Sermon: Finding Stability Amid Life’s Confusion
Scripture: Psalms 73:1-28, “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.”
Introduction: Psalm 73 is the beginning of the third division of the five divisions of Psalms. Psalms 73-89 are what many consider the darkest division of the five divisions of Psalms. Psalm 73 is a Wisdom Psalm that engages themes like those found in Ecclesiastes and Job. Asaph, who wrote Psalm 73, confesses that seeing prosperity among wicked people brought him bitterness and envy. That nearly caused him to lose trust in God. Carefully considering God and His eternal truth led Asaph to a stronger faith. Asaph, King David’s Psalmist, Singer and Seer, served both King David and King Solomon fulfilled his role of composing the music, leading the worship and ushering the people into God’s presence.
Asaph, the author of Psalm 73, was confused about the way the world worked. He saw righteous people suffering while wicked people flourished. He admitted he was tempted to live like the wicked, until he went into the sanctuary of God and found answers. God would eventually vindicate the righteous and punish the evildoers. There was no future in wickedness, but there was a glorious future for those who loved God.
Asaph verbalize a question that many righteous people wanted to ask, “Why God allows the rich to flourish while the righteous often suffer?” Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? Why does it rain on good and evil, the just and the unjust? Asaph decided to seek God. In seeking God, we will find stability amid life’s confusion.
1. Believers must resist the temptation to live like the world. 73:1-14):
Asaph, the psalmist, documented how he was tempted to live like the wicked men he saw around him. He said he was very close to slipping off the edge into their immorality because, on the surface, their lives seemed so good and pleasant. “For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (73:3). These immoral men were well fed and fat with abundance. They didn’t seem to struggle through daily trials like other men. They seem to live without pain up to their death. They wore pride as a necklace, violence as their clothing, and their hearts overflowed with sin, but the consequences of their actions never seemed to catch up with them. Their evil was out in the open for everyone to see, and it caused righteous people to question God. “Why would God allow the world to be this way?”
While the righteous suffered, the wicked were “always at ease” and increasing in wealth. The righteous people of Asaph’s day meditated on this dilemma, trying to figure out how it could be explained that an all-knowing God allowed this to happen. Asaph was tempted to believe all his effort to live a holy life was a waste. He wrote, “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” (73:13-14). Believers must resist the temptation to live like the world. Secondly, believers must return to God and to his word for the answers to life’s confusion.
2. Believers must Revisit the Sanctuary of God for clarity. (73:15-28):
Asaph was tempted to throw in the towel and join the evildoers, but when the time for the decision arrived, he was wise enough to stay on God’s side. He said to join the wicked would be to betray God’s people and lead them astray. Trying to reconcile the flourishing of the wicked was difficult for Asaph, until he went into the “sanctuary of God” and remembered God’s words. He discovered that His loving God had a plan for the righteous and the wicked. The present dilemma is not the end for the righteous. The hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish. The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not inhabit the earth. In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no eternal death. Evil pursues sinners, but to the righteous, good shall be repaid.
There was no future for the wicked. If they are not punished in this life, they were going to be punished by God after their deaths. In questioning God, Asaph had been foolish, he said he acted “brutish and ignorant.” But after visiting the sanctuary, he asked God to take his hand and guide him. God would guide him through life and receive him to glory after death (73:24). Asaph wrote, “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” (73:25-26).
Psalms 91:8-14 “Only with your eyes shall you look, And see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place, No evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, The young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.” Asaph joins various prophets that were troubled about the prosperity of the wicked. Jeremiah asked directly, “Why does the way of the wicked succeed?” (Jeremiah 12:1). Habakkuk also asked God, “Why do You remain silent when the wicked devours one more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:13). Even Job with all of patience struggled to understand it. God never seems to answer that question directly, He simply reminds them that He is God and He is in control.
Conclusion: The confusion we see in the world stirs up all kinds of emotions inside us. During seasons of loss, stress, unanswered prayer, our flesh gets weak, and our heart may faint. Life is hard sometimes. One of the biggest emotions was confusion, Asaph was confused about why the world works the way it does. While he was in his own head and in his own thoughts, he almost took a devastating step off the cliff. He was so confused that he wanted to reject God and embrace the lifestyle of godless people. But when he went into the sanctuary and reminded himself of the words of God, he stepped back from the cliff. His mind was put at ease as the words of his creator made sense of the world. The stability of the eternal God, the rock of truth, steadied him and allowed him to proceed logically instead of irrationally. This is why personal biblical literacy and teaching the words of God to others is so important. The world is a confusing place, and that isn’t helped by the fact that we have an adversary who is intentionally trying to confuse us. Without the stabilizing truth of God’s words, we’re liable to eat up the devil’s lies and walk off any number of cliffs.
Our societies are filled with so many people who are completely confused about who they are, why they’re here, and the meaning of life. They are walking off cliffs, and the only thing that will save them is the truth that flows out of the sanctuary of God. This is the caution of Hebrews 10:25, which reads, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” The spiritual reality and need of “do not forsake the assembling together” is more than a suggestion to go to church. It's a call to be empowered by God and his word as we do life together. As the Body of Christ, we are to be living proof of a loving God who is always righteous. In our experiences of suffering, loss and disappointment, we must return to God’s sanctuary. In the Sanctuary, we will find God’s presence, power and provision. And at times, we will be God’s presence, power and provisions for others. We will find the strength to resist the temptation to live like the world, in the sanctuary, God will reaffirm his word and show us the way forward. Asaph wrote, “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” (73:25-26).
We too, must war against the thoughts of our hearts and minds. Our thoughts may be convincing, but every thought is not true. The wicked will not get away with murder, and good guys will not always finish last. 2 Corinthians 10:5, reminds us to “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” No matter what it looks like, God is love and God will take care of His own. The righteous will not be forsaken, nor their seed beg for bread. Our God will sustain us and keep us. In God we can find stability amid life’s confusing moments. AMEN.
