Well, it is official. We are all on Team Christmas now, and some of us had some stuffing this week, and then it was on to the stuff Black Friday. I don't know if you've heard of this, if you did any Black Friday shopping, if you were looking for some deals, I don't know in which direction you think the economy in our country is going, but the estimates that I read are that people in the United States of America spent $11.8 billion on Friday, and that is actually up 9% from last year, $11.8 billion. See, we have a problem in America, and it's particularly acute at this time of year. And it's the problem of envy. That's right, good old fashioned American materialism is a particular problem that we need to watch out for.
And I would like to open you up to Psalm 73 in the Scripture. And what we're going to find in this psalm is that this is a problem that the man who wrote this psalm, Asaph, had himself, and he is going to tell us how bad it got in his own life, and he's also going to give us the solution to that problem that he found in the Lord. So, we are going to pay attention to this entire Psalm. And if you're looking at it, it's 28 verses. Can we stand and read all 28 verses? Do you think we can do that? Stir thyself. Let's go, everyone. This is the nine o'clock service. But we need to wake up. We need to pay attention to God's word. So read Psalm 73 with me.
A Psalm of Asaph. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But 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 are not in trouble as others are; they are 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 tongue struts 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 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 the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into 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, O 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 besides 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 have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
That's the reading of God's Word. You can go ahead and have a seat. We can see as we read this Psalm that the problem that Asaph had was one of envy. Envy. That's when you want something that isn't yours, and you see it there in verse 3, where Asaph says, “I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Now, this guy, Asaph, I want you to write down on your notes, 1 Chronicles 16. Write down 1 Chronicles 16 because that's where we're going to see this guy, Asaph, that when David had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and he had pitched a tent, and it was there, and it's like God's presence is with us in God's City of Jerusalem. One of the people that David put in charge of kind of overseeing the worship of the Lord and even the singing of songs of thanksgiving and of praise, was this guy named Asaph. And we're going to read Psalm 73 tomorrow. Many of us. And I would love to invite you to go to 1 Chronicles 16, to introduce yourself to Asaph, because he's going to write the next eleven Psalms that we're going to read in Psalm of the Day. And I want you to be able to tell me what instrument did Asaph play when you look it up yourself. So, some of you don't go there right now. Do that tomorrow. But we're going to see that Asaph is here, and he's ministering before the Lord, and he's seeing people come to worship the Lord, but then he's also realizing not all Israel is Israel.
Now, King David was the king, and God was giving him great success, and they were defeating their enemies, and there was prosperity in the land of Israel. But it seems like when the people of Israel prospered, they did what Pastor Taylor encouraged us not to do. They forgot God, and they stopped looking to him as their source of goodness. They started looking to other things for their for their good and their prosperity. And Asaph is looking at these people, and he's saying, I started to envy them. And he starts off the song by saying, truly, God is good to Israel. Like, if we were to put, like, a true-false question on the screen right now and say, “God is good,” how would you answer that question? Good? You guys all got the right answer. But what Asaph is saying is that, like, truly God is good to Israel, but there was a problem for me, and that it's like, was he my good?
See, that the question we really need to answer here this morning is, not do you know God is good? And you can be like, yeah, God is good all the time, all the time, God is good. And you could say it like that, but are you living like God is your good? Because Asaph, he's looking at these people, that they're actually looking to something else. They're not humbled before the Lord. These people are arrogant, and they are focused on their prosperity. Asaph says that God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But he's kind of being honest with all of us, that I had a problem, that it's not like my heart was pure, it's not like my heart was clear and it was just focused on God, and I was looking to him as my good. I started looking around, and I started surveying the landscape, and I started seeing, well, maybe these people that don't seem to be following Yahweh, maybe they've got it good. But Asaph is telling us this story to warn us.
So, if you're taking notes, let's get this down for point number one: “Don't envy the world's good.” Don't envy the world's good. Asaph is saying, hey, I was messed up. My feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. I had almost made a huge mistake, because I was envious of the wicked. And you might think, well, why would Asaph be envious of these people? What was it about them that caused him to think this way about them? Let's look at what it says in verse 4. It says, “For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek.” They have no pangs until death, they doesn't seem like they're experiencing a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty. It seems like these people that aren't really paying attention to Yahweh and are focused on their own prosperity in the here and now, seems like life is actually going very well for them. They're about their business, and their business is prospering. And it's like, man, their life is just going straight ahead. Doesn't seem like they've got this difficulty. It says, “Their bodies are fat and sleek,” like they are fat and skinny at the same time. How can these things be? What is this talking about? Right? Because, I mean, in those days, a lot of times when you had to work, it's like, your body would get disciplined, your body would get hard from the physical labor that you were having to do. So, it's like, these people, they haven't been hardened by physical labor, they're soft, they're fat, right? They haven't had to work for themselves. And then it's like, yeah, maybe if you couldn't work back in that day, maybe you would be really skinny because you had no need and you had known hunger. This wasn't the case for these people, right? They weren't sleek because they had known hunger. It's like, man, these people haven't had to work very hard, but yet it's going so well for them. They are not in trouble. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. It's like they're living a life that seems like it's difficulty-free. Seems like they're living a life where they're not being corrected. There are not hard things. And you look at it, and it's like, man, this seems like it's just going straight away. It's just going right ahead.
And this problem that Asaph is talking about can be a real problem for us here in America today, that as Christians, we can kind of look at people that aren't loving the Lord, people that aren't seeming to care about him, and we can look at their life, and we can start to think it seems like it's going fairly well for them, right? Like you could look at their life, and you might say these three words, must be nice, because you look at their car, and you look at your car, and you look at their house, and you look at your house, and you look at their vacations, and you look at your vacations, and you look at the type of food that they're getting to eat. And you look at the type of food that you're getting to eat, and you're like, man, it seems like their life is easy and my life is difficult. My life is hard. And you might think, must be nice to live that kind of life. And this prosperity that these wicked people were experiencing, it had an effect on them. It says in verse 6, “Therefore pride is their necklace.” They wear it like a gold chain. Like, look at me. Look at what I have done. Look at what I have accomplished. “[V]iolence covers them as a garment.” They're like, come at me, bro. Like, who are you? You're going to come fight me? Like, I don't care about other people. Look at what it says in verse 7, “Their eyes swell out through fatness.” It's like they have so many options. It's like they can just kind of look around, and they can be aware of all the good things that they can do, and they get to go and do them right away. It’s amazing. It's like, whoa. What kind of life are you living? “[T]heir hearts overflow with follies.” It's like their passions and their pleasures, wherever they lead them, they are able to go and succeed. And in verse eight, “They scoff and speak with malice.” They don't need to choose their words carefully towards other people. They can talk however they want towards other people, loftily. They threaten oppression, like they're the boss, like they're the ones looking down and saying, actually, no, you work for me. So, I can talk to you however I want to talk to you, but you better be careful in how you talk to me. And even in verse 9, it says “They set their mouths against the heavens.” It's like their speech even turns towards God. There's no fear of God before their eyes, there's no respect for God. It says “Their tongue struts through the earth.”
This is America. This is like, why do we need God? We've got all this prosperity. We can do whatever we want, whenever we want. It's always been so intriguing to me to see that some of the neighborhoods around here that seem the least interested in the good news of Jesus Christ are the richest neighborhoods. Why would we need Jesus? We've got it all ourselves. Look at what we've made. Look at this life, this beautiful, Orange County life that we have made for ourselves. And like, who cares? We've got it all. And Asaph was looking at these people, and he was starting to be envious of them. And I worry that some of us might be doing the same thing that Asaph was doing, that when we're looking around at the other people in our society in America, right? Like, how twisted is it that we live in one of the richest places in the history of planet earth, yet somehow each and every one of us is able to convince ourselves that we're poor. I mean, it's really messed up the way we can start to think. Asaph is saying, the way I was thinking it was really wrong, because I was envious of these people. I was looking at their life, and I was looking at how easy it was, and I was thinking that it might be nice to live a life kind of like that. And look at what it says in verse 10, it says, “Therefore his people turn back to them.” So, God's people, we've got Israel, God's nation, yet we've got some of these people that they're not following the Lord. They're following their own hearts. They're following their own prosperity. They're not falling after Yahweh. And it says, his people are turning to these people, and it translates it in the ESV, “and find no fault in them.” But do you have a little tiny number next to that in your Bible, which leads you down to the bottom of the page, where there's like the little tiny text that some of us are having a hard time seeing as we get older, right? The probable reading of the Hebrew is “The waters of a full cup are drained by them.” That's probably the better way to translate that Hebrew phrase where it's like, when I look at God, it's like, my cup is full. It's like David would say my cup overflows when I look at God, but then when I start taking my eyes off the Lord and I start looking at these other people, it's like my cup that was full and overflowing is now looking like it's empty and almost out. Like this is a real problem. Asaph was realizing that this was a problem for him, it was actually a problem for many people back in his day, and it is the same problem that we face, and maybe even of any time of the year that we might face it. It might be right now that we might face it the most, where we could look at other people and their prosperity and all the things that they have, and we could start to not think, oh, man, I've got it so good with the Lord. We could start to think, ah, man, I wish I had it better. I wish I had it like these people that have ease and prosperity,
And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge with the Most High?” This is like, God, truly, God is good. But then there's like this question, like, does God really know how to be good to me? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, God is good all the time. All the time God is good. But this over here, this vacation, this property, this car, this thing, this pleasure, this experience, maybe this stuff knows how to make me happy better than God does. Maybe this is better at being good than God is at being good. And it seems like he even just sums it up in verse 12. “Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.” I mean, doesn't Asaph, who's writing thousands of years ago, doesn't it seem like he's got modern America pegged to a T? I mean, isn't this the exact goal that most Americans have? I want to live a life where I'm always at ease. My life is not going to have to be filled with work and effort. It could just be filled with fun. It could just be filled with me doing whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, and I don't want that fun to drain my bank account. I would actually like passive income to just be rolling in the background, so that instead of getting poorer and poorer, I actually get richer and richer. Like this is the exact goal that many modern Americans have, right?
I was talking about this Psalm with a gentleman at our church that he's experienced. He's of a certain age where he's been working for a good long time. And he was telling me about these younger people that have started to work at his company. And it's like, man, they want to work very little, yet get paid, like they worked a whole lot. And I see some of you who are also experienced nodding your head up and down, yes, this is a huge problem. And it's like, this is wicked when we're paying no attention to God, when we're not living God's way, when it's just about this life and our stuff, it's like, man, this is not good, this is evil, right? And so many people, it's like, well, if I can't live that way myself, well then, I'll just live vicariously through some celebrity or through some successful person, and I'll get to kind of watch their life and the ease at which they're able to just go from one fun thing to another. And it's like, you kind of look at some of these people and you're like, don't you ever have to, like, go into the office or, like, go to work? No, my money goes to work for me, my money has a job, and it just keeps on making me money, and I just get to do whatever I want. If you look around in in America today, you might notice some of the same things that Asaph was noticing these people over here. They're not following the Lord, but yet, look at how well it seems to be going for them right now. And this really did a number on Asaph. Look at the effect it has on him. He says, “All in vain I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.” Here I am. I'm leading music. It's like Asaph is like the Ryan Christ loving Pierce of the nation of Israel. And here he is. He's leading worship before the Lord with the people of the Lord. And it's like, how's it going for me? Like, I've been trying to stay away from sin, I've been trying to focus on the Lord. I've been trying to do what he wants. And is it all in vain?
Like, how is this working out for me right now, following the Lord? Look at what he says, “For all day” in verse 14, “all day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.” Right? Like these people, they're not stricken me stricken right, like I open up God's Word in the morning, I get my eyeballs in the Bible. It's 7am it's time to know God and what's staring right back at me as I open the pages of Scripture? Rebuke. It's like, whoa, so God's Word is not just telling me I'm doing everything fine and dandy. I'm doing everything great. God's Word is actually regularly correcting me. It's actually regularly showing me things that I'm doing wrong, that need to change. Let's get this verse up on the screen. Hebrews 12:6. It says, “For the Lord disciplines the one that he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It's like God is a good father in which he wants to develop us as his children. He wants us to mature as his children. He has a goal for us that he wants us to reach. And here we are with our father who's correcting us and disciplining us, and it's like these other people, their dad just lets them do whatever they want, right? And those of us fathers in the room, how does it go for our kids when we just let them do whatever they want? But when you're from the perspective of the kid, it might seem like those kids have it pretty good over there, like, Asaph is starting to think, like, has it all been in vain? Is i this even worth it to continue following the Lord? And look at what he says in verse 15, he said, “If I had said, ‘I will speak thus.’” So, Asaph is letting us know like this was just something going on in his heart. This was something going on in his own thoughts, that he had started to envy these people. He had started to think the wrong way about it, but he got actually close to actually opening his mouth and maybe like he's right there worshiping with everybody. He's like, guys, I think these people might have it figured out better than we do. If he had said that, if he had opened his mouth like right now, it was causing a problem, but it was just a problem for him, but if he had opened his mouth and said that. It's like, whoa, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. It makes me think about Jesus saying like, hey, temptations are going to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. “Better to have a millstone wrapped around your neck and be dropped in the deepest part of the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” Asaph is saying, like, look at how bad it got for me. It almost got to the spot where I was ready to say that to other people, like, it got so bad for me. And look at what he says in verse 16, “when I thought how to understand this,” like I'm trying to make sense of this, of like I'm following Yahweh. But here it looks like my life is hard. It looks like my life requires effort. It's difficult. And here are all these people that are not caring about God, and it's going so easy for them. How do I make sense of this? Make this make sense. “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,” like I'm just tired. I'm just like, man, how does it go so well for them and so hard for me?
And maybe that's the way that you're feeling here this morning. Maybe as you look at the apparent prosperity of the people around you, and you look at the difficulty that you face as you follow the Lord, as you try to obey his commandments, maybe you're tired, maybe you're feeling weary about this, and maybe you're feeling like you don't have the strength to figure it out and make it makes sense on your own. And so, what we've seen so far is Asaph is saying, look how bad it got in my own life because of this envy, because of the way I was thinking about these things the wrong way. And then in verse 17, this is where the whole Psalm hinges. It says, until that something happened, Asaph, he was not digging his way out of this hole on his own. It said in verse 17, “Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end.” Because it might seem like what the world has is good, but when you go into God's presence, you actually see that it's bad, right?
So, let's get that down for point number two: “Go to God to see the world's good is bad.” Because if you don't, if you just try to look at the wisdom of this world, you will get caught up in the way of thinking of this world. You will start to think like ASAP was thinking, okay, like this actually seems like it's good. Maybe I should live my life that way. Maybe I should follow after the prosperity of the here and now. But when you go into God's presence, when you see things from his perspective, it's like everything changes. It's like the thoughts that Asaph has now gets flipped completely on its head. It says, “then I discerned their end.” Like when Asaph is making all these observations about the wicked, verse 4, do you see what it what he says? “They have no pangs until death.” Can I just tell you that that was only the way that it seemed? Because it's like when we see things from God's perspective, it totally changes our perspective.
Like, there are a few verses as I was thinking about this chapter that really helped me. Can we go to 1 Timothy, chapter 6? Can we go to 1 Timothy chapter 6? Because in our day and age where we've got social media and we've got all of these things that, like, hey, back in Asaph’s day, he would have had to have seen some nice stuff in person to even know that it existed. Right? There was no social media. And right now, we can just go and we can look at anything we want at any time. We can examine any kind of real estate, any kind of property, any kind of car or boat or plane or whatever it might be, any kind of fashion, any kind of meal we can. I mean, it's like, man, these people, it's like they don't even have to clean their houses. I mean, oh, but then there are people on Instagram actually like cleaning their houses, but their houses look really clean, like, it's amazing how clean their houses can get. And this love of money, this love of the things that money can buy, this love of stuff. Man, do you remember Jesus saying one's life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions? I mean, look at what Paul says to Timothy. It says in verse 6 of 1 Timothy 6, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.”
You see, there's going to be an end. It's like, when you see things from the perspective of the end, everything makes sense for the here and now. We didn't bring anything into the world, and we can't take anything out of the world, like all of this stuff, all of these experiences, all of these great possessions, what's going to happen when you die? Can't take it with you. It doesn't transfer to the next life, but it says, but if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. I wonder if we've adjusted that standard for modern day America. But look at what it says there. “But those who desire to be rich, those who are envious when they see the prosperity of the wicked, fall into temptation, into a snare, into a trap, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with” what? “[M]any pangs.” Right? It might seem like they don't have any pangs till death, but in reality, actually, love and money brings out a whole lot of pangs in your life. And when you look at rich people, when you look at people that we might be tempted to envy, on the surface, on social media, where we're just posting the best versions of everything, it might look like there's no trouble, it might look like there's no difficulty. But as I've gotten to encounter some very wealthy people up close and personal, let me just tell you, there's a lot of pain, right? A lot of people working themselves to death for the next thing and the next thing, and then they're losing their family in the process. It's like, man, I've got this huge house, I've got all this money, and none of my family members love me. I mean, there is so much sorrow. Many are the sorrows of the wicked. If you desire to be rich, if you're envying the people that don't know the Lord, you are falling into a trap. It's a trap. Don't go that way. It will not deliver the satisfaction that it promises. It's empty in the end. And Asaph says, they've got no pangs until death. And actually, there are a lot of pangs before death, but there's one final pang, and it's like, but what's going to happen when you die? That's like the boss level that no one is able to beat.
Go with me to Luke chapter 16, because Jesus told this parable that I think just illustrates this concept so clearly for us, because it says in Luke, chapter 16, verse 19, it says, “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple,” right? The fashion of the day, the color, right? The style he had it. “[a]nd fine linen, who feasted sumptuously every day.” It was like a Thanksgiving feast, except for maybe the entrees were better than Turkey in this guy, right? Like he just feasted sumptuously every day, he's living this life that you might be tempted to envy. You might be tempted to look at and be like that looks nice. Must be nice. “And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus. Covered with sores,” gross, like sores, like open sores on your body. That sounds very un-American. Can we get a cream for that? Can we get some kind of medication? We don't do open sores. So, this is like as big of a contrast as we can, we can let here's this rich man, and he's feasting sumptuously every day. And here's Lazarus, and in verse 21 “he desired to be fed with just what fell from the rich man's table.” Like, I'm like a dog. Give me the crumbs. Moreover, “even the dogs came and licked his sores.” Again, this is not like dogs back in this day are, not like, dude, come here. Good boy, Puppy, right? Come lick me. No, these are the scavengers that are coming. Like, this guy doesn't even have enough strength to scare off the dogs, and they're licking him, not in like, a cute, cuddly kind of way. It's like man Lazarus, look at how bad it seems like it's going for him, and look how good it seems like it's going for this rich man. But then the last pain comes. “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side,” like the poor man dies, and it seems like we're using the name Lazarus like they he's a guy who's a friend of Jesus. And the thought is, is like he gets ushered instantly into glory, into the presence of the Lord. And it says, “The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, the place of the dead being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side and called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’” Like the end changed everything about this story. You might think it seems like it's going well for the one and poorly for the other, but when death comes, your thoughts are completely reversed. I mean, look at this man. He's feasting sumptuously, and now what does he want for his food, for his beverage? It would be amazing if Lazarus could just dip the end of his finger and get just a drop or two of water and put it on my tongue, because I'm in anguish, tormented in this flame, like I lived my life without thought of God, without living my life for him and for his glory. And where did that lead me? It led me into torment of which there is no release, of which there is no escape. I gained the whole world, but I lost my soul. And now what good is all my money that I have? Can it ransom my soul? No, it cannot.
Jesus is telling this story. I mean, you can look back in verse 13 of Luke 16, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” You cannot serve God and money. You can't. You're going to have to choose one or the other. Either you can serve God, or you can try to live your life for your own pleasure, here and now. The two are incompatible. Like God is the giver of many good gifts. He gives us many things to enjoy, but there's a whole different track where people are like, I don't really care about the giver. I just want the gift. I just want the prosperity. I just want, the stuff. I just want, the easy life. And living for the Lord can feel hard. It can feel difficult sometimes.
Go back with me to Psalm 73 because Asaph, when he sees their end, when he goes into the presence of the Lord, that's where everything becomes clear. That's where everything flips on its head. He was having a hard time figuring it out himself. Oh, once I go into the presence of God, it's like God helps me, and he helps me to see things the way they really are. Verse 18, “Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.” This week, I don't know if you had some time off, or if you got to do something fun with your family, and you know, one of the blessings of living in Southern California is Thanksgiving week might feel like summertime. You know, it might just feel hot, and you might think going to the beach sounds great, and so that's what we did with my family is we went down to the beach, and we went to this area where the tide pools are. Have you ever been to one of those where, you know, we got these little pools of water as the tide was higher, and then it went out, and we can look at them, and not supposed to touch them, and all this kind of stuff, but it's really cool. But then you're kind of walking over these rocks, and I was standing next to one of my sons, and he pointed to this spot on the rock. And he said, Dad, you see that spot right there? And it's this spot that's very smooth, like there's no barnacles on this spot. There's no texture on it. It's just a smooth spot. And you know what he says to me? Says that's the slipperiest spot. You set them in slippery places, this spot where life is smooth, where life is easy, that's the spot where just the slightest amount of water can sweep you away. You make them fall to room and how they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by tears. It might seem like it's going real good in the here and now, but then there's going to come a moment, and that moment won't be expected, and all of it's going to end in that one moment. And all of the longevity, all of the anti-aging regimens that I'm on, they're not going to save me from the moment of my death.
And people are not thinking that way. They're just thinking about the here and now. We need to see things from God's perspective, because he's telling us there's a lot more to life than just this life, and what's going to happen when you die, because that's where the real life is going to be. It's like, right now is the dream that we're going to wake up from? And it's like, he says, “Like a dream when one awakes, oh Lord, when you rouse yourself,” when God rouses himself, “and it's time for judgment, because there is appointed a day of each of our death, and after our death comes judgment. And when God rouses himself for judgment, you despise them as phantoms,” like right now, people in the world are acting like we're living a fairy tale life, like we're the ones who are dreamers and not linked to reality, and then everything's going to flip, and it's going to be like, no, they were living the dream right now, and it turned out to be a nightmare. Like everything will change. There will come a point where we will not envy the wicked at all. When you think about the end of the wicked people that are not living their life for the Lord, they're not to be envied, not one bit. They're to be pitied. Like when I think about this kind of end, where people are going to be in torment, and it's like, I'd wish for a for a drop of water, and Abraham's like, hey, you and your life, you had your good things. Lazarus got stricken, and now there's a chasm, and we can't go to you, and you can't come to us, game over. When you think about people that that's where they're headed, that all of this prosperity is a trap that's leading them to their own destruction, you're like, I don't want any piece of that. I don't even want to get close to that. In fact, I actually want to have compassion on these people who are so deceived. I would love to help them not think the way that they're thinking right now. I would like to help them see there's something greater than what we are experiencing right now that is yet to come. And look at what Asaph says here in verses 21 and 22, when I was embittered, “When my soul was embittered,” when my heart wasn't pure, like God is good to the pure in heart. My heart wasn't really that way. It was embittered like I was thinking about things the wrong way. He says, look at what he says. “I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you.” Like, I was not some leader. I was like a dumb animal, right? Like, I mean, sometimes we encounter animals that seem like they've got some intelligence, like, oh, my dog's really smart. Or this dolphin over here has got this intelligence. We're talking about the dumb kind of animals, like the beasts, right? Have you spent a lot of time around cows? Not the smartest of creatures, right? Just seems like they've only got kind of what's right in front of them on their mind. You could go right up to them and they're just going to pay you no attention, right? They're just going to keep on eating grass. And you're like, do you not know that? With a simple phone call, I could call my guy, and we could get him out here, and we could turn you into tri tip and rib eyes and ground beef. Do you not know, you ignorant beast? And that's what Asaph is outing himself before the whole nation of Israel and saying, like, I was like a beast. I was like a dumb animal. He's confessing how wrong he was. And I wonder if some of us, if that's what we need to do this week. Some of us, we've been envious of the wicked. We've been looking at the prosperity of some of our fellow Americans that don't follow the Lord. And we've been thinking, must be nice, but are we going to do what Asaph did and actually say, man, I was so wrong. I was so off in the way that I was thinking, like, we've gotten too cozy with this idea that we can have the best of this life and also have the best of the life to come at the same time. Like, yeah, I know Jesus says you can only serve one master, but I'd like to get as close to that line as physically possible. I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. I'd like to have all the good stuff now and also get it later. And there's only one way. It's when it's all about the Lord and Asaph is like, I was like a beast. I was thinking about it the wrong way. My heart was not pure. I needed God to do something for me. Would you be willing to be honest like that with someone this week? Would you be willing to look a brother in the Lord in the face and be like, bro, my steps had nearly slipped. I don't know. I haven't said that to anybody yet, but in my heart, I've been envious of fellow Americans that seem like their life is easy, that seem like they've got things that I don't have.
And I was a fool, and I needed God to help me. I needed that sermon to shake me out of my wrong way of thinking. I needed to go into the presence of the Lord. I needed to see what Asaph was saying from Psalm 73. I needed to get my eyeballs in the Bible so that I could really see things the way they really are. Would you be willing to confess that to someone this week? I mean, it almost seems like this is what we're going for. And I feel like I just need to take an extra moment and talk about this, because this thought that, like God wants you to experience all of this material stuff and health and wealth and prosperity and all of this like this is an idea that's really taken root in the Christian church. And this is an idea you know, Christian Instagramers, are going to say this. Christian Youtubers are going to say this. Can we hear what God says in James 4? Can we put that on the on the screen? James 4:4 says, “You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, who wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Like some of us might have heard, oh, I can cozy up to the world. I can. May be all about the stuff and all about this life, and all about America and all this, and I can be a friend of God, and God's saying, like, if you're doing that, it's like you're cheating on me. It's like you're an adulterer. Like there are people in the nation of Israel and Asaph state that, yeah, they're giving lip service to the Lord. They're like, oh yeah, totally Yahweh, I follow him, but really, I love all this other stuff. You know what God is saying about that? He's saying it's like adultery. This is not okay. No, no bit of that is okay. Like, if anything in your heart is competing with God for your affection, you need to lose it. He wants to be the one, the only, the top, with no second place, like it's all about him, and we've been told, no, but you can have it this other way. Don't be deceived, my friends, right? God is not going to be mocked. He's not going to be acting like it was friendship. He was going to be acting like, oh, you love the world. You love the things in the world. Then the love of the Father was not in you. They are incompatible with one another. Now, when we do love the Father, he is a good father. He gives us things to enjoy, but it’s because we love him. It's like, we focus on the giver, not the gift. It's like, yeah, okay, fine, great, all this stuff, but it's really him that I want.
And maybe some of us need to confess this. And it's like, okay, I went into the presence of the Lord, but yet, man, I was thinking about it the wrong way. And then look at what it says in verse 23, “Nevertheless,” like, what a beautiful word, right? Like, here I was, I was thinking about it the wrong way, but praise the Lord, it wasn't just me in the equation. “Nevertheless, I am continually with you.” And look at what he says. “You hold my right hand like god man; my grip seemed like it was slipping on you.” Praise the Lord, your grip was not slipping on me, and I know some of us, maybe even as you're hearing this, this sermon from Psalm 73, maybe you're thinking, man, I I've been too envious of the wicked. Praise the Lord that he cares about you. Praise the Lord he doesn't just want to let you go the way that you might want to go on your own. Praise the Lord that he's got his grip on us and he's not letting go. He says, “You guide me with your counsel.” Like God wants to counsel you. He wants to let you know the way that things really are. He wants you on the weekend, in between. Like, I didn't plan this. We just said Psalm 73, but the Lord planned it for the weekend in between Black Friday and Cyber Monday that he would be telling us, like, let hear my counsel. Don't envy the world. Don't think that your life is going to be full when you've got all this stuff. Don't think, well, once I get that next thing, then I'll be happy. And the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. I have seen people ruin their lives by trying to work for things, and it's always about the next thing and the next thing. And it seems like they're always trying to get somewhere, and they never arrive. Don't let that be you. If God wants to counsel you, he wants to guide you with his Word and show you the path forward, and it's not the same path that everybody else is walking on. It's entirely different. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to what? To glory, to glory. Like you know the people that should really be envied? It's us because we've got a God that is going to receive us to glory. Lazarus, he was the one that should be envied in the end, because here he is, he's with Abraham, in the presence of the Lord. It's like once we can turn away from all this stuff that seems literally really glittery and seems really shiny and seems really attractive, it's like, then we could actually see what the true treasure is. And it's being with God. It's being with God.
Let's just go back through this here, right? Like, in verse 4, like they have no pangs until death, verse 4, but then the pangs come. But if you're in Christ, it's like, oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting. It's like the pangs of death have been loosened for you. Their bodies are fat and sleek. I mean, how many of you are not very happy with your body right now? Right? How many of you ate a lot of food this week, and now you need to recover physically, because your body can’t handle all the sumptuous food that you were feeding. You're going to get a new body, my friends, a body that is not breaking down constantly like the one we experience today. They are not in trouble as otherwise, there's going to be no trouble in glory like there is going to be no sorrow, there is going to be no sickness, there is no pain. We are not going to be stricken. “Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.” How about being clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the white robes?
Is anybody else getting like we have it better? Right? “Their eyes swell out through fatness.” It's like they're looking at all these things and like, give me some of that, and give me some of that. Like we in the coming ages, it's like the immeasurable riches of God's grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus are going to be continually revealed, and we're just going to have our eyes wide with the glory of God. And it's like our hearts are going to be satisfied. In his presence, there is fullness of joy. It's like our hearts are going to be overflowing, and there's no let down, and it never stops. Forever, you will be the envy of all the world if you don't envy the world right now. The world should envy you if you are in Christ, Jesus, like there is no person that will be so privileged that will have it so good forever when it really matters. As people that love the Lord right now, don't envy the world. Don't be so foolish as to think they've got it good when God wants you to think you know you've got it good. No one has it as good as you. God knows what he's doing.
Let's get this down for point number three, let's get this down: “Choose God as your good.” Choose God as your good. You need to think, I can't spell good without God. Like, it's inseparable, good and God. Like, where does my good come from? It comes from God, right? Look at what he says. He says, “afterward you will receive me to glory.” Verse 25, pay attention to this. Memorize this. Make this your mantra for the rest of your life. “Whom have I in heaven but you.” The great thing about going to Heaven is not the streets of gold, right? I mean, have you gone out on the streets this morning and you were like, man, that concrete is looking especially nice, that asphalt is wonderful. Like gold, what we think of is so precious. Now that's what we pave the streets with in heaven. It's like, not a big deal. Because you know what's a big deal? God is there, his glory, everything's about him. Like we're not going to have some big, big house where we can play football and stuff like that. We're going to be with God. “Whom have I in heaven but you,” and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. You see, Asaph, when he went into the presence of the Lord God, really changed him to where now it's not like my heart is muddy, it's not like the water is unclear. It's like, boom, there's been crystal clarity. And now there's nothing that I desire besides you. I mean, can you say that? Not one thing I desire besides the Lord. Like when I have the Lord, I've got it all. Everything else could be taken away, and I've still got it all because I've got the thing that is better than any other thing, better than any other relationship, better than any other experience, better than any other possession, is possessing a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Is that what you're saying? Give me Jesus. That's what I want. That's what my good is. My good is not in all these other things. My good is in God. Have you chosen God as your good, or are you still trying to find your good somewhere else in the things of this life? I mean, go with me to John, chapter 15. Go with me to John, chapter 15. I hope this feels like review for you, if you've heard us say it over and over again already, these words that Jesus said to his disciples in John, chapter 15, verse 4, where he tells them, “Abide in me.” Remain in me, stay in me, and I in you, “as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do” what? It's like, the vine is where all the life is coming. The vine is where all the goodness is at. And as a branch, what do I need to do? I just need to stay connected to the vine. I need to remain in him. I need to stay in him. Jesus, later on in this passage, is going to be like, well, what does that look like? It looks like my words, abiding in you and you praying to me, this relationship, this closeness, this goodness. Go back with me to Psalm 73 he says, “My flesh,” verse 26 Psalm 73:26. “My flesh and my heart may fail like man.” I was following my heart, and it was leading me in the wrong direction. My heart failed me. I should not follow my desires. I should not follow my feelings, because they will lead me the wrong way. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength, or you could translate that, the rock of my heart and my portion, my portion forever, like God's my chosen portion, right? Like he's what I want. Jesus is saying, like, hey, apart from me, apart from spending time with me, it's like you got nothing like, if the Lord is your chosen portion, how long are you going to wait in any given day to experience the good? Like, I don't know about you, if you had something enjoyable that you were looking forward to doing this week, maybe you had some time off and you're thinking, oh, what would I like to do? Did you delay till the very end of the day to do that thing? I'll get around to it later. This thing that seems really fun. Oh yeah, I'll put it off. Maybe, maybe I will. Maybe I won't.
Like, that's what a lot of us do with time with God. It's like, oh, you know, my chosen portion. Maybe I'll have that today. Maybe I won't have that today. Oh, my chosen portion, yeah, I don't know that. I'll make that like, one of the top priority items, like, early on in the day, like, maybe, we'll see how the day goes, and we'll see if I have the right amount of energy to actually spend time with the Lord in his Word and in prayer later on. I mean, I love Thanksgiving, because it's like all the normal rules are off, right? Like, what's the best thing on the plate? I just go eat it first, right? That's what you should be doing with the Lord. What's the best thing on your plate in any given day? It's him. Why aren't we going to it first? Why aren't we pursuing him first?
It's been interesting to me, like we're trying to read the Bible together as a church. I'm so thankful I've never been at a church where I've been so encouraged to read the Scripture and to spend time with God as I've been at this church over the last ten years. And I know that before, we were reading the Psalms, which we're reading right now, like we were reading the Prophets, and some of these Prophets, it's like, oh, the degree of difficulty, the amount of effort that I need to put in to really understand what's going on is a little bit higher, right? Because we're talking about things of which I'm unfamiliar and I need to actually put in a little bit of effort each day to really understand what God is saying to me. And I remember talking to a number of people that I could tell they had stopped reading the prophets with us, and where had they gone? They went to the Psalms, right? Because it's like, yeah, this is really tough. I feel like I just need something a little easier for myself. And I'm like, hey, the Psalms are awesome. Psalms are great, right? And now it's like, we're trying to all read the Psalms together. And you know what I've noticed? We’re going to reach the halfway point of the Psalms this week. Is anybody else like, you're excited we got like 50% of the way, like a lot of you are reading with us. This actually is the first of Book Three of the Psalms that we're going to be reading, this book of the Psalms all the way up until the day before Christmas Eve here at the church. But you know what I've realized is that some people, it's like they've dropped off reading with us, because it's like, by now, in the Psalms, we're starting to see that there's some themes that are developed more than one time. Starts to seem like some of these Psalms are kind of similar to other Psalms that I've read before. Okay? And it's like the Psalms, what have they got to offer us? God! It's like they've got to offer us God. And we are seeing real people in their real life situation encounter real difficulty and be led over and over and over to God. There’s exceeding joy.
Can I suggest to some of you that, like, whether or not you want God is going to reflect in how you want the Word. For some of us it may not be that this part of the Bible was difficult. Maybe it's more. I'm just not that interested in God. I'm actually more interested in something else than God. I've got something else. That's my good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God is good all the time. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I have my daily reading and then, I can get on to the real thing that's my good.
And go back with me to Psalm 73 because, I mean verse 27 It's like he's summing it up. “For behold,” everybody take notice of this. Make sure you pay attention to this, “those who are far from you will perish.” There is a final pang that is coming for each and every single person, and it's death. And if you didn't, if you were far from the Lord, if you were making it about the stuff of this life and not about him., guess what's going to happen? You're going to perish, and all of your stuff and all of your experiences. You will not look back on those with fondness. You will look back on those with regret and regret only, and you will say, I wish I would have turned and made it about the Lord before it was too late. But then look at what he also says, “You put an end to everyone who's unfaithful to you.” The people who are at church, the people who are saying, Oh yeah, yeah, God. I believe in God. I believe in God, but my good is somewhere else. My good is in the stuff of this life. That's what I'm really looking to for my joy and my happiness and my fulfillment.
And you need to hear God say the way he's going to say it in the future. Adulterers, friendship with the world is enmity with God. If you want to be a friend of this world, you are making yourself an enemy of God. You want to act like he's your husband, but you want to go play around with other lovers. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. And Asaph is like that was almost me. I was almost that. Don't do what I did. Don't think the way that I was thinking. Turn away. I was like a beast. Don't think that way. See it clearly. Go into the presence of God. Allow him to change your perspective on everything. But then, look at what he says. Look at where God leads him by the end of the Psalm, verse 28 “But for me,” so yeah, truly God is good to Israel, but then you look back in verse 2, “but as for me, I wasn't thinking about it that way.” There was a point in Asaph’s life when he wasn't seeing it clearly, but now. “But for me, it is good to be near god.” Oh, I want time with the Lord. Oh, that's what I need. That's what I'm running to, right? Even on days when I'm not feeling it, even on days when it when it feels like I'm stricken and it's tough, give me God or nothing's going to be good. Give me God or else, like it's God or nothing for me, as for me, it's good to be near God.
Is that the good for you? Is that your good that you're saying, that's what I'm going to choose day after day. And this is a choice we’ve got to make day after day. It's not like I can just put this on autopilot and it just runs in the background. No, each and every day I need to say, God, today being near you is going to be the best thing for me. Today, I'm going to choose you over all these other things, over my to do list, over this, over that, whatever it might be. The nearness of God is my good. I've made the Lord God my refuge, my rock, like he's what I'm clinging to. He's what I'm running to. Yeah, this is happening and that's happening, but I've got a refuge, I've got a foundation, I've got a place that I can go and be safe, that I may tell of all your works. You see, when you're going to God for your good, it's not like you're going to be the type of Christian that's like, oh yeah, God was good to me back in 1999. Oh yeah. I remember I experienced some of his goodness. No, you're going to experience it today and tomorrow and the next day. If you make God your good, truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart, if your heart is holy, you're going to experience his goodness. And it's not going to be like, oh yeah, I've experienced that in the past. You're going to be like I'm experiencing it now. Like, truly God is good, like, I know it. I'm experiencing it. I'm living it. It's not a fact in my head. It's like the reality that I am living in my life. May even some of us, by the time we go to our Fellowship groups this week, you should have multiple things that you're like, man, the nearness of God was my good. And look at how God was good. Look at how he's so good to me. Look at how his steadfast love endures forever. Look at how he's given me exactly what I need for this challenge. Look at how he's rebuking me through His Word. He's correcting me, he's guiding me with his counsel, and afterward, he's going to receive me to glory, that God is good. But the question for each and every one of us here this morning, is he your good? Let's pray as we consider that question together.
Our Father in heaven, Lord we lift up this Psalm. God, we are so thankful for this Psalm. God, we're so thankful for Asaph being willing to be honest about what was going on in his heart. God, and if we are honest, God, I wonder if many of us need to confess that we've known the right information, that you're good, but we've been looking to something else for our good. And God, you want us to see the end of the wicked God, these people that they're not paying attention to you, God. And maybe we're thinking, God, the time that we're loving other people with, God, wow, if we were spending that time on ourselves, how enjoyable could that be? Or the money that we're caring not just about ourselves, but the needs of people in India that we've never met, in Tokyo that we've never met. Oh, if we could just spend that on ourselves, we could buy this, or we could buy that and, oh, that would be nice. God, turn us away from that way of thinking. Help us to see that. God, people that live for the stuff of this life, they are set in such slippery places. God, places we don't want to be set, places that things are going to happen to them, that we don't want to happen to us. God, that we would go from envying them to pitying them and wanting to share the gospel with them, God, they're wanting to see people that are deceived and caught up in this American life, where it's all about our prosperity that they could turn and find life in your son. And so, God, help us not to envy the wicked. Help us to see how good we have it in you. God, who do we have in heaven, but you and God on earth, there's none that we desire besides you. No one can be good to us like you can be good to us. And so, we ask you, Lord, be good to us. Show us your glory, God. Show us how good we have it in your Son, Jesus Christ. God, cause being near to you, spending time in your Word and in prayer, to be so much more precious to us than it's ever been. God, don't let us be people that petered out halfway through reading the Psalms. Let us go, because we need you. We've got no other good besides you. And so, God, stir us up to have more joy in you than we've ever had before. And it's in the name of your Son that we pray. Amen.