Introduction:
(Psalm 73)
Wicked arrogant people seem to Prosper, and that really bothers me. (Ps 73:1-12)
How God's Presence Makes Things OK that Aren't OK (Ps 73:16-28)
- God's presence makes me see the Big Picture . (Ps 73:17b-20)
- God's Presence Exposes My Foolish Thinking . (Ps 73:21-22)
- God's presence reminds me that He is what I Want . (Ps 73:23-26)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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01:07-01:14
Open with me please to Psalm 73, right in the middle of your Bibles.
01:15-01:19
This is a Psalm of Asaph.
01:20-01:21
Like who is Asaph?
01:21-01:25
Asaph was actually a worship leader under King David.
01:26-01:30
He's responsible for Psalms 73 through 83.
01:31-01:34
I think Psalm 50 is also attributed to Asaph.
01:35-01:47
And that's important to know, because we're going to see that even someone whose whole life is about serving God can have a bit of a crisis of faith.
01:48-01:48
All right?
01:50-01:53
So I want you to write some things down today.
01:54-02:04
First on your outline, wicked, arrogant people seem to prosper, and that really bothers me.
02:09-02:12
Let's follow Asaph here, Psalm 73.
02:12-02:19
He says, "Truly, God is good to Israel, "to those who are pure in heart.
02:22-02:33
"But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, "my steps had nearly slipped." And we've all been there, let's be honest, we've all been there.
02:34-02:36
where we're like, look, I know some things about God.
02:36-02:38
I know that God is good.
02:38-02:40
I know that God is loving.
02:41-02:47
I know that in my head, but I, if I'm being honest, there have been times I've almost walked away.
02:49-02:50
Anybody else been there?
02:53-02:57
I know some things, but the things that I feel are different than the things that I know.
02:58-03:00
Like, well, what was Asaph's problem?
03:00-03:01
Well, it's all summed up in verse three.
03:03-03:12
He says, "For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Envy.
03:15-03:20
That's when you compare yourself with someone else in a way that you feel deprived.
03:21-03:23
And it leads to the bitterness.
03:25-03:36
And Asaph's problem, he said, "Arrogant, wicked people seem to prosper." Have you ever noticed that?
03:38-03:39
Have you ever noticed that?
03:41-03:47
It isn't, when we say prosper, it's not just about money, right?
03:47-03:49
And it's not just about stuff.
03:49-03:51
And it's not just about having great hair.
03:51-03:55
I mean, it is those things, but it's so much more than that.
03:55-04:02
It's people that are put, wicked, arrogant people that are put in positions of power and positions of authority.
04:02-04:06
and they seemingly have this easy life.
04:08-04:13
They're so arrogant, they're so full of themselves, they can somehow just sin without shame.
04:14-04:17
Like how do you live like that?
04:19-04:22
And if we're honest, we tend to keep score.
04:23-04:29
And when it seems like wicked people are ahead on points, that's just absolutely infuriating.
04:30-04:31
Why is he doing so well?
04:34-04:44
As I read one preacher put it this way this week, he said that Asaph was not looking at the sin of the successful, he was looking at the success of the sinful.
04:46-04:46
That's a problem.
04:48-04:54
So then what we see next is Asaph goes on an epic rant.
04:55-04:57
Now do the kids still call it an epic rant?
04:57-04:58
Is that still a thing?
05:00-05:01
You're not sure either?
05:01-05:03
Awesome, anybody, anybody at all?
05:04-05:08
Okay, all right, Jocelyn says yes, it's still an epic rant, okay, thank you.
05:08-05:14
So if somebody listens to this message, you know, next year or whatever, you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, that's so old.
05:16-05:19
When was this recorded, 1978?
05:20-05:24
Epic rant, look at verses four through 12.
05:25-05:29
Talking about the arrogant, wicked, prospering.
05:30-05:32
He says, "For they have no pangs until death.
05:35-05:37
Their bodies are fat and sleek.
05:39-05:41
They're not in trouble as others are.
05:41-05:47
They're not stricken like the rest of mankind." See that?
05:47-05:47
Cushy life.
05:48-05:49
They have a cushy life.
05:51-05:53
Because of that, in verse 6, "Therefore, pride is their necklace.
05:55-05:57
Violence covers them as a garment.
05:58-06:00
Their eyes swell out through fatness.
06:01-06:03
Their hearts overflow with follies.
06:03-06:06
They scoff and speak with malice.
06:07-06:10
Loftily, they threaten oppression.
06:12-06:20
They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue, excuse me, struts through the earth.
06:20-06:21
What a word picture there, huh?
06:22-06:25
They're just, they're so mouthy and they're so proud of themselves.
06:25-06:40
It's like their mouth just like struts around "Like, look how awesome I am." He says, "Therefore, as people turn back to them "and find no fault in them." That's a problem.
06:42-06:45
Verse 11, he says, "And they say, "'How can God know?
06:46-06:51
"'Is there knowledge in the Most High?'" Mocking God.
06:53-06:54
And then he sums it up again, just like verse three.
06:55-07:05
He says, "Behold, these are the wicked, "always at ease, and they increase in riches." Wow.
07:07-07:09
You know, I don't really have to unpack that very much, do I?
07:09-07:11
It's pretty, pretty plain, huh?
07:12-07:22
Arrogant people, arrogant, wicked people, they're hateful, they're destructive, they're mouthy, they mock God, and they seem to be doing pretty good for themselves.
07:27-07:29
How did God let that happen?
07:34-07:35
How can God let that happen?
07:39-07:39
Does God know?
07:40-07:41
Do you think God knows?
07:43-07:46
How arrogant and wicked and mouthy and violent and pride, do you think God knows?
07:48-07:50
Okay, well, if God knows, then why doesn't he do something about it?
07:51-07:55
I mean, if it was you, if you had the power to do something about it, wouldn't you?
07:56-08:01
So how could the sovereign of the universe know and just sit by and watch this happen?
08:07-08:09
Why do wicked people prosper?
08:11-08:13
Is there anybody else bothered by this?
08:17-08:18
'Cause I'm gonna tell you I could rant.
08:21-08:22
And I think I might for a few minutes.
08:23-08:24
(congregation laughing)
08:27-08:29
That's the nervous laugh of people who know I'm not kidding.
08:30-08:31
(congregation laughing)
08:33-08:34
I'll be honest with you.
08:34-08:36
Look, okay, this is a day of honesty.
08:36-08:37
ASAP was honest, I'll be honest.
08:38-08:42
During the whole, the COVID thing, I went through a very angry phase.
08:45-08:55
It, like, I could feel my heart beating in my chest, like pounding against my ribs When I saw the person who caused the pandemic, remember gain of function?
08:57-09:02
Now lecturing everyone on obeying senseless mandates and he wasn't obeying them himself.
09:02-09:03
Did that bother anybody else?
09:07-09:11
I saw a governor shut down businesses because he said they weren't essential.
09:11-09:19
Oh, but he kept his businesses open, which were essential according to him, but they really weren't essential.
09:21-09:23
They're talking about bringing all this back.
09:23-09:25
Does that bother anybody else?
09:29-09:31
What about billionaire Jeffrey Epstein?
09:34-09:39
He flew little girls in and out of his island and authorities did nothing to investigate that.
09:39-09:41
I read this quote in an article this week.
09:41-09:42
I gotta read it to you.
09:43-09:47
Because this epitomizes exactly what ASAP is talking about.
09:47-09:48
Listen to this.
09:48-10:00
It says, "Locals say Epstein was flying in underage girls "long after his conviction for sex crimes, "and authorities did nothing to stop him." Now listen to this quote.
10:00-10:08
Quote, "It was like he was flaunting it," says an employee at the airstrip on St. Thomas.
10:09-10:19
"It was like he was flaunting it, "flying children in for unspeakable things." He's proud of himself.
10:20-10:21
Check this out.
10:23-10:23
All the quote goes on.
10:24-10:26
I can't imagine it gets worse, but it does.
10:27-10:48
Look, it says, "But it was said that he always tipped well, "so everyone overlooked it." He's doing things to children, and he's making a way for other people to do things for children, but I'm not gonna say anything because he's a healthy tipper.
10:50-10:51
Is anybody else bothered by that?
10:54-11:02
Oh, and by the way, when he was arrested in New York City and incarcerated, there were two cameras in front of his cell that malfunctioned.
11:03-11:08
His cellmate was mysteriously transferred and not replaced.
11:08-11:12
He was supposed to be checked on every 30 minutes by the guards, but he wasn't.
11:12-11:16
The guards actually fell asleep and he was found dead.
11:16-11:17
And they're like, he killed himself.
11:22-11:27
Oh, and they removed the body, which they weren't supposed to.
11:27-11:30
They didn't take pictures, which they were supposed to.
11:30-11:35
And the autopsy said it looked more like a homicide than a suicide.
11:38-11:40
And you're like, well, then what's the problem?
11:40-11:40
He's dead.
11:42-11:47
And I would say, yeah, but who else got away with all this stuff now that he is dead?
11:49-11:51
Does that bother anybody else?
11:52-11:53
It bothers me.
11:55-12:07
Christian couples that I know who can't have babies, but they do have miscarriages, or they do have babies with severe health issues.
12:09-12:15
And at the same time, people that have kids that don't want them and don't want to take care of them.
12:17-12:21
Before my wife was in finance, she was an in-home family therapist.
12:21-12:30
And many years ago, she would actually go do like in-home counseling for these families that would have many, many healthy children.
12:31-12:32
Seemed like about four a year.
12:33-12:37
And they didn't want them and they didn't take care of them.
12:37-12:41
So that was her job, to go in and try to help these parents take care of their own children.
12:44-12:51
But the one story in particular that just always stuck with me is, Aaron went to help this one family.
12:51-12:54
They had a little girl, but they just had another baby.
12:55-12:57
And Aaron was in there, she was holding the new baby.
12:58-13:11
And she said, "Wow, what a beautiful baby." And the dad said, "Yeah, I just wish she had some kind of health problem like your older sister, that way we'd get more money from the government.
13:14-13:15
Really?
13:17-13:18
That's where we are?
13:21-13:22
God sees us?
13:25-13:26
And it just goes on.
13:28-13:29
What about you?
13:32-13:33
Do wicked, arrogant people bother you?
13:34-13:36
Maybe you know somebody in your own life.
13:36-13:38
Maybe you've got somebody at work, somebody you work with.
13:39-13:42
You work with somebody who's just constantly bragging about their sin.
13:44-13:47
And it just seems like everything goes their way in life.
13:48-13:51
Like that's just, does God know?
13:56-13:59
Why does it seem like God's blessing them instead of judging them?
14:02-14:03
Look at verse 13.
14:05-14:11
He says, "All in vain have I kept my heart clean "and washed my hands in innocence.
14:13-14:20
"For all the day long, I have been stricken "and rebuked every morning." And you see Asaph here, he's like, "I'm fed up.
14:22-14:24
"I've tried doing the right thing.
14:24-14:30
"I've played by the rules." And up at the point now where it's like, well, what's the use?
14:31-14:32
What's the use?
14:35-14:43
And you know, church, let's be honest, we struggle with that because we come to church and we're like, God loves you like a father.
14:43-14:47
We're like, okay, well, if God loves us like a father, then why are we the ones suffering?
14:49-14:53
If God loves us like a father, why is it his children that are suffering?
14:54-15:02
And the people that not only have no regard for him, but they openly mock him, they're the ones that seem like they're getting the life that I should get.
15:06-15:07
Is this how God treats his children?
15:10-15:20
I mean, let's be honest, like, hypothetically, if the world was such that bad people were always suffering, we would just be like, yeah, what do we call it?
15:20-15:22
That's karma, right?
15:23-15:25
That's what you call cosmic justice.
15:25-15:28
They did bad, and now they're getting what's coming to them.
15:32-15:33
That's not what we see.
15:35-15:40
They're rich and they're influential and they have the best of everything.
15:40-15:46
And he's like, why does it seem like only the people that are trying to do the right thing are the ones that are suffering?
15:47-15:49
We've seen that so many times, haven't we?
15:50-16:20
We see some celebrity, some actor or some comedian, and I use that word loosely, comedian, on TV openly mock God and people are just lined up, "Oh, they're huge fans and we're just following them on Twitter or X or whatever that thing's called now." And they get all the attention, they get all the money, they have all the followers and here's a special ed teacher who's struggling to pay the electric bill.
16:23-16:24
What is going on?
16:28-16:29
Look at verse 15.
16:31-16:44
He says, "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' "I would have betrayed the generation of your children." Asaph at this point is like, "You know what?
16:45-16:56
"He's saying I had to bite my tongue." And I kind of laugh because I'm like, Well, you say you bit your tongue, but it's recorded in the eternal word of God here, right?
16:58-17:00
Maybe there was more that he wanted to say that he didn't.
17:01-17:06
But listen, his point here is just ranting and lamenting isn't good for others.
17:07-17:10
And I just wanna give you a word of wisdom here from verse 15.
17:12-17:13
Listen, you're an example to somebody.
17:14-17:16
You are an example to somebody.
17:16-17:21
Somebody is looking to you to say, this is what a Christian looks like, acts like, thinks like.
17:22-17:36
And because that's true, if you are constantly articulating and voicing all of your objections and doubts about faith, what good does that do others?
17:36-17:53
Think of that new believer that's like trying to figure things out or that person that's considering coming to faith in Christ and they're hearing you rant and complain about all these perplexities and you're like, well, I don't know if I wanna follow God Maybe God isn't as fair as I thought.
17:53-17:57
And I think what Asaph is saying here is, you don't have to express all your doubts, right?
17:59-18:00
You don't have to express all your doubts.
18:03-18:05
You're like, okay, well then what should I do with them?
18:07-18:08
Well, look at verse 16.
18:10-18:18
He says, "But when I thought how to understand this, "it seemed to me a wearisome task." Do you see that?
18:18-18:20
He's like, I just couldn't wrap my brain around it.
18:20-18:23
Like, there has to be a reason, there has to be an explanation.
18:24-18:25
Why are things this way?
18:25-18:29
And he's like, it wears me out just thinking about it is what he's saying.
18:31-18:47
Verse 17, "Until I went into the sanctuary of God." Reasoning it out did not help.
18:50-18:51
but going to church did.
18:53-18:54
He went to the right place.
18:56-19:02
You see what he's saying here is none of this made sense until I went to God.
19:02-19:08
He said, "I took all this confusion that I had "and I brought it to God.
19:08-19:14
"I brought it under his truth." And this is the servant today.
19:16-19:24
As God's presence changes our perspective, Listen, this is why we worship.
19:26-19:35
This is why we assemble together as a congregation to come before the throne of God and just bask in His majesty.
19:36-19:38
This is why we do that.
19:40-19:43
This is why we straightforwardly proclaim His word.
19:46-19:53
"Like Asaph, my thinking can get messed up "and I need God to set me straight." That's why we do this.
19:54-19:58
And especially this month, I would say this is why we pray.
20:00-20:08
This is why we get into that intimate communion with God in personal prayer time, personal worship time.
20:09-20:10
Why do we do all these things?
20:11-20:13
Why do worship, preaching and prayer?
20:13-20:17
Why do we do that is because God's presence changes our perspective.
20:18-20:21
And this is how we can be okay with things that are not okay.
20:22-20:24
So, that was the introduction.
20:28-20:29
Here's the sermon.
20:32-20:35
The nervous laugh of people who know I'm not kidding.
20:36-20:41
How God's presence makes things okay that aren't okay.
20:45-20:47
This is game-changing stuff.
20:48-20:57
This will literally change your life, your moment-by-moment, day-to-day way of living if you will absorb this into your soul.
20:57-21:02
Number one, write this down, God's presence makes me see the big picture.
21:03-21:13
See, Asaph said, "I had all these problems "Until I went into the sanctuary of God." Like, and what happened then?
21:15-21:16
He explains.
21:17-21:19
He says, "Then I discerned their end.
21:21-21:23
Truly, you set them in slippery places.
21:25-21:26
You make them fall to ruin.
21:28-21:32
How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.
21:35-21:37
Like a dream when one awakens.
21:38-21:43
Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21:44-21:44
Stop there.
21:45-21:47
It's new perspective all of a sudden, right?
21:47-21:50
And the first new perspective is a perspective of time.
21:53-21:56
Because God's presence brings eternity into view.
21:58-22:00
I have it on good authority that things will not always be as they are now.
22:04-22:06
but God's presence makes me see the big picture.
22:09-22:11
Have you ever gone to a movie?
22:12-22:28
You go in and you sit down and you watch the first 30 minutes of the movie and you just get up and say, "This stinks, I'm out of here." You know, maybe you went to see "Rocky." You watch the first 30 minutes and you're like, "I'm leaving." That Italian fellow is never gonna get it together.
22:29-22:30
He's never gonna wanna fight.
22:33-22:36
or you went and saw Jurassic Park, right?
22:37-22:41
And you're like, "They just have dinosaurs in cages.
22:41-22:43
I mean, that was boring.
22:44-22:49
So I left." Well, you didn't see how it ultimately played out, did you?
22:52-22:59
But listen, when we get in His word, when we pray and when we worship, we are reminded of how it all plays out in the end.
23:01-23:02
And I love this figure of speech here.
23:02-23:04
He uses, look at verse 20 again.
23:04-23:18
He says, "Like a dream when one awakes." Do you ever have a dream that just seems so real that you wake up and then you're still wondering if it's real?
23:19-23:20
Has that ever happened to anybody else?
23:20-23:25
That happened to me a couple of weeks ago that I just remember waking up like, wait a minute, did that really happen?
23:28-23:32
But then you get this like hard dose of reality, Like, no, that didn't happen.
23:32-23:34
Okay, this is real life.
23:35-23:35
What's the point?
23:36-23:44
The point is this, that's how it's going to be when God judges, that there are going to be some arrogant, wicked people someday that are going to have a cold dose of reality.
23:44-23:50
And it's going to be as if they woke up from a dream and they're like, oh man, things are not how I thought they were.
23:53-23:55
They're gonna face God someday.
23:55-23:58
You know, nobody's figured out a way to avoid that.
24:01-24:06
And that's the first thing Asaph tells us is, why would we envy people that are going down?
24:08-24:17
Why would I be jealous of someone who lives wickedly, but then they have to face the holy sovereign judge of the universe?
24:17-24:19
Why would I envy that guy?
24:20-24:22
God's presence makes me see the big picture.
24:23-24:28
Number two, God's presence exposes my foolish thinking.
24:29-24:30
(sniffling)
24:31-24:40
He says, "When my soul was embittered, "when I was pricked in heart, "I was brutish and ignorant.
24:40-24:48
"I was like a beast toward you." You see, now Asaph's like, I just, I see myself so clearly now.
24:50-24:57
He's like, when I went to church, or the sanctuary, you know, Old Testament, you know, worship, temple, we're talking about being in God's presence, right?
24:57-25:04
He's like, "When I got in God's presence, I realized "I was so wrong to get bent out of shape about this.
25:06-25:11
"I was so wrong to let my mind go there." Do you see this confession of his?
25:13-25:18
That God's presence not only brings the big picture into focus, it brings us into focus.
25:18-25:19
Then it changes our thinking.
25:24-25:25
See how he describes himself?
25:26-25:31
Verse 22, he says, "I was brutish and ignorant." He says, "I was ignorant.
25:32-25:44
"I was ignorant." You know, one of the most ignorant things that people say, we all say it, I've said it, you've said it, and it's ignorant, the time that we go, "That's not fair.
25:45-25:51
"That's not fair." Let's stop and think about that for a second.
25:52-25:53
What is fair?
25:55-25:57
What do you mean by that?
25:58-26:00
And where do you get this idea of fairness?
26:00-26:01
What does that mean?
26:02-26:02
That's not fair.
26:02-26:03
What's that mean?
26:04-26:06
Do you know what we mean when we say that?
26:07-26:10
We're saying, here's the way things are supposed to work.
26:10-26:12
Everybody is supposed to get the same.
26:13-26:17
And if I'm not getting something that somebody else is getting, that is not fair.
26:17-26:19
Where do we get that?
26:20-26:20
You know what that is?
26:21-26:22
That is ignorant.
26:23-26:27
This idea that I should get what everybody else gets.
26:28-26:30
And listen, we're born with that.
26:30-26:31
We have to unlearn that.
26:32-26:35
And we need to get to the presence of God to get that out of our soul.
26:35-26:37
But we're born with that.
26:38-26:39
I can prove that.
26:39-26:40
Do this.
26:41-26:47
Go next week, go somewhere and just buy like this giant tray of cookies and go back to the kids ministry area.
26:47-26:49
What do we call that now, Harvest Academy?
26:49-26:54
Go back there with this giant tray of cookies, Give every kid a cookie except five.
26:55-26:56
Five kids, don't give them a cookie.
26:57-26:59
And don't tell them why.
26:59-27:03
I will tell you five out of five what those kids are gonna say.
27:04-27:05
What are they gonna say?
27:07-27:08
That's not fair.
27:08-27:09
That's not fair.
27:12-27:16
Don't actually do that because that's mean spirited.
27:18-27:19
But listen, it's true.
27:20-27:25
It's this idea that when I came in here, I didn't know cookies were being handed out at all.
27:26-27:30
But now that I see somebody else got one, it's not fair if I don't get one.
27:30-27:32
And we take that into adulthood.
27:32-27:33
That's not fair.
27:33-27:34
That's not fair.
27:34-27:35
That's not fair.
27:37-27:40
Listen, you don't want fair.
27:42-27:44
You don't want what you deserve.
27:46-27:48
Because here's what you deserve.
27:48-27:50
Truthfully, you deserve hell as soon as you sin.
27:51-27:52
That's what you deserve.
27:53-27:56
So Jesus Christ didn't come to give you fair.
27:57-27:58
Jesus came to give you grace.
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And receiving Jesus Christ, believing that he died to take away your sin, believing that he rose from the dead to give you eternal life.
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You see that, when you believe in Jesus, that keeps you from getting what you really deserve.
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You don't want fair.
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He says, "Not only was I ignorant," He says, "I was brutish." I love this, the end of verse 22.
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He says, "I was like a beast toward you." Like a beast.
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He says, "God, you know, I realize now "I was thinking like an animal." Do you know what animals focus on?
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You know what they focus on?
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The immediate, that's it.
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They focus on the immediate.
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And my frame of reference is dogs.
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You know, if I whistle, my dogs will run to their crates.
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Like if we have to, you know, make a trip or whatever, I'll whistle, they'll go in their crates.
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And they know that I'll give them a treat if they go to their crates.
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They're not thinking, you know what, I might be in that crate for two hours or four hours, or what if they make a day trip and I'm gone for, they're gone for 12 hours and I'm stuck in this crate for 12 hours.
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They're not thinking about that.
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You know what they're thinking of?
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Oh, he whistled, "Treef, a little bite of something." They're willing to take a bite of something.
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They're not thinking big picture, are they?
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And that's what Asaph is saying here.
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He goes, "I was just like a stupid animal.
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"All I'm thinking about is the immediate and future, "and don't give me that little bite of something." And I'm evaluating everything based only on what is in front of me.
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Dogs do that.
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They're not thinking big picture.
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They're not thinking long-term.
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So like Asaph, when we get into God's presence church, we quickly move from, something is wrong with what God is doing, and instead we move to, something is wrong with the way that I'm thinking about this.
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Because God's presence exposes my foolish thinking, right?
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And then finally, number three, and this is last and most important, by the way, God's presence reminds me that He is what I want.
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Look at verse 23.
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He says, "Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
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You hold my right hand." He said, "But God, you know, I have you.
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I have you God.
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And you're holding my hand like a dad.
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And I can't help but think, you know, when I read this, I remember when I was like five or six, I was just a little squirt, but at five or six, my dad took me to my first pro wrestling match.
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If you've ever been to the pro wrestling matches, ladies and gentlemen, it's a real hoot.
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But I remember my dad took me to the pro wrestling matches and I had this sign, you know, that said WIMP because apparently that was the thing you call this, it was Iron Mike Sharp Canada's greatest athlete, you called him a WIMP and that really angered him.
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He didn't like to be called a WIMP.
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Unlike the rest of mankind.
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That really made him mad.
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And I remember holding my sign up and he came out and he was covering his ears and he was kicking the ropes and he was screaming because everybody was chanting wimp.
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And I remember leaning to my dad and saying, "Dad, do you think he saw my sign?" And my dad leaned down and he said, "I'm sure he saw your sign." I was terrified.
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I was five, stop laughing at me.
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But I was terrified because in my mind, he was gonna come running out of the ring, he saw my sign and he was gonna attack me.
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He was huge, he was built like a grizzly bear.
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He's this monster, and I'm just like, I was like knee high to a squirrel, and I was terrified.
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But you know what I did?
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I remember this like it was yesterday.
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I remember leaning into my dad's hip and grabbing his hand, and I remember in that moment, I'm like, "He can't get me now.
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"There is not a force on this planet that can get me now "because I'm in my dad's hand," right?
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And that's what Asaph is saying.
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He says, "You know, there's just something about leaning into your father and holding his hand.
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You can't put a price tag on that.
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That has greater value than anything." Verse 24, he says, "You guide me with your counsel." Has God's wisdom ever benefited anyone?
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everyone who followed it. He says, "And afterward you will receive me to glory." And man, you know, if you're in the middle of one of those moments like Asaph where you're just ranting and raving about the unfairness of life and the arrogant wicked, you know what I wish I could do? I wish that somehow I could just kind of peel the curtain back and let you peek into heaven. Just get like a five second glimpse into heaven while you're here on earth, and if I could do that, if I was able to do that, like, hey, five seconds, here you go, this is what heaven looks like, this is what is waiting for you.
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If I could do that, I guarantee you, you would never envy anyone again.
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Listen, and I don't say this lightly, going to church is that glimpse of heaven.
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I can't pull the curtain back, but the best that I can get to show you what heaven is supposed to look like on earth is coming to church.
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Because what are we after here?
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God's presence.
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We're surrounded by God's people.
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We're immersing ourself in God's truth.
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We are worshiping God, and we are experiencing the joy that Jesus Christ gives.
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All of those things that we're going after here, that's what heaven is.
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This is like supposed to be the sample of that.
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Look at verse 25.
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He says, "Whom have I in heaven but you?
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And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
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My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." I love that concept of portion.
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You know what a portion is?
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A portion is just simply that which is allotted to you.
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And here Asaph is saying, God is what I get.
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My portion, what is allotted to me?
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God himself.
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God is my portion.
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And I would say, top that.
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Tell me, what does the wicked have that matches this?
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What do they have that matches what God gives, what God offers, and what God promises?
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What do they have?
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You know, the wicked says, hey, I have a mansion on 50 acres.
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And I say, "Jesus Christ is preparing a place for me.
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It's gonna make your mansion look like a porta potty." The wicked says, "I have a billion dollars." And I say, "You know, my God has more than that just in the cup holder of his Lamborghini." The wicked says, "So many people love me." And I say, yeah, the God of the universe loves me.
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You see, and it's when you get to that place that you say what Asaph said.
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He's like, I realized, I realized when I spent time in God's presence, I realized the most profound thing that I will ever realize in all of human existence, and it's this, God is what I really want.
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God is what I want.
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because there's nothing greater.
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Being in his presence reminds me there's nothing on earth that I desire besides him.
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Well, you know, Asaph in the front end of this Psalm was sort of comparing himself with the arrogant wicked and you know he closes the same way.
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comparing his lot with the wicked once again.
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Look at verse 27 and 28.
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It says, "For behold, "those who are far from you shall perish.
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"You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
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"But for me, it is good to be near God.
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"I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works." He says, "Yeah, you know what?
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I'm going to reevaluate here.
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You know, there really is a difference between people who are seeking the Lord and these arrogant, wicked people that prosper.
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There is a difference." And being in God's presence might not change any of your circumstances right now. But do you know what it will change? It will change your perspective right now.
Small Group Discussion
Read Psalm 73
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Have you ever been bothered by arrogant and wicked people prospering? How did that affect you?
Read Psalm 73:15 again. Why is it important that you are careful to not just air all of your theological frustrations? Is it ever appropriate to share your frustrations? If so, how?
How can you turn your envy of the wicked into pity (and prayer) for the wicked?
Breakout
Pray for one another!
Pray for a constant prayer habit that keeps your perspective where it needs to be.