My Foot Almost Slipped

Well, if you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, turn to Psalm 73 this
morning. We are taking some time to go through a number of Psalms during these
summer months. And this morning, we're gonna look at Psalm 73. And we're gonna talk,
this is a Psalm about deconstructing. You've probably heard that term as it's applied
to faith. It mostly describes the experience of those who grew up in Christian homes
and evangelical homes going to church who reached a point in their life where they
had doubts or questions and they started to move away from a belief in God or in
the Bible. They might keep a belief in God but they begin to reject many of the
things that they learned growing up about their faith. And you probably have friends
or family members who fit this description. I read a statistic this week that said
about 40 percent of those who grew up in evangelical homes are deconstructing at
some level today. And there are high -profile examples of stuff like this,
popular authors like Joshua Harris or musicians like Michael Gunger. There's a hashtag
Xvangelical, which is a way of identifying yourself as somebody who used to be and
is no longer, and evangelical. And there are a lot of theories about why this
happens, why people deconstruct, why they move away from what they were brought up
in. But one of the factors certainly is an issue that's been around since the
beginning of time as we wrestle with the problem of pain in our lives and in our
world. C. S. Lewis, the first Christian book he wrote, was called The Problem of
pain and it struck a nerve when it came out in 1940 because so many people wrestle
with the problem of pain. The technical term is called the theodicy, you may have
heard that word, theodicy means you're attempting to resolve this dilemma.
If God is all wise, if he's all loving, if he's all powerful, then why does he
allow hardship, suffering bad things, evil injustice in our world. If he's all wise,
he knows it's happening and he knows how to fix it. If he's all loving, he cares
about these things happening. If he's all powerful, he could fix it. So if all of
that is true, why does he allow pain or suffering or injustice? The oldest book in
the Bible is the book of Job. It's the earliest one written. It's 40 chapters
addressing the issue of why is there evil and suffering in our world and how do we
make sense of that. And all of us have to wrestle with this at some point in our
lives or we hear about events. If you're a parent who sent your daughter off to
summer camp this summer and woke up one morning with the news that she was missing
and then that her body had been found, you find yourself going, how do I make
sense of this? How do I make sense of God? God, are you really there? Do you
really care? Can you do anything about this? R .C. Sproul tells a story about being
out playing golf with a friend of his, someone who didn't go to church and Sproul
engaged him around questions about faith or about belief. and this man said,
"Yeah, I'm not religious." And Sparrowl said, "Why not?" And the man said, "I can't
believe in a God who would let my baby die." Tim Keller says a lot of what poses
as intellectual doubt about the existence of God in our day is actually people who
are just mad at God, mad at a God who they don't even believe exists. Speaking on
of 73 back in 1993, Keller said to the doubters and the unbelievers in his
congregation, he said it could be that underneath a whole lot of your so -called
skepticism and intellectual doubts, you're just mad at the way life is going, and at
the way God is running the world. He said I'm also suggesting to you, a lot of
you who say I'm a Christian, it could be that underneath a lot of your doubts and
a lot of your troubles and a lot of your struggles, you're just mad.
Doubt, he says, is actually anger masquerading itself. There are many Christians who
say they're spiritually dry or they're spiritually discouraged, but actually, they're
just mad at God.
Asaph, the writer of Psalm 73, the Psalm we'll look at this morning, may have been
mad at God. He was on the verge of deconstructing. In his case, the problem was
the issue of injustice in our world. Specifically, he said, the wicked prosper while
the godly suffer. And that doesn't make any sense to me, he says. You seek to
follow God and obey his word and you face suffering, you reject God and you prosper
in this life. And in the Psalm, he tells us about how he dealt with that
frustration, with that challenge, how it almost shipwrecked his faith and how he
eventually came back to a firm footing. So we're gonna read this Psalm before we
do. Again, I wanna pray, Lord, we need your spirit to be our guide as we go into
your word this morning. Be our teacher. Give us ears to hear. Give us hearts to
obey. Help us not just to be hearers of your word, but Doers, we pray,
let me ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 73, a Psalm of Asaph,
this is the word of God for the people of God, you follow along as I read. Truly,
God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. As for me,
my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the
arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until
death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They're not in trouble as others are. They're
not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace. Violence
covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness.
Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice.
Loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their
tongues stretched through the earth. Therefore his people turn back to them and find
no fault in them. And they say, "How can God know? Is there any knowledge in the
most high?" Behold, these are the wicked. "Always at ease, they increase in riches.
"All in vain have I kept my heart clean "and washed my hands in innocence. "For
all the day long I have been stricken "and rebuked every morning. "If I had said I
will speak thus, "I would have betrayed a generation of your children. "But when I
thought how to understand this, "it seemed to me a worrisome task until I went to
the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery
places. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. Oh Lord,
when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered
when I was pricked in heart. I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward
you Nevertheless, I am continually with you You hold my right hand You guide me
with your counsel and afterward you will receive me to glory Whom have I in heaven
but you and There is nothing on earth that I desire beside you My flesh and my
heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone
who is unfaithful to you, but for me, it is good to be near God. I've made the
Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works. Amen. May God bless this
reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower fades. The word of our God
will stand forever. So here's how we're gonna break this psalm down, how we're gonna
look at it. We're gonna look first this morning at where he starts and he starts
with the final verdict. He starts with his conclusion. Then we're gonna look at what
was his faith -shaking moment, what caused him to almost slip. And then we're gonna
explore the frustrating prosperity of the wicked and follow that up with the apparent
futility of pursuing godliness. Then we'll look at the pivot in the middle of the
Psalm where things start to change and we'll see how he begins to cultivate an
eternal perspective and how that changes things for him and how he then comes back
to his final verdict and restates it at the end of this Psalm. So look with me at
verse 1 where it starts with the conclusion. He starts with his thesis. Asaph,
by the way, the writer of this Psalm was a Levite. He played a significant role in
the worship tradition of the nation of Israel. He was appointed by David and he
served in the temple during the reign of both David and Solomon. He was in charge
of the service of song when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem. And
the Bible attributes 12 Psalms to Asaph. Psalm 50 is written by Asaph,
and then starting here, Psalms 73 through Psalm 83 are all Psalms of Asaph.
His descendants are known as the sons of Asaph, and some of them write Psalms as
well. But he begins Psalm 73 with this declaration. He says, "Truly, truly,
certainly, without a doubt, "you can take this to the bank. "God is good to
Israel." He starts with that declaration of it's a conclusion and it's a firm
conclusion. And he clarifies what he's saying. He says, "God is good to Israel,
"but he wants them to understand "he is good to those who are pure in heart."
Romans two says, "Not all Israel is Israel, "but it's those who have been
circumcised of the heart. God's goodness is not based on your national identity or
on your ethnic identity, it's based on your devotion to him, on being pure in
heart. It's not about your geography where you grew up or who you're related to.
God's goodness comes to those whose hearts belong to the Lord. This lines up with
what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. When he said, "Blessed are the pure in
heart, they will see God." Psalm 24. "Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord,
who can stand in his holy place, he who has clean hands and a pure heart." God is
good to those who are pure in heart. So anyone here pure in heart? Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller? Anyone?
You are not. If you're not pure in heart, I'm not pure in heart. So if we're not
pure in heart and God is good to the pure in heart, what do we do? How do we
make sense of that? Well, here's what we do. We do what David did in Psalm 51. He
prayed, create in me a pure heart, a clean heart, oh God. Renew a steadfast spirit
within me. God is the one who makes dirty hearts clean. You are not pure in heart,
you bring your heart to God and you say cleanse it for me, Lord, I need my heart
cleansed." The Bible talks about spiritual life as being the removal of a stony
heart and the replacement with a heart of flesh. It's the removal of a hard heart
and a replacement with a pure heart. Pure doesn't mean sinlessness. Pure means a new
direction and a new devotion of your heart. And you may look at your own heart
this morning and say, "I'm not sure I have a pure heart. I'm not sure I've been
given a new heart by God." The evidence that you've been given a new heart by God
is that your affections change. Your focus changes. Your life gets pointed in a
different direction. You have a new hunger for God's Word. You have a new purpose
for your life. Your passions are no longer in the driver's seat of your life.
Now God's purposes are in the driver's seat of your life and again not perfectly we
stumble and when we stumble when your life Gets out of alignment with the purposes
of God you realign you get back in the right direction You confess your sin when
we confess our sin the Bible tells us he not only forgives our sin, but he
Cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He Repurifies our heart.
That's what a clean heart is And God is good to those who have a clean heart. And
here's the thing, a clean heart is free for the asking. For believers, we can have
our heart reclensed regularly. We should, as we confess, as we turn to Him.
He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If you're not a believer in Christ, God
offers a new, pure heart. Not a hard stony heart that will lead you in the wrong
direction, but a new heart. So Asaph starts at the beginning with this conclusion.
God is good to those who are Israel, to those who have a pure heart,
a pure heart. And then he tells us about what was his faith -shaking moment. He
says, "As for me, my feet had almost stumbled. "My steps had nearly slipped." The
He talks about God being our rock, our foundation. He's the one who keeps us steady
in the storm. Psalm 46, God is our refuge and our strength,
a very present help and trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give
way, though the mountains be moved to the heart of the sea. God is the source of
stability in our life. We sing in the hymn, the old hymn, "When all around my soul
gives way, he then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all of the ground is sinking sand. Asif said, "I'd almost lost my spiritual footing.
I'd almost stumbled." And the reason he'd almost stumbled, he tells us in this
psalm, is because he did the same thing Peter did when Peter was walking on the
water. You remember that scene in the New Testament? Peter's walking on the water,
he's looking at Jesus, and he takes his eyes off Jesus and he starts to sink.
That's what's happened with Asep. His foot is stumbling because he's not looking in
the right direction. He took his eyes off God and he started to pay more attention
to the circumstances around him than to the God who was directing him. He started
to look at what was going on in the world more than he was looking to God.
That's the formula, by the way. It's a pathway that leads to the destruction of
your faith. You wanna ruin your faith? Take your eyes off God and just focus on
what's going on in the world. Focus on the evil in our world. Focus on the evil
in the relationships that you're dealing with. Look away from God. Don't look at his
beauty, his perfection, his holiness, his wisdom, elevate the circumstances in our
world, make them bigger than they are. Anytime you're having a crisis of faith,
one of the things you should be asking yourself is, where's my focus right now? Is
my focus on my troubles or is my focus on God? Which is bigger in my life,
my problems or God?
If God is not the biggest thing in your life then you'll be swallowed up by
whatever else is. When Asif took his eyes off God he says,
"I almost stumbled. I nearly slipped." And what he was focusing on instead of God
was the fact that the wicked prosper. Verse 3, "I was envious of the arrogant and
I saw the prosperity of the wicked." He looked around, he of ungodly people
prospering, and he wasn't prospering, and so he said,
how come these people have the life that they have, and I have the life I have,
they have a nice house, nice job, nice car, they have a nice bank account, nice
kids, nice this, nice that, and I'm struggling, and I'm suffering, and I wanna know
how that can be fair, God. How can you treat your children this way,
while the people who hate you get to run around free. In fact,
he begins to describe in this next section of the Psalm the prosperity of the
wicked. He said, "Here's what their life looks like. "They have no pangs until
death. "They got good health and good looks. "Their bodies are fat and sleek." It
doesn't mean that they're obese, it means that they're well fed. They're well taken
care, they've got enough to eat. They seem to be able to dodge adversity somehow.
Verse five says they are not in trouble as others are. They're not stricken like
the rest of mankind. Like, the transmission doesn't go out on their car like it
does on mine. They don't have the same issues. It seems Like life is easy for
them, and he notes in verse six that these are not humble,
gentle, godly people we're talking about. He says these are proud and violent people.
Pride is their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment. They're known for
their pride and for their violence. Their eyes swell out through this is,
interpreters have a hard time with what the Hebrew means there. It seems to be a
Hebrew designation for an idiom that means that their eyes get big when they see
sin. They're drawn toward it. Their eyes swell out through fatness.
It's like, oh, that looks tempting. They go right for it. And their heart overflows
with follies. Again, they're not kind and gentle people. Verse eight says,
"They scoff and they speak with malice. Loftily, they threaten their opposition or
threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues
struts through the earth. They are boastful, proud, threatening anyone who opposes
them." We got plenty of people in civic life, in government,
who this is a description of. This has become characteristic of our leaders in our
day, that they scoff and speak with malice, they threaten oppression, they set their
mouths against the heaven and their tongue struts through the earth.
And then verse 10 says, his people, that's not God's people, this is the ungodly
rulers, people, those who follow the wicked, his people turn to them and find no
fault in them. They're sycophants. They say, "Oh, yes." They remind me,
if you've read the Chronicles of Narnia, they're like the duffelpuds who follow their
leader around going, "Oh, yes, sir, whatever you say is right, yes, sir." And they
just, the wicked can do no wrong.
Because of the prosperity and the ease with which the wicked live, they've got this
fan club who attach themselves to them and just cheer them on and say, "We want to
be like you. We want to imitate you. We want the prosperity that you have. Maybe
if we cozy up to you, we can get some of it too. I want your life." And people
have become envious of the wicked, and Asaph says, "That was me. "I became envious
of the wicked "and I thought, I want the prosperity that they have. "I want the
ease. "I want their life. "And following God is not helping me get there." When you
were growing up, did anybody ever tell you cheaters never prosper? Did your mom ever
tell you that? But then you got to school and you found there was this one kid
and you saw him, he was cheating on the test. And you didn't do well on that test
and he got a good grade and you thought he cheated. Looks like cheaters prosper to
me. Have you ever had that thought? That playing by the rules is for suckers?
That's how ASAP is feeling and it's causing him to think maybe I just chuck it all
with God. Forget this faith and belief system that's supposed to work for me and
isn't working for me. Maybe I just ignore all of this and follow the path of the
prosperous wicked people.
After all, the wicked themselves, look at verse 11, they've rejected God. Verse 11
says, they say the wicked, how can God know? Is there any knowledge in the Most
High? This is part of their arrogant boasting. I know better than God. Who's gonna
pay attention to him. They ignore him, they mock him, and they tell you that you're
a sucker or a fool if you follow him.
Verse 12, he sums it up, "Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, they
increase in riches." Anybody come to mind, like any person as I'm describing this,
a sports figure or a celebrity or, Mary Ann and I We've been watching a documentary
about Billy Joel this week. And back in 1977, when his album "The Stranger" came
out, it became the best -selling album of all time for Columbia Records. It beat
"Bridge Over Troubled Water," the previous best -selling album, sold 10 million copies.
He got two Grammy Awards that year. Next year, he put out 52nd Street. That album
went to number one. 7 million copies sold, more Grammy Awards, he was flying on
private jets, he was on the cover of Rolling Stone, lots of people envying Billy
Joel at that point. What they didn't see was that what all this was going on, his
first marriage was crumbling, his alcohol and drug abuse was increasing, his life was
increasingly miserable. Sin began to dominate his life. It's easy to envy the
prosperity of those who achieve fame and fortune but it rarely looks like what it
looks like from the outside and here's what we think we think well okay they can't
handle it but if I got the money I could handle it I'd be fine.
This is especially true if you're facing financial hardship or pressure or suffering
it's easy to find yourself thinking why do I face hard times and these people who
couldn't give a rip about God seem to have it easy.
Asaph looks at the prosperity of the wicked in his day and his first conclusion is
it looks like pursuing God is a sucker sport. It doesn't get you anywhere in life.
Look what he says in verse 13. "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed
my hands in innocence. "for all day long I have been stricken "and rebuked every
morning." They ignore God and they make a bunch of money.
I'm trying to do the right thing, trying to live according to God's rules and
there's no payoff. I'm stricken and rebuked every day. Why keep reading my Bible?
Why bother praying? Why go to church? Why turn away from sin? That's not what the
wicked are doing. I think it's working out for them. And he says something in verse
15 that's fascinating. I want you to notice this. All of the envy that Asaph has
been feeling, he's been processing this doubt and discontentness in private. For
whatever reason, he has kept his mouth shut so far. He's just been doing this
internally. And in verse 15 he says, "It's a good thing that I've been keeping my
mouth shut." He said, "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed
the generation of your children." Listen, folks, when you find yourself in a time of
doubt, a season where you're mad at God, you're doubting His goodness, you're
thinking, "Forget this. You're going to head off and join the wicked in pursuit of
pleasure." It's okay to find some are godly people to process this with,
but it's the wrong time to start blogging. It's the wrong time to go to TikTok and
make a TikTok video or start tweeting or do a podcast.
Don't process all of this in public because you can do great harm by doing this.
You might wind up pulling other people into the same pit you're headed into and you
may think well I don't care if I pull them in because there's no God so what well
keep this in mind if you're wrong and if there is a God here's what he has said
he has said it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck
and to be tossed into the sea than for you to lead a weaker brother astray so you
need to be careful it's a good and right and healthy thing to find some mature
people to process this through when you're having a dark night of the soul. You
don't need to do it alone. You need community and help. But process this more in
private than in public. Face to face, not on Facebook. In person,
not online. You don't want to disrupt the life of somebody who might be watching
and might be tempted to follow you. And there are a lot of people watching you
whether you know it or not. Again, let me be clear, I'm not saying stuff all of
this. If you're dealing with these frustrations and these issues, I'm not saying keep
it to yourself. Don't just internalize it and stuff it, but I'm saying be careful
how you process it. Because if you come out on the other side like Asaph did, you
don't wanna look back and say, I harmed some people in the process.
Which brings us to what is the turning point, the pivot point in this Psalm in
verse 16. Asaph, who was careful not to process in public, says, "When I thought
how to understand this, "it seemed to me like a wearisome task. "I'm getting
nowhere. "I'm not making any headway. "I just am in complete constant perplexity.
"It's wearing him out." Until, verse 17, until I went to the sanctuary of God.
The third principle about how you process these things, you don't process it in
public, you don't do it alone, but third, you process it with God, not away from
God. You've got your doubts, you've got your issues, you wonder why this is going
on. You process that with God in his presence, not apart from him.
He knows what's going on in your heart anyway. It's not like he's gonna go, I
didn't know you were thinking that. How could you? How dare you? No, he knows
what's going on. You're not hiding it from him. You go to him with what you're
feeling.
Now, I know when you're mad at somebody, the last person you wanna talk to is the
person you're mad at. So when you're mad at God, it's like, I don't wanna talk to
you. I don't wanna be in your presence. I don't wanna do that. And God is saying,
bring it here. Let's work it out.
James 4 verse 8 says, "Draw near to God," and what?
He'll draw near to you.
Tim Keller says, "The principle is this. If you find you don't understand God and
what He's doing, if you start to get discouraged and depressed and mad at Him and
the way that your life is going, You must think about it in his presence. It's
okay to be confused, but be confused in his presence. Go to the sanctuary.
That go to the sanctuary means go to the place where God is, and I'll just say,
and go to where God's people are. Not just a building, it's not just a temple.
It's go to the congregation. Go to where God's people are. You need to work this
out in community, in God's presence. We don't know if Asaph was talking about going
to the temple or to another sanctuary of some sort But he goes to where he can
draw near to God and when he did there were inescapable realities He could not
dismiss in fact When he walked into wherever it was if he walked into the temple
he would have seen an Alter where sacrifices were made he would have smelled the
incense, the prayers of the people going up. He would have been reminded of things
that are true about God and about his love for us that were absent when he was
out processing this stuff in the wilderness. He would have been reminded in the
sanctuary of God's love and his compassion, of God's mercy and his grace. He would
have been reminded of the times when God had drawn near to him in the past, when
he had comforted him in times of sorrow, when he'd given him strength when he was
weary, when he had caused him to experience the peace that passes understanding. When
you go into the presence of God in the place among his people, you become, you
come face to face with what is true that you've forgotten.
One of the things he was reminded of, not just the love of God, but also the fact
that this life is a vapor and that What you're experiencing now the challenges
you're experiencing are according to the Bible light and momentary afflictions I don't
mean to say that they're not significant or painful. I'm not trying to dismiss the
challenges that Many of you are facing but the Bible says in light of eternity What
you're facing now is a light and momentary affliction and a theft Gets that eternal
perspective when he comes into the presence of God.
He has the pivot. And when we see the wicked prospering, when we face suffering and
pain in our lives, when we feel the weight of living in a fallen, broken world and
the weight of our own sin pulling us down, what we need the most,
what we need to be reminded of is that this life is dress rehearsal for eternity.
That this life is not all there is. In fact, this is short. It's momentary.
ASAP went to the sanctuary, his perspective on the wicked changed.
He said, "It looks like they're winning," but he said, "In the sanctuary, I got a
chance to remember what the end is. I discerned their end. I I saw,
they may be, you know those dot races they do at sporting events where you pick
the green dot or the blue dot or the red dot and you pick the one. And for a
while it looks like blue is in the lead and then all of a sudden here comes red
and they win at the end. You can look at the wicket and say, it looks like
they're gonna get the finish line. You know, they're gonna die with the most toys.
And he says, yeah, but when they get to the finish line, they
that it's over and that takes us to the section of the Psalm that starts in verse
18 where he cultivates an eternal perspective and there are three parts to this
eternal perspective the first part in verses 18 through 20 he remembers the fate of
the wicked he says truly you have set them in slippery places he began by saying
my feet almost slipped but when he remembers what is true about God and what's
coming for them. He says, they're the ones whose feet are gonna slip. You make them
fall to ruin. They're destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.
Like a dream when one wakes. Lord, when you arouse yourself, you despise them like
phantoms. You know how you wake up from a bad dream?
And it's like, right there, you were right there in it. And you wake up and it's
like the memory of that dream. You have a hard time remembering it. It's like it's
gone.
When we die, it's like we wake up from the dream of this life.
I'm not saying that this life is not real. I'm just saying what we'll experience
when we die is all of the hardship and pain and suffering of this life will be
like, yeah, it was weird. I can't remember it all. I don't,
yeah. And then you're on face in the sunshine in the day. Theologian Jim Hamilton
says about this passage, he says, "Any thought that God might not judge the wicked,
"any thought was to be mistaken. "When judgment falls on the wicked, "their influence
evaporates, their legacy is obliterated, "their memory is despised. They look like
they had it together, but he says judgment is gonna come, and the reality of
judgment for the wicked is gonna bring ruin to what looked like prosperity.
Now, the reality that the wicked are gonna be judged may be something that appeals
to your sense of justice. They're finally gonna get what they deserve, and I'm
finally gonna get what I deserve. Well the problem with that is, no you're not.
Because the difference between you and the wicked is not their wicked and you're
good.
The difference between you if you're a follower of Christ and the wicked is that
Christ has rescued you from your wickedness and given you the new heart.
See, what is And for the wicked is what they deserve and what you deserve and what
I deserve. The only reason you and I won't get it, we won't face this end is
because of what Christ has done. If we are in Christ, we're in the ark, we're in
the shelter, we're protected from the judgment that is to come.
Will we rejoice when God puts an end to evil and when he does away and judges
evil people? We will At the same time today when we think about God's being poor
God's judgment being poured out on the wicked It's heartbreaking to think about the
horror of that That we have people we know people we respect people we love people
we admire Who have rejected God, and this is the end that's coming for them.
In the last 10 days, there have been five prominent celebrities who have died.
Connie Francis died 10 days ago. Some of you are going, who is Connie Francis?
Well, believe it or not, Connie Francis was a big pop singer in the '60s. She sold
more than 100 million records. And you're going, I've never heard of her. I know,
she was a big deal. She died two weeks ago, this past week, you know, Malcolm
Jamal Warner from The Cosby Show was swimming in Costa Rica and got pulled under by
a riptide and drowned, 54 years old. Then Ozzy Osbourne dies,
76 years old. That same day, trumpet player Chuck Mangione died. He was 84 years
old, you know
"Oh, that's Chuck Mancini." And then, of course, on Thursday,
professional wrestler Hulk Hogan died. He was 71 years old. All of these are people
who achieved some level of notoriety and fame in life. They had wealth,
they prospered, and as far as I know, the only one of them, whoever professed any
faith in Christ, was Hulk Hogan, who in December of 2023 was baptized at a Baptist
church in Florida. And in a post on Twitter, right after he was baptized,
here's what he said, "Total surrender and dedication "to Jesus is the greatest day
of my life. "No worries, no hate, no judgment, only love." The pastor who baptized
him wrote this week about his friend whose name was Terry Bolia, that's Hulk Hogan's
real name, Terry Balea, he said, "Terry wasn't a perfect man, he never claimed to
be, he had a past, he made mistakes, but Terry was a Jesus man and that's the
beauty of the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Terry didn't just talk about his faith, he lived it. He walked in grace and made
sure everyone around him knew grace was available to them too." Now it's possible
that Ozzie and Connie and the others may have known the Lord. I don't know,
I'm not their judge. But for all five of them, this Psalm tells us that when they
died, they woke up like from a dream. They can barely remember the highs and lows
of this life. Connie Francis may be going, did I sell records? It seems to me like
I was a singer, maybe. But if they knew the Lord, They are today in his presence,
and that so completely overwhelms anything they experienced. It's like a dream. It's
vanished If they don't know the Lord if they didn't know the Lord if they rejected
Christ as this Psalm says in verse 19 They are now swept away utterly by terrors
And that's what ASAP remembers when he steps in to the presence of the Lord what?
Ultimately matters is not whether you prosper in this life, But whether you're ready
for what's coming?
He said when I remembered that I regained my footing
What comes next After we die is based on Whether you've surrendered your life to
Christ Received his forgiveness confessed your sin to him If you have you will be
with him for eternity And this life will be a fleeting vapor.
If you have not, there is a dark day ahead, an eternity of terror.
Are you ready for that day? Because we don't know when it comes. Malcolm Jamal
Warner did not wake up this week and think, "Today is the day I go home. I die."
You don't know when that's going to happen.
When Asaph remembers the judgment coming for the wicked and that God has rescued him
and delivered him from what's ahead for the wicked He gains an eternal perspective
and what he does in the next section of the psalm he repents Verses 21 and 22
show us his repentance. He recognizes he was mad at God and he owns it He says
when my soul was embittered when I was pricked in heart. I was brutish and ignorant
"I was like a beast toward you." I love the insight there. At this point, Asap
recognizes his foot had almost slipped, he was tempted to deconstruct, and he says
the reason is 'cause my soul was embittered. My heart was pricked, life is hard,
and here's what he thought, and follow this, this is key, 'cause we think this too.
He had the thought, the formula is supposed to be like this, "I live faithfully,
and to make sure I don't suffer. That's how it's supposed to work.
I do what I'm supposed to do and God is gonna protect me from harm or suffering.
We think I'll lead a good life, God, and you make sure it's comfortable. Deal?
When people say why is God allowing this in my life or in the world, why doesn't
He fix it? There are two assumptions that are at work there. The first assumption
is we shouldn't have to suffer. Where did you get that idea? What made you think
that we shouldn't have to suffer?
What made you think it is God's job to keep you happy and comfortable?
And then we think, well, if there is suffering involved, it should be minimal.
That's the first assumption. Second assumption is I know better than God what should
be going on and he should be doing what I think is right, not what he's doing.
And of course, the book of Job addresses both of these assumptions because we see
in Job, God sometimes has divine purposes for our suffering that he calls us to
participate in for his glory. And he will give you grace and strength to endure
while his purposes are being fulfilled. That's what Job did. He didn't curse or
rebel. His foot did not slip. He said blessed be the name of the Lord His foot
almost slipped because at the end he came to God and said I got a bunch of
questions Why are why are you doing what you're doing? This does not make sense to
me and God's answer to him is I'm God and you're not
Whether it makes sense to you is not the point. I know what I'm doing Think about
the gap in your understanding of the world, the gap between you as an adult and
your three -year -old child. Your three -year -old child looks at what's going on in
his or her life and throws a tantrum because it's not going the way they want to.
And you look and go, you just don't understand. You're three years old, you don't
get it. But I want a cookie, right? No, we got dinner coming up,
that'll spoil you, but I want a cookie." That's when you go to God and say,
"Why are you doing this? You're like a three -year -old saying to the God of the
universe, 'You don't know what you're doing. I want what I want. I don't want to
suffer. I'm suffering because I don't have my cookie.'"
And we got to understand, if the gap between a three -year -old and you is this,
the gap between you and God is huge.
So we accept what comes from the hand of God because we trust that His wisdom is
beyond our wisdom, that He knows better why a path of suffering is the right one
for us and for His purposes.
And we go, "I don't understand it, but I'm going to accept it." Tim Keller says if
you believe there's a God then you have to understand if you want to deal with the
real God You're not gonna understand them all the time
if you want to deal with the real God you got to accept the fact You're not gonna
understand what he's doing all the time When you look at things in our world that
shake your faith and It caused you to wonder if God knows what he's doing Sometimes
you just need to hear him It's going to be okay. It's all the answer you get.
Lord, why is this happening to me? Shh, it's going to be okay. Just like you do
with your three -year -old. ASAP realizes he's been like a brutish beast toward God.
He's been responding to God without thinking. He's been emotional like an animal. And
this is where he reaffirms what he believes about God. Look at verse 23. He reminds
himself of the goodness of God. He marvels at the goodness and faithfulness of God
and that God was faithful to him even when he was having his pity party. Even when
he was a brute and an animal, God never let go. He held him fast.
He tried to let go of God's hand. He almost slipped and even while he was pouting,
God said, "I've got you. Never let him go your hand." He needed to re -believe what
we read in 23. God is continually with me. He has taken me by the hand,
I'm safe with him. He will guide me with his counsel. He will bring me home to
him. You either believe those things or you don't. But you have to keep re
-believing them, don't you? You have to re -up on that every day. You have to hit
the wall and you go, am I gonna re that? Or am I going to let my foot slip?
Keep in mind when we get to this part of the Psalm, the wicked are still
prospering. The circumstances for Asaph have not changed. He's still suffering,
the wicked are still prospering, but his perspective has changed. I read this week
in Paul Tripp's everyday gospel, the devotional reading last Saturday morning that
said this, "Contentment depends not on your situation, but on the heart that you
bring to the situation.
It's not natural for sinners to be content. When I'm content, the joy in my heart
protects me from finding things to grumble about.
It's your heart that determines whether you're content, not your circumstances. You
can be in great circumstances and be whining. You've done that.
I stayed in a hotel this week and I turned on the shower and I turned it all the
way up to the hottest setting and it was fine, it was mostly hot,
but I like to be able to get it to scalding and then go back a little bit if I
want to. This was turned up to the highest, that's as hot as it's going to get.
And I thought, I don't like the hotness on this shower. I was grumbling about how
the shower is setting. And I thought to myself as I'm walking out, there are people
in the world, most people in the world, who would love to stay in that hotel room
that you just stayed in and have a bed like you just slept in. And you're
grumbling about how hot the water was.
You can be in great circumstances and have a discontented heart. Not about your
circumstances, it's about the heart you bring to it. Anyway, Asaph comes to this
part of the Psalm, confessing again his devotion and dependence on God. Verse 25,
"Whom have I in heaven but you? Nothing on earth I desire beside you. My flesh and
my heart may fail, but God, you are the strength of my heart and my portion
forever." Those two verses, some of you need to memorize those.
Just have those hidden in your heart. "Whom have I in heaven but you?" There's
nothing on earth I desire beside you. When you're facing problems, it's because
you're desiring something other than God on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my
portion forever.
Again, I'm quoting Tim Keller a lot. He preached a great sermon on this Psalm. He
said, "The reason that we're mad at God is often because we want something more
than we want God." And we're not getting what we want. We have put a desire for
something above our desire for him. And then he says, "This is what puts the nail
in the coffin when it comes to our anger toward God. Whom have I in heaven but
you?" And there's nothing on earth I desire beside you. The Psalm ends with his
final verdict restated in verses 27 and 28 with regard to end being the wicked.
Asif now has readjusted his perspective "to be eternal instead of temporal. "He
reminds himself that God has declared "that those who are far from him will perish
"and he'll put an end to everyone who's unfaithful." Verse 28 says, "But as for me,
it's good to be near God. "I've made the Lord my refuge, "that I may tell of all
your works." So here's what we need to keep in mind as we wrap all of this up.
The reason it's possible for you to be near God and to make him your refuge is
because Jesus opened a new and living way for you to come near to God. The reason
you can draw near to God is not because as Rick prayed, not because of
righteousness that you've done but according to his mercy. It's because Jesus opened
the door so you can draw near.
We would be facing the same fate as the prosperous wicked if it weren't for what
Jesus has done for us and our response to him. The difference between you and the
wicked is not that you are less wicked and they are more wicked, the difference is
Jesus has rescued you from your wickedness. And this morning as we've gone through
this psalm, if you've found yourself identifying like Asaph, you've either said,
no, my foot is not slipping, I'm on solid ground, I'm standing firm, or you've said
I've had these moments of slipping, maybe even this week, maybe I'm there right now,
where my foot is almost slipping because life has gotten hard and I've lost
perspective. God wants to pull you back by giving you a fresh perspective this
morning. Maybe your foot's always been slipping, maybe you've never had a firm
foundation, maybe you've never trusted in the God who will rescue you and deliver
you. It's the most important thing you can hear from this message this morning. But
the last line of this Psalm reminds us that if God is your refuge you have both
the joy and the responsibility to tell others about his good works, to tell others
about the good news.
Would you pray this morning and ask God that he might give you an opportunity today
or this week to share with someone who is far from God, Maybe somebody whose foot
has slipped to share with them about God's love his mercy and his grace in your
life To share your testimony. Can I tell you what God's done for me? Pray that
that opportunity might come this week. Pray with me Lord Thank you for the
opportunity to be in your word this morning to learn from your word Thank you for
the comfort of your word and the challenge of your word Lord, I pray that each one
of us here this morning would be anchored in the stability of knowing You and
knowing that Your Word is true and dependable and that while we suffer in this
world and there is suffering in this world, this is a light and momentary affliction
and this world and this life as a vapor. And we have eternity ahead where there
will be fullness of joy with you. Lord for any here who don't know you,
whose feet are slipping or who have never been on the solid ground, I pray that
you would draw them to yourself, rescue them, pull them close to you.
I ask these things in your name. Amen.