternal purposes are displayed. Make us a people who trust you with both when and how you bless, resting in your faithfulness rather than demanding our own specifications.

To you, our rewarding God, we commit ourselves in reverent obedience, confident that you will complete the good work you have begun in us.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

When You Want Something Badly

For the parent

In the sermon, Chris talked about how we're made to want rewards—and how learning to wait for good things (instead of demanding them right now) is actually a sign of spiritual maturity. This prompt invites your family to name something they're waiting for and think about what it teaches them about trusting God. Listen for how your kids think about delayed gratification, not to shame them, but to help them see that waiting isn't punishment—it's how we grow.

Think of something you really want but have to wait for—maybe a trip, or learning a skill, or something you're saving up for. What's hard about the waiting? And what are you learning about yourself or God while you wait?

Works for ages 7+; younger kids may need a parent to help them think of an example, but they understand wanting something and having to wait

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Fear, Reward, and the Process of Obedience

What did you hear in this sermon about how God rewards those who fear him—and did it shift how you think about blessing in your own life?
Where do we as a couple struggle most with trusting God's timing and type of reward rather than demanding our own version—and how might learning to love the process of obedience itself change that?
How can we pray for one another this week to grow in filial reverence toward God, and to help each other cultivate delayed gratification and properly ordered desires?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Psalm 128:1

Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways!

Why this verse: This verse is the theological pivot of the entire sermon—it establishes the direct connection between the fear of the Lord (filial reverence in attitude and action) and genuine biblical blessing that forms the pastor's central claim. Memorizing it anchors believers in the conviction that reverence toward God is not peripheral religiosity but the actual pathway to God's faithful rewards across all domains of life.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [Political Power, Purity Spirals, and the Perfections of Christ (Psalm 72:1-20, 2025-07-06)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/political-power-purity-spirals-and-the)
- [Asaph's Odyssey (Psalm 73:1-28, 2025-07-13)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/asaph-s-odyssey)
- [Science & the Scriptures (Psalm 19:1-14, 2025-07-20)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/science-the-scriptures)
- [Reverence & Reward (Psalm 128:1-6, 2025-07-27)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/reverence-reward)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

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