WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons, 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.700 a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg. 00:00:06.339 --> 00:00:08.240 It's our hope that these sermons will draw you 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:10.660 more into the life of following God, Father, 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.640 Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:15.779 joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m. 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:18.280 in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:21.839 us online at secondcitychurch .org and on Facebook, 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:24.519 Instagram and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:31.030 sermon. God bless. Let's pray together. Oh Lord 00:00:31.030 --> 00:00:34.070 God, we thank you for your goodness to us. You 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.469 are good and your mercy endures forever. We pray 00:00:36.469 --> 00:00:38.929 Lord that you would be with Peter our pastor 00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:43.369 and his family as they vacation. We pray that 00:00:43.369 --> 00:00:45.009 you would be with all of our loved ones who are 00:00:45.009 --> 00:00:48.210 not here today and we pray for those of us who 00:00:48.210 --> 00:00:55.170 are here. Speak to us today in your word and 00:00:55.170 --> 00:00:58.899 by your sacrament. Lord, help us to know you 00:00:58.899 --> 00:01:02.299 and love you better. Now may the words of my 00:01:02.299 --> 00:01:04.920 mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:07.239 be pleasing in your sight, oh Lord, our rock 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:14.180 and our Redeemer. Amen. All right. Hello all. 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:19.060 Psalm 73 is a poem in which the speaker expresses 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:23.480 indignation against the bad guys who appear to 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:26.019 just get away with everything. There appears 00:01:26.019 --> 00:01:29.340 to be no justice in the world for the speaker 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:33.900 of the poem and I resonate strongly with this 00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:37.459 because I am a football fan and for years and 00:01:37.459 --> 00:01:40.640 years the New England Patriots kept getting into 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.420 scandal after scandal and kept getting away with 00:01:43.420 --> 00:01:47.439 it and winning Super Bowls. There was no justice 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:51.739 in the world. The NFL fan looked up And behold, 00:01:51.859 --> 00:01:53.920 in place of righteousness and truth, there was 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:58.739 Tom Brady deflating footballs. Let me read you 00:01:58.739 --> 00:02:02.140 some of Psalm 73 as I would have read it not 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:04.840 long ago in my own spiritual life. Please follow 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:07.200 along with the ESV in your pew for reference. 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.939 So this is starting with verse three. For I was 00:02:10.939 --> 00:02:13.659 envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity 00:02:13.659 --> 00:02:17.159 of the patriots. For they have no trouble from 00:02:17.159 --> 00:02:19.780 the league office. Their owner's pockets are 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:23.560 thick and deep. They are not flagged as others 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:27.000 are. They are not officiated as the rest of mankind. 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:32.219 I could go on. I was really pretty intent about 00:02:32.219 --> 00:02:35.360 this. I would not be able to sleep at night because 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:39.099 I'd be so angry after the Patriots won again 00:02:39.099 --> 00:02:41.319 on Sunday night football with the help of the 00:02:41.319 --> 00:02:47.500 refs. This is actually all true. But this is 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:50.219 all also kind of a false start, isn't it, as 00:02:50.219 --> 00:02:53.379 regards the actual text in front of us? Because, 00:02:53.419 --> 00:02:56.620 why, even though this poem expresses rage against 00:02:56.620 --> 00:02:58.900 the wicked, I don't really think the poem is 00:02:58.900 --> 00:03:02.120 about the wicked, finally. It's rather about 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:05.300 the speaker and his relationship with God, right? 00:03:05.740 --> 00:03:09.099 After all, what's the danger in this text? We've 00:03:09.099 --> 00:03:11.919 seen other Psalms pretty recently where there 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:14.419 seems to be actual physical violence being threatened 00:03:14.419 --> 00:03:16.300 against the speaker and he's saying, oh Lord 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:19.759 make haste to help me, right? That doesn't seem 00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:22.800 to be the case here. In this one, the bad guys 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:25.300 aren't actually threatening, they're just bad 00:03:25.300 --> 00:03:27.479 and they're comfortable being bad and that in 00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:30.979 itself makes the speaker uncomfortable. The danger 00:03:30.979 --> 00:03:34.060 here is spiritual. The danger is having a heart 00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:38.330 that is out of alignment with God. As Jewish 00:03:38.330 --> 00:03:41.270 philosopher, Martin Buber says about this Psalm, 00:03:41.810 --> 00:03:45.889 quote, the state of the heart determines whether 00:03:45.889 --> 00:03:49.530 a man lives in the truth in which God's goodness 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:54.090 is experienced or in the semblance of truth where 00:03:54.090 --> 00:03:57.530 the fact that it goes ill with him is confused 00:03:57.530 --> 00:04:00.710 with the illusion that God is not good to him. 00:04:02.490 --> 00:04:05.919 So God is good to us, but we can see the world 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:08.659 out there and become convinced that God is not 00:04:08.659 --> 00:04:11.300 in fact good to us. Another commentator says 00:04:11.300 --> 00:04:13.939 that the theme of this poem is quote, the occupation 00:04:13.939 --> 00:04:17.579 of the heart with others and subsequent distraction. 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:21.139 We can get distracted when we look at others, 00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:23.879 right? So the speaker is upfront about this. 00:04:24.300 --> 00:04:27.420 He knows that even though he's upset at the wicked, 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:30.899 the real problem is his own heart. We have this 00:04:30.899 --> 00:04:33.019 long complaint about the wicked that lasts from 00:04:33.019 --> 00:04:36.660 verse four, all the way to verse 15, but it's 00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:38.519 all headed by verse three. And if you look there, 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:40.980 what does it say? I was envious of the arrogant 00:04:40.980 --> 00:04:46.350 when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. So we're 00:04:46.350 --> 00:04:48.790 hearing from the poet himself that everything 00:04:48.790 --> 00:04:50.910 that follows about the wicked is not going to 00:04:50.910 --> 00:04:54.689 be an impartial, dispassionate kind of an account, 00:04:54.769 --> 00:04:58.350 right? I considered within myself, calmly, and 00:04:58.350 --> 00:05:00.829 I beheld the wicked were being wicked, right? 00:05:01.029 --> 00:05:03.509 It's not that kind of thing. This is colored 00:05:03.509 --> 00:05:07.110 all the way through by envy, just like my own 00:05:07.110 --> 00:05:09.470 long standing hatred for the New England football 00:05:09.470 --> 00:05:14.529 team. So I'm calling this sermon Heart Health. 00:05:15.129 --> 00:05:18.649 because the word heart occurs six times in the 00:05:18.649 --> 00:05:21.189 text. And it's pretty obvious that the speaker 00:05:21.189 --> 00:05:24.189 is in spiritual discomfort in the first half 00:05:24.189 --> 00:05:26.910 of the poem. He's in a condition that I'm thinking 00:05:26.910 --> 00:05:29.550 as a kind of heartache or heart sickness, but 00:05:29.550 --> 00:05:32.069 then he's reminded of the trustworthiness of 00:05:32.069 --> 00:05:36.829 God and he gets to a state of ease or heart health 00:05:36.829 --> 00:05:41.670 by the end of it. So the question for us in reading 00:05:41.670 --> 00:05:45.519 this poem can be, How do we go about getting 00:05:45.519 --> 00:05:48.740 to a restful state for our hearts? How do we 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:51.860 achieve heart health in this world that can absolutely 00:05:51.860 --> 00:05:55.819 cause us heartbreak? Here's what I think the 00:05:55.819 --> 00:06:00.920 Psalm teaches us. If we want to avoid spiritual 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:04.579 heart sickness, we will put our trust in the 00:06:04.579 --> 00:06:10.300 true God, and we can deepen our trust in the 00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:13.939 true God in church. That's my thesis. If we want 00:06:13.939 --> 00:06:15.720 to avoid spiritual heart sickness, we put our 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:17.639 trust in the true God and we can deepen our trust 00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:21.079 in the true God in church. And because I'm training 00:06:21.079 --> 00:06:23.839 to be a Presbyterian minister, I'm going to break 00:06:23.839 --> 00:06:27.040 that into three points. And because I was talking 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:28.879 to Dale a few weeks ago, I'm going to try to 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:31.339 break each of those points into two sub points. 00:06:31.699 --> 00:06:34.819 You can grade me on this afterwards. All right. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.699 So here are my three points for biblical heart 00:06:37.699 --> 00:06:42.750 health. They are reality, routine, and relationship. 00:06:43.910 --> 00:06:46.850 Okay? Reality. So in thinking about the first 00:06:46.850 --> 00:06:49.750 half of this poem, we can be reminded of what 00:06:49.750 --> 00:06:52.129 Peter has said here in the previous weeks, which 00:06:52.129 --> 00:06:54.730 is that God is interested in how you really feel. 00:06:55.089 --> 00:06:58.310 We don't have to fake things before God. We should 00:06:58.310 --> 00:07:01.069 pour out the reality of our feelings to him. 00:07:02.170 --> 00:07:05.089 We shouldn't need the to self -censor. to the 00:07:05.089 --> 00:07:08.589 Lord. But then, having expressed ourselves honestly 00:07:08.589 --> 00:07:11.649 to God, we should then examine what the causes 00:07:11.649 --> 00:07:15.870 of our feeling actually were, actually are. So 00:07:15.870 --> 00:07:18.870 in this case, am I angry at the wicked because 00:07:18.870 --> 00:07:21.290 their behavior is harming others? Am I angry 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:25.790 at the wicked because their behavior is dishonoring 00:07:25.790 --> 00:07:28.829 to God? Or am I angry because I'm secretly jealous 00:07:28.829 --> 00:07:33.930 of the wicked? Take a look. This poem is not 00:07:33.930 --> 00:07:36.490 just about bad people in general. It's about 00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:40.350 the wicked rich people. The prosperity of the 00:07:40.350 --> 00:07:42.870 wicked is what causes the speaker's anger. We're 00:07:42.870 --> 00:07:47.250 talking about the big guys, the fat cats, sort 00:07:47.250 --> 00:07:50.089 of literally. Verse four, their bodies are thick. 00:07:50.610 --> 00:07:54.290 They're fat and sleek. Verse four, they are not 00:07:54.290 --> 00:07:56.990 in trouble as others are. They are always at 00:07:56.990 --> 00:08:02.910 ease. Verse 12. So why would we envy people we 00:08:02.910 --> 00:08:05.850 think are bad? Well, if we only think about worldly 00:08:05.850 --> 00:08:09.670 success, we can do it pretty easily. If our goal 00:08:09.670 --> 00:08:12.610 is riches and power, we will envy the rich and 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:15.449 the powerful, whether or not we like them personally. 00:08:16.850 --> 00:08:19.870 If we start thinking only about them and their 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:23.269 earthly success, we can stop thinking about God. 00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:27.410 God is pretty absent from the first half of this 00:08:27.410 --> 00:08:30.459 whole poem after the first verse, right? When 00:08:30.459 --> 00:08:33.000 we do remember God, it's only to wonder why he's 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.679 not doing what we would like him to do. Look 00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:41.480 at verse 11. They say, how can God know? Is there 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:44.639 knowledge in the most high? That is, I don't 00:08:44.639 --> 00:08:46.620 have to worry about God, right? He's not gonna 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:49.659 do anything about me. And follow this, if the 00:08:49.659 --> 00:08:51.960 speaker is envious of them, This is the way he's 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:53.820 picturing the bad guys speaking. And if the speaker 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:56.480 is envious of them, that means that's secretly 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.259 sort of the way he wants to regard God too. He'd 00:08:59.259 --> 00:09:06.960 rather not think about him, right? He doesn't 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:09.139 want to have to worry about pleasing God or following 00:09:09.139 --> 00:09:10.799 his laws. That's not going to make him rich. 00:09:11.340 --> 00:09:13.620 So I think the first step to heart health is 00:09:13.620 --> 00:09:16.279 actually to ask, what is it that's causing us 00:09:16.279 --> 00:09:19.769 heart distress? Is there a part of our heart 00:09:19.769 --> 00:09:22.570 that just wants to be bad ourselves and get away 00:09:22.570 --> 00:09:28.070 with it? The text sees this. Later on, it calls 00:09:28.070 --> 00:09:30.669 this type of thinking bitter. That's verse 21 00:09:30.669 --> 00:09:35.110 or brutal in verse 22. The thoughts of the speaker 00:09:35.110 --> 00:09:37.629 have diagnosed themselves and discovered that 00:09:37.629 --> 00:09:39.970 even though it was angry at bad things, it was 00:09:39.970 --> 00:09:44.299 angry in bad ways or for bad reasons. And I think 00:09:44.299 --> 00:09:46.299 we should be willing to look critically at our 00:09:46.299 --> 00:09:49.240 own big feelings and pronounce judgment on them. 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:52.100 And isn't that the same thing as a confession 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:56.019 of sin? I wanna come back to that. But worldly 00:09:56.019 --> 00:09:58.059 envy is a root cause of discomfort that we should 00:09:58.059 --> 00:10:00.960 be aware of. It is a reality that we can try 00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:03.379 to hide even from ourselves and we should discover 00:10:03.379 --> 00:10:05.600 it, right? Because we don't like to think of 00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:07.860 ourselves as envious, we like to think of ourselves 00:10:07.860 --> 00:10:11.610 as righteous. So let's look at a flip side of 00:10:11.610 --> 00:10:14.110 that thought, wanting to be righteous, right? 00:10:14.529 --> 00:10:16.870 The flip side of that desire to be righteous 00:10:16.870 --> 00:10:19.009 and not seeing it, not feeling comfortable in 00:10:19.009 --> 00:10:22.610 the world is a distrust of God. What do I mean? 00:10:23.769 --> 00:10:26.409 Well, you can see distrust of God in the way 00:10:26.409 --> 00:10:29.169 the speaker expresses his outrage. The wicked 00:10:29.169 --> 00:10:32.330 have it easy. They're fat and they're happy, 00:10:32.370 --> 00:10:33.970 but I'm doing all this good stuff for you and 00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:37.639 where's my gold sticker, God? You're not doing 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:39.500 your job right. You're supposed to be rewarding 00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:44.159 me and punishing them. Let's back up to the beginning 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:47.440 of the text here. So we get the language of stumbling. 00:10:48.539 --> 00:10:50.519 My feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly 00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:53.379 slipped. That's verse two. And then after this 00:10:53.379 --> 00:10:55.759 mention of slipperiness and stumbling, then we 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:59.360 have this 13 or so verse rant against the wicked. 00:10:59.419 --> 00:11:01.779 It's a poetically worded rant, but it is a rant 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:06.600 nevertheless. The text seems to regard that long 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:11.019 section as a kind of swamp of bitterness that 00:11:11.019 --> 00:11:13.779 envy has led us into or that we sort of slipped 00:11:13.779 --> 00:11:16.919 into because of envy, right? So even if the speaker 00:11:16.919 --> 00:11:19.799 is right and the bad guys are bad, the swamp 00:11:19.799 --> 00:11:23.460 is not a good place to be. There's a big hint 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:25.600 here that we can know this is not the right way 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:29.019 to think. Look at verse 13. It says all in vain. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:32.620 I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands 00:11:32.620 --> 00:11:36.519 in innocence. That's a bitter cry of frustration 00:11:36.519 --> 00:11:39.179 against God because he's not rewarding people 00:11:39.179 --> 00:11:42.740 the way that we think he should. But it's a really 00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:44.659 interestingly worded one or it's an interesting 00:11:44.659 --> 00:11:46.620 picture, right? There's only one other guy that 00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:48.679 I'm familiar with in the Bible who washes his 00:11:48.679 --> 00:11:51.200 hands and he says, I'm innocent. And that is 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:57.379 the deeply not innocent pilot. So if our anger 00:11:57.379 --> 00:12:01.379 is a swamp, Why does this almost stay in it for 00:12:01.379 --> 00:12:05.460 half of the poem? Well, I think if we're honest 00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:07.539 with ourselves, we can realize that there's something 00:12:07.539 --> 00:12:10.559 really satisfying about telling ourselves over 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.519 and over again how right we are and how wrong 00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:16.700 and bad the bad guys are. That's the temptation. 00:12:17.039 --> 00:12:20.159 It's concluding that since God is not providing 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:22.240 visible justice in the world the way that we 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:24.019 want, we'll just have to do his job for him. 00:12:25.100 --> 00:12:27.879 We're gonna prove to ourselves how right we are 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:30.200 and how we have been wronged and we can get stuck 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:33.879 in that Our own Bruce Weatherly in his soon -to 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:36.840 -be published book calls that cyclical thinking 00:12:36.840 --> 00:12:40.200 a Cycle and I think he's absolutely right in 00:12:40.200 --> 00:12:43.220 saying that this is a trap that can ruin the 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:46.039 peace of our hearts So how do we get out of the 00:12:46.039 --> 00:12:50.220 cycle? Brings me to my second point here routine. 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:54.100 We need a good routine to keep us in heart health 00:12:54.740 --> 00:12:59.940 This poem centers, pretty literally, in a pivot 00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:02.500 point in verses 16 and 17, if you look there. 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:05.779 Verse 16, but when I thought how to understand 00:13:05.779 --> 00:13:08.500 this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. The speaker 00:13:08.500 --> 00:13:11.220 is weary, he's tired, he's exhausted of all this 00:13:11.220 --> 00:13:14.259 kind of thinking, right? Until I went to the 00:13:14.259 --> 00:13:20.100 sanctuary of God. That is the change. point, 00:13:20.139 --> 00:13:23.120 that's the emotional center of the poem. That's 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:25.960 the answer to the problem that's posed by the 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:28.360 first half of the poem and the rest of the poem 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:31.179 parallels the first half but now it's on an upward 00:13:31.179 --> 00:13:35.460 trajectory. The routine of going and worshipping 00:13:35.460 --> 00:13:38.559 the Lord, go to the sanctuary, in the ordained 00:13:38.559 --> 00:13:41.600 place of worship, reorders the speaker's thoughts 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:44.460 so that he can deal correctly with the world 00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:48.629 now. There's another point here that argues for 00:13:48.629 --> 00:13:52.149 church going being the main point of this text 00:13:52.149 --> 00:13:55.210 and that is the Psalms place in the Psalter, 00:13:55.389 --> 00:13:58.429 in the Bible itself. We saw last week that Psalm 00:13:58.429 --> 00:14:00.909 72 was the end of book two of the Psalms and 00:14:00.909 --> 00:14:05.909 of course then 73 begins book three. Well, many 00:14:05.909 --> 00:14:08.769 commentators say that book three, this section 00:14:08.769 --> 00:14:11.450 of the Psalter is primarily about the sanctuary 00:14:11.450 --> 00:14:14.970 or the temple. That is where God meets with his 00:14:14.970 --> 00:14:16.889 people. It's where the material world in which 00:14:16.889 --> 00:14:19.549 we live and God's spiritual reality, those two 00:14:19.549 --> 00:14:23.789 things kind of touch, right? So if this is the 00:14:23.789 --> 00:14:27.629 first poem in the book of poems dedicated to 00:14:27.629 --> 00:14:30.210 the sanctuary, it's pretty obvious that the verse 00:14:30.210 --> 00:14:32.190 about the sanctuary in the center of this poem 00:14:32.190 --> 00:14:38.250 is important. Okay. So friend, what's the cure 00:14:38.250 --> 00:14:40.970 for heart sickness? What's the cure for feeling 00:14:40.970 --> 00:14:43.740 like the world is broken? and leaking acid all 00:14:43.740 --> 00:14:47.279 over the place. The cure for this feeling says 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:53.100 this poem is go to church. How about that? Welcome, 00:14:53.379 --> 00:14:55.200 everyone. We're glad you're here. We're happy 00:14:55.200 --> 00:14:59.399 to provide this spiritual service for you. Does 00:14:59.399 --> 00:15:01.879 this sound self -serving from a guy in front 00:15:01.879 --> 00:15:03.940 of the church? Man, I didn't write this text. 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:10.820 I found it in this book. Christian, hear this. 00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:13.980 Church is important and somehow many of us don't 00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:17.259 think that it is. So I listen to Christian music 00:15:17.259 --> 00:15:21.159 on Pandora, the like radio song thing on my phone 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:23.799 while I'm washing dishes and on my Christian 00:15:23.799 --> 00:15:25.559 music channel, every once in a while they have 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:28.940 this smarmy ad that comes up and it says, you 00:15:28.940 --> 00:15:32.039 go to church to worship. Why not bring church 00:15:32.039 --> 00:15:34.460 to you with our great worship song compilation. 00:15:35.049 --> 00:15:37.669 And look, all I mean to say here is Pandora is 00:15:37.669 --> 00:15:40.669 a bad theologian. I don't need to like dunk on 00:15:40.669 --> 00:15:43.870 a fine product, but the insufficiency of that 00:15:43.870 --> 00:15:47.389 view of church is drastic. Church is not something 00:15:47.389 --> 00:15:50.169 you can bring to you whenever you turn on your 00:15:50.169 --> 00:15:54.029 phone. Church is the body which is ordained by 00:15:54.029 --> 00:15:56.450 God for the sanctification of his people to the 00:15:56.450 --> 00:16:00.860 end of the age. So. in the context of this poem, 00:16:01.139 --> 00:16:03.419 what is it that going to the place of worship 00:16:03.419 --> 00:16:05.980 does for us in terms of heart health? First, 00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:11.440 it gives us an eternal viewpoint. Verse 17 again, 00:16:12.179 --> 00:16:15.019 I went to the sanctuary of God, then I discerned 00:16:15.019 --> 00:16:21.159 their end. So it can seem like bad guys do win 00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:24.080 all the time in this world, yeah, but this world 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:27.419 isn't all there is. And church helps reminds 00:16:27.419 --> 00:16:30.549 of reminds us of that. The bad guys aren't going 00:16:30.549 --> 00:16:33.669 to get away with it, right? Verse 18 says, truly 00:16:33.669 --> 00:16:37.029 you set them in slippery places. Now, if you'll 00:16:37.029 --> 00:16:39.529 remember back in verse two, but as for me, my 00:16:39.529 --> 00:16:41.549 feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly 00:16:41.549 --> 00:16:44.509 slipped. I was slippery when I was envious, but 00:16:44.509 --> 00:16:48.830 when I remember that God is for the good and 00:16:48.830 --> 00:16:51.389 against the wicked, I see that they're truly 00:16:51.389 --> 00:16:54.330 the slippery ones and my feet get firm, right? 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:58.500 That's a parallelism that I think also reinforces 00:16:58.500 --> 00:17:03.299 this idea of the two halves of the poem. These 00:17:03.299 --> 00:17:06.779 guys look like they have it so nice, but that's 00:17:06.779 --> 00:17:10.279 false in the long term. It's an aberration against 00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:12.980 reality, right? They're gonna fall to ruin. That's 00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:16.740 verse 18. Verse 19, how they are destroyed in 00:17:16.740 --> 00:17:20.160 a moment. They're swept away utterly by terrors. 00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:23.000 Verse 20, they're like a bad dream, gone in the 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:28.869 night. So right now, it often looks like crime 00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:31.349 does pay, but from the standpoint of eternity, 00:17:31.430 --> 00:17:34.990 that's just illusion, as Buber pointed out. Goodness 00:17:34.990 --> 00:17:38.930 is going to have the last word. God is good to 00:17:38.930 --> 00:17:42.430 those who are pure in heart, verse one. And the 00:17:42.430 --> 00:17:44.789 other texts that we read this morning, Isaiah 00:17:44.789 --> 00:17:47.890 and the gospels, show that we really do want 00:17:47.890 --> 00:17:50.589 to be on the side of the weak. and the powerless 00:17:50.589 --> 00:17:53.670 over against the powerful who use their power 00:17:53.670 --> 00:17:55.930 wrongly, right? When God makes his final judgment, 00:17:56.829 --> 00:18:00.609 those guys are not in a good situation. Church 00:18:00.609 --> 00:18:03.630 reminds us to widen our scope and not just look 00:18:03.630 --> 00:18:08.130 at the present. What else does going to church 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:13.750 do for us? It humbles us. It helps us see that 00:18:13.750 --> 00:18:16.670 our judgments aren't always correct. Where do 00:18:16.670 --> 00:18:20.259 we see this? Look at verse 23. So after going 00:18:20.259 --> 00:18:22.519 to the sanctuary and being rescued from his bitterness, 00:18:22.579 --> 00:18:27.180 the speaker says this, nevertheless, I am continually 00:18:27.180 --> 00:18:32.500 with you. You hold my right hand. The you here, 00:18:32.519 --> 00:18:35.940 by the way, is God. You may note that you doesn't 00:18:35.940 --> 00:18:39.720 show up until verse 20. The whole verse half 00:18:39.720 --> 00:18:43.380 of the poem is just kind of spitting out angry 00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:47.019 things. But in verse 20, again, after the turn, 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:51.480 this becomes quiet, calm, and it becomes a prayer. 00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:57.720 Okay, let's keep reading. So you hold my right 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:00.779 hand, you guide me with your counsel. So this 00:19:00.779 --> 00:19:04.599 poem has turned from anger to peace, and it gets 00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:06.799 there by means of a really interesting metaphor, 00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:11.539 right? God is holding us by the hand. Well, that 00:19:11.539 --> 00:19:14.900 puts us in a position of childlikeness, right? 00:19:15.829 --> 00:19:18.250 In the first part of the poem, the speaker is 00:19:18.250 --> 00:19:21.589 taking the point, the stance of a sort of ferocious 00:19:21.589 --> 00:19:25.670 attorney. He's arguing with God, but now he's 00:19:25.670 --> 00:19:28.390 in the position of a child being led by God. 00:19:28.849 --> 00:19:32.150 It's a radical change of heart, right? So if 00:19:32.150 --> 00:19:33.869 we need to be held by the hand, we're not in 00:19:33.869 --> 00:19:36.529 a position to judge anybody because we're in 00:19:36.529 --> 00:19:40.970 danger of falling down ourselves. We must remember 00:19:40.970 --> 00:19:43.549 what Jesus says, right? We must become like little 00:19:43.549 --> 00:19:46.539 children. Go to church. Remember that God is 00:19:46.539 --> 00:19:49.240 big and you are small and your judgments err. 00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:52.259 Here's an example that illustrates this on a 00:19:52.259 --> 00:19:55.200 small scale. Recently, one of my daughters was 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.180 very angry at another daughter because daughter 00:19:58.180 --> 00:20:01.190 number two threw a book. and the book's cover 00:20:01.190 --> 00:20:04.630 had exploded off of the pages when it landed. 00:20:05.109 --> 00:20:07.529 Daughter number one was shouting, she was furious, 00:20:07.529 --> 00:20:09.990 she was ready to throw the book at daughter number 00:20:09.990 --> 00:20:13.009 two, as they say. She wanted justice for the 00:20:13.009 --> 00:20:17.609 sin against the stalker family library. Well, 00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:20.170 unbeknownst to daughter number one, but known 00:20:20.170 --> 00:20:24.170 to daddy, was that a third daughter had actually 00:20:24.170 --> 00:20:26.470 been the one to knock the cover off of the book. 00:20:26.809 --> 00:20:30.380 She actually sort of pried it off. And the cover 00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:34.160 had just been put back over the pages, but not 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:37.059 glued back on. So while daughter number two certainly 00:20:37.059 --> 00:20:38.880 should not have thrown the book, she was not 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:41.180 guilty to the extent that daughter number one 00:20:41.180 --> 00:20:44.380 thought she was. Or you could perhaps say daughter 00:20:44.380 --> 00:20:46.279 number one could not view daughter number two 00:20:46.279 --> 00:20:50.900 as wholly wicked, like perhaps she wanted to, 00:20:51.539 --> 00:20:54.700 without thereby including daughter number three 00:20:54.700 --> 00:20:57.519 in the same category, which she didn't want to 00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:02.210 do. Justice is tough, and we don't often have 00:21:02.210 --> 00:21:05.390 the info we need. We need the Lord to hold our 00:21:05.390 --> 00:21:08.910 hand, and when he does, we will remember that 00:21:08.910 --> 00:21:12.009 we're all guilty. We're all sinners and have 00:21:12.009 --> 00:21:14.809 fallen short of the glory. We need to remember 00:21:14.809 --> 00:21:18.029 to judge not, that we be not judged. In short, 00:21:18.329 --> 00:21:20.710 we will allow ourselves to take a position of 00:21:20.710 --> 00:21:23.089 childlikeness before God, who is our father, 00:21:23.410 --> 00:21:26.190 and admit that his judgments are the ones that 00:21:26.190 --> 00:21:32.799 matter. We can't trust our angry judgments to 00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:35.660 reflect the state of the world angrily. Look, 00:21:37.140 --> 00:21:39.140 how about this? Is the first half of this poem 00:21:39.140 --> 00:21:43.680 even correct? How about that? Look, they are 00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:47.119 always at ease. Has anybody in the history of 00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:49.819 the world ever experienced his or her own life 00:21:49.819 --> 00:21:51.799 in this way? Anybody thinking about themselves? 00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:55.960 Oh, yeah, I'm always at ease, right? I'm so glad 00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:58.680 I started being wicked. I'm just always at ease 00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:02.839 now, right? This is a bitter judgment from the 00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:05.859 outside. The judgment isn't fair, right? It's 00:22:05.859 --> 00:22:09.279 colored by envy. Leave the judgments up to God. 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:14.779 Let's take a brief moment and rehabilitate daughter 00:22:14.779 --> 00:22:19.119 number one right now. So she's not the littlest. 00:22:19.869 --> 00:22:21.970 So I don't need to hold her hands when we're 00:22:21.970 --> 00:22:24.069 crossing streets and things like that. But often, 00:22:24.690 --> 00:22:28.650 though she is a big girl, she will voluntarily 00:22:28.650 --> 00:22:33.769 take daddy's hand, right? So she chooses to become 00:22:33.769 --> 00:22:35.750 like a little child, which is what Jesus says. 00:22:35.789 --> 00:22:38.029 You must become like a little child. She chooses 00:22:38.029 --> 00:22:40.750 to take that position, right, of humility because 00:22:40.750 --> 00:22:42.789 it's relational, because she knows that she can 00:22:42.789 --> 00:22:45.210 trust, okay? So let's get to our last point. 00:22:45.230 --> 00:22:50.190 That's relationship. Look at verse 25. This is 00:22:50.190 --> 00:22:54.049 a beautiful line in the poem. Whom have I in 00:22:54.049 --> 00:22:57.089 heaven but you, and there's nothing on earth 00:22:57.089 --> 00:23:02.009 that I desire besides you. What's the cure for 00:23:02.009 --> 00:23:07.450 envy? It's satisfaction, isn't it? I'm not gonna 00:23:07.450 --> 00:23:09.829 envy somebody else's house if I really love my 00:23:09.829 --> 00:23:12.529 house. I'm not gonna envy somebody else's football 00:23:12.529 --> 00:23:14.730 team when my football team happens to be the 00:23:14.730 --> 00:23:18.519 best in the world. and I'm certainly not gonna 00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:21.380 envy the wicked fat cats when I'm satisfied with 00:23:21.380 --> 00:23:25.859 God. Why? Because their money is irrelevant to 00:23:25.859 --> 00:23:31.460 my true desires. Thoreau says, money is not required 00:23:31.460 --> 00:23:35.920 to buy one necessary of the soul. He's not exactly 00:23:35.920 --> 00:23:38.140 quoting the psalm, but I think the psalmist agrees 00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:40.859 with him on this point. Money is not required 00:23:40.859 --> 00:23:44.079 to buy one necessary of the soul. Let's go on, 00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:50.539 verse 26. My flesh and my heart may fail. You'll 00:23:50.539 --> 00:23:52.859 die one day. It's a public service announcement. 00:23:53.819 --> 00:23:56.940 My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the 00:23:56.940 --> 00:23:59.680 strength of my heart and my portion forever. 00:23:59.839 --> 00:24:03.160 Portion, it means inheritance. It's what you 00:24:03.160 --> 00:24:05.740 get. It's what's coming to you. Friend, what's 00:24:05.740 --> 00:24:08.420 coming to you? After you die, if you have trusted 00:24:08.420 --> 00:24:12.140 in Christ, you get God. He is your portion. He 00:24:12.140 --> 00:24:14.099 is your inheritance forever. He is your great 00:24:14.099 --> 00:24:16.779 reward. And guess what? It gets even better than 00:24:16.779 --> 00:24:20.259 that, sort of. How? Well, it's not just that 00:24:20.259 --> 00:24:23.779 you get God. It's that you get God and God happens 00:24:23.779 --> 00:24:27.700 to be very good company. Let's keep looking at 00:24:27.700 --> 00:24:31.240 this. God is relational. We can know him. A relationship 00:24:31.240 --> 00:24:34.119 with him will calm our hearts and give us peace. 00:24:34.819 --> 00:24:38.059 This is a cool point. Throughout this text, we 00:24:38.059 --> 00:24:41.180 have some mentions of God, but the word used 00:24:41.180 --> 00:24:45.920 for God in Hebrew is either El or Elohim. And 00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:48.759 both of these are sort of generic terms for God. 00:24:48.859 --> 00:24:50.640 It's like a class name or something like that. 00:24:50.660 --> 00:24:56.589 Those are the gods, El, right? Those terms can 00:24:56.589 --> 00:24:58.849 be used of false spirits, for instance. But when 00:24:58.849 --> 00:25:01.170 we get to the end of the text and it makes its 00:25:01.170 --> 00:25:04.769 firmest affirmation of stability, look what it 00:25:04.769 --> 00:25:09.150 says down here in verse 28. It says, but for 00:25:09.150 --> 00:25:14.210 me, it is good to be near God. That's L. The 00:25:14.210 --> 00:25:17.609 church reminds us it's good to be near God. I 00:25:17.609 --> 00:25:20.430 have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell 00:25:20.430 --> 00:25:22.289 of all your works. So here, if you're looking 00:25:22.289 --> 00:25:24.839 at your text, That second mention of God in the 00:25:24.839 --> 00:25:27.759 verse, Lord God, it's written in little capitals. 00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:31.480 Well, that's the way the English version designates 00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:34.819 the covenant name of God that the Hebrew uses, 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.839 Yahweh, right? So we've thought about God in 00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:42.200 a sort of philosophical sense. He's the one who 00:25:42.200 --> 00:25:43.759 judges things, but doesn't do it the way that 00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:45.940 we want. But then when we remember that it's 00:25:45.940 --> 00:25:48.099 good to be near God, we remember our relationship 00:25:48.099 --> 00:25:50.700 with Him. And then we speak of Him in a relational 00:25:50.700 --> 00:25:55.819 way, right? God, Adonai Yahweh, I've made him 00:25:55.819 --> 00:26:01.380 my refuge. God is not some distant scoring machine. 00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:03.700 He's not some distant judge. He is our refuge. 00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:07.740 He's our savior. And where do we see God precisely 00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:12.299 in his saving relationship with us? Well, it's 00:26:12.299 --> 00:26:14.740 the person that the New Testament consistently 00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:19.900 refers to as Lord. Adonai, right? Jesus Christ 00:26:19.900 --> 00:26:22.880 is God in relationship to his people, Emmanuel, 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:25.819 God with us, and it is good to be near him. It 00:26:25.819 --> 00:26:29.259 is good to make him your refuge. I'll give you 00:26:29.259 --> 00:26:31.980 the gospel in miniature, right? One, it is good 00:26:31.980 --> 00:26:35.140 to be near God, and two, God has come near to 00:26:35.140 --> 00:26:41.759 us in Jesus. And Jesus is also the definitive 00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:44.400 example for the righteous person not being well 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:47.990 rewarded in this life externally. He was born 00:26:47.990 --> 00:26:53.829 poor. He lived poor. He died horribly. And yet, 00:26:53.849 --> 00:26:55.809 we know that he was the beloved of the father. 00:26:56.230 --> 00:26:58.390 In him, the father was well pleased. If you look 00:26:58.390 --> 00:27:00.569 around the world and you say to yourself, man, 00:27:01.130 --> 00:27:04.329 I'm not as rich as those wicked guys are. You're 00:27:04.329 --> 00:27:06.890 in good company. The son of God is right there 00:27:06.890 --> 00:27:11.170 with you. All right. There's a lot more here 00:27:11.170 --> 00:27:12.670 in this poem, but I think I'm going to be done. 00:27:12.890 --> 00:27:14.930 I just have some application points to leave 00:27:14.930 --> 00:27:18.440 you with. First. When you're reading this poem, 00:27:18.460 --> 00:27:22.380 where do you find yourself in your normal state, 00:27:22.380 --> 00:27:24.740 in your habitual state? Where do you feel most 00:27:24.740 --> 00:27:27.440 comfortable? Do you recognize yourself most in 00:27:27.440 --> 00:27:29.880 the first half of this poem where we're complaining 00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:33.039 about the wicked? Or do you recognize yourself 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.180 at the end where you're saying, I have made the 00:27:35.180 --> 00:27:37.240 Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all his 00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:40.279 works? Friend, if you are happier complaining 00:27:40.279 --> 00:27:44.240 about bad guys rather than telling about God's 00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:47.359 goodness, chances are your heart is sick. and 00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:53.099 it needs rest. Come to the Lord. Second, I think 00:27:53.099 --> 00:27:56.480 a real application of this text is to come to 00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.559 the Lord, even when you're not feeling well put 00:27:58.559 --> 00:28:01.700 together, right? The guy's angry, angry, angry, 00:28:01.819 --> 00:28:04.599 comes to the Lord and changes, right? Come to 00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:06.220 the Lord in your anger, come to the Lord in your 00:28:06.220 --> 00:28:11.460 sin. If you find yourself in a slippery place, 00:28:11.619 --> 00:28:13.720 listen for the loving guidance of the Lord, and 00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:16.000 no matter how bitter or how brutal you have been, 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:18.259 you will be led to safety, and church is a very 00:28:18.259 --> 00:28:20.240 good place to come and hear the Lord's voice. 00:28:20.519 --> 00:28:23.940 Finally, let's take the long view. To get back 00:28:23.940 --> 00:28:27.480 to my opening illustration about football, I 00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:30.220 could have saved myself years of anguish if I 00:28:30.220 --> 00:28:32.359 had just said to myself, you know, things may 00:28:32.359 --> 00:28:35.779 look bad now, but Tom Brady can't continue winning 00:28:35.779 --> 00:28:40.039 Super Bowls forever. One day, he'll have to retire, 00:28:40.339 --> 00:28:43.500 and probably he'll be a commentator, and almost 00:28:43.500 --> 00:28:45.500 certainly he'll be in the broadcast booth when 00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:48.579 my favorite team wins the Super Bowl, convincingly. 00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:54.000 That would have eased my heart. And we can do 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.559 far better than that, can't we? We can say, you 00:28:56.559 --> 00:28:59.599 know, things do look bad now. Bad guys can seem 00:28:59.599 --> 00:29:02.740 to be in control in really hurtful ways, but 00:29:02.740 --> 00:29:04.740 God is the strength of my heart and my portion 00:29:04.740 --> 00:29:07.140 forever, and afterwards he will receive us to 00:29:07.140 --> 00:29:15.529 glory. Amen. Let's pray. Oh Lord God, whom have 00:29:15.529 --> 00:29:19.910 we in heaven but you? There is none to desire 00:29:19.910 --> 00:29:26.150 besides you. Help us to reorient our lives, that 00:29:26.150 --> 00:29:29.970 knowing you, seeking you, serving you, these 00:29:29.970 --> 00:29:33.670 are the only important things for us. We ask, 00:29:33.730 --> 00:29:35.490 oh Lord, that you would prove yourself again 00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:40.990 and again. faithful to us and help us to seek 00:29:40.990 --> 00:29:44.369 you out in your sanctuary. Give us this grace, 00:29:44.609 --> 00:29:49.410 we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you for 00:29:49.410 --> 00:29:52.150 listening to Second City Sermons podcast. We 00:29:52.150 --> 00:29:54.029 hope this sermon has encouraged you to worship 00:29:54.029 --> 00:29:56.970 God and to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please 00:29:56.970 --> 00:29:59.309 consider subscribing to this podcast and joining 00:29:59.309 --> 00:30:02.509 us in person each Sunday at 10 a .m. You can 00:30:02.509 --> 00:30:05.809 find us online at secondcitychurch .org and on 00:30:05.809 --> 00:30:08.410 Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Thanks again 00:30:08.410 --> 00:30:09.910 for listening. God bless.