WEBVTT
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The following is a message from Trinity Grace Church in San Antonio, Texas.
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For more information, please visit TrinitygraceSA.org.
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Good morning and welcome once again to Trinity Grace.
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I'm Adam.
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I'm one of the pastors here.
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If you would please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to Psalm 73.
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If you don't have a copy of God's word, the text is printed for you in your bulletin.
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And while you're making your way there, children, I want to ask you a few things.
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Our young disciples, I want you to be thinking about a time whenever you wanted to say something, but you knew that you should not do it.
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I want you to listen for an explanation of what envy means.
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And I want you to be listening for how God satisfies our deepest longings.
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This morning we're continuing our Summer in the Psalms series by taking a look at a psalm of ASAP.
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And this psalm begins a series that goes from Psalm 73 to 83, psalms that variously describe God as a strength and portion, one who will judge with equity, a majestic God who rescues, and whose deeds must be repeated and retold to the next generation.
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And we see some of these themes in our psalm today, as we'll discover.
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And that's because the Psalms are the songbook of the Christian life that God gave to us.
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And they meet many of our greatest needs, desires, and fears, and they engage with things that we struggle with on a daily basis.
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And this morning we're going to be considering the problem, the sin of envy.
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What is it?
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How does it show up in our lives?
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Where does it come from, and what does God's Word have to say about it?
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We're going to be talking about these things under three headings the crisis, the turn, and the resolution.
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That's your three points if you're taking notes.
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The crisis, the turn, and resolution.
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So with that in mind, listen or follow along as I read from God's Word.
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Psalm seventy three, a Psalm of Aseph.
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Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
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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.
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For they have no pangs until death, their bodies are fat and sleek.
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They are not in trouble as others are, they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
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Therefore pride is their necklace.
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Violence covers them as a garment, their eyes swell out through fatness, their hearts overflow with follies.
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They scoff and speak with malice.
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Loftily they threaten oppression.
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They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue struts through the earth.
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Therefore his people turn back to them and find no fault in them.
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And they say, How can God know?
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Is there knowledge in the Most High?
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Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches.
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All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
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For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
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If I had said, I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
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But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.
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Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end.
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Truly you set them in slippery places.
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You make them fall to ruin.
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How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.
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Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
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When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant, I was like a beast toward you.
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Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
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You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
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Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is nothing that I desire on earth beside you.
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My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
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For behold, those who are far from you shall perish.
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You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
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But for me it is good to be near God.
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I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
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This is the word of the Lord.
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Let's pray.
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Holy God, we come to you this morning and we thank you for your word.
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We ask that the reflections of our hearts would be focused upon you this morning as the Spirit moves and shapes us more into the image of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ your Son.
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In His name we pray.
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Amen.
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Have you ever wanted to say something?
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It was right there on the tip of your tongue.
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Maybe a little bit of sass or snark, a well-placed barb into the side of a sibling, a well-kept secret from a friend that you conveniently dredge up in a moment of retaliation?
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You ever say something like that?
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And you just know if you said that, you might feel a whole lot better in the moment.
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But the long-term outlook for you might not pay off.
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Some of us are squirming a little bit this morning, I imagine.
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Well, I I learned from a young age, personally, that I had to watch what I say.
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And generally I'm a quick learner.
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But there were so many times in my life when my mouth was cashing checks that my body couldn't afford.
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Couldn't cover them.
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I think I've shared this before, but my mom always told me, she said, Boy, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it too.
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That's what she used to tell me all the time.
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You know, a moment would come when everything inside of me was screaming to tell someone else how I felt.
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And it always seemed to happen when I felt that I had gotten a bad deal.
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Something wasn't fair.
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Something hadn't worked out the way I wanted it to.
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Somebody in authority over me had passed me over.
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They didn't see anything that didn't make a difference to them.
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They didn't care for my story.
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Any of us been there?
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I imagine that all of us have.
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Maybe before the car was even parked this morning, right?
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But I think you're in good company.
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This is a common experience in life.
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You know, we were created by a God who is holy and just to be like Him.
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And so when we perceive deep down that we've been done wrong, whether true or imagined, we want to react to that.
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We want to point out the injustice, to set the record straight.
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And the words from our passage echo this experience that we all have together as humanity, that sense of injustice of being on the short end of the stick.
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And it can drive us toward the disease of envy.
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And it leads to a tension in our hearts, which is our first point this morning, the crisis.
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The psalmist begins this psalm with a declaration.
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Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
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And now hold that as we journey on, because then the psalmist goes into all these ways that he perceives God's goodness to those who don't love or follow God.
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God is good to the pure in heart, he says.
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But he almost disbelieved that.
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Quite a picture.
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They mock God and his creation, and their tongue walks confidently over everyone and everything and every circumstance, in the power of their own confidence, always at ease, always gaining, always getting ahead, he says.
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And then he says, Why?
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Why, God?
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If you're so good to the pure in heart, then God, why do those who hate you, who mock you, why do they get everything?
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Why is it easy for them?
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And why do I get nothing?
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ASAF sees only poverty and hardship when he looks at himself in the mirror.
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And he looks at the wicked and those who prosper, and he sees only prosperity and ease.
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And so he senses injustice.
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Have you ever had that feeling?
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Ever been sickened because someone else got something you wanted?
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Something you thought you deserved, that should have been yours.
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Maybe a raise.
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Maybe you've been working long hours at work, overtime, weekends, holidays, putting the job first, everything else second, because you want to get to the next level, that next promotion so that you can provide for your family.
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Honorable, right?
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Because if you could just get that raise, that promotion, if you could just have that, then you know you would be set.
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You could rest.
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But someone who didn't work as hard as you got it instead.
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Maybe good health.
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You worked hard for years to take care of yourself and family, exercise, eating right, doctors' checkups, all that kind of stuff.
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Because you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and it honors God to keep your body healthy and to have a long life.
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But instead, God has allowed you to become sick.
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You've been afflicted, and you're angry about that.
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This is envy that can lead to resentment and bitterness, friends.
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Maybe good grades or athletics.
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You've been told your whole life about how hard work is important, and you've done that in every area of your life.
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Early mornings and long nights in the books, endless practices, also you can get ahead.
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You can be competitive.
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You can earn the scholarship or the dream job that you want.
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Because you know that doing your best, well, it makes your parents look good and it makes you look good, right?
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But no matter how hard you try, someone always gets a higher grade.
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Someone always performs better.
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And they don't seem to work as hard as you do.
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This is envy that leads to animosity, friends.
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Or maybe it's an image of yourself.
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How you want to be seen and known by the world.
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You know, we live in a digital world driven by social media, and despite your best efforts to curate your life for the approval of others, you find yourself sick that someone else's life seems more perfect than yours.
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So much so that you begin wanting what they have, coveting what they have.
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This is envy that leads to depression and disconnection, which drives dishonesty and leads us to disengage with other people.
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We could go on and on all morning, but these experiences fill our lives, friends.
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One minute, hopeful and engaged in daily living, the next minute, sick, because what we've been setting our hearts on has now gone to somebody else.
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And we can't stand it.
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That's what envy is.
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It's the discontent and resentment we feel towards others who have something we want.
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What ASAF writes about here is common to everyone.
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It's difficult to see others get the things that we want.
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And if we're really honest, y'all, it's even more difficult when they're unbelievers, those who don't follow the way of Jesus.
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If you're here and you're a Christian, then you know that God is good to his children.
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That's what the Bible tells us from start to finish.
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But if we're honest, we kind of think that we should get special privileges because we're God's children.
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I mean, shouldn't he give us the very best of everything here and now in this life?
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Surely following Jesus should count for more than the sorrow and pain that we've experienced, right?
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It's in those moments when envy rises up in our hearts to meet the injustice that we perceive.
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When we're discontent at God's decision not to give us something we were sure should have come to us.
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When we find that all our brilliance and hard work can't finally make the grade or make the cut.
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When we find that there was someone else more deserving than we were, when our lives don't look like someone else's and it just drives us crazy, we are crushed and we taste a little bit of our own ruin.
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It's in those moments that it becomes really tempting to throw in the towel, to give up on following God because it hasn't paid off like we thought.
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In fact, we're only more beaten down than before, more hungry and needy than we'd ever imagined, and far more powerless to help ourselves than we'd want or believed.
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It's a crisis, friends, between the hand we've been given and the hand that we desire.
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And that crisis can lead us in different directions, which brings us to our second point this morning, the turn.
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The crisis can lead to bitterness and resentment, or it can lead us someplace else.
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And if it's bitterness and resentment, then we have become disillusioned to the life of faith, to following God.
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And Asaph picks up on this same feeling when he says, All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
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For all the day long I'm stricken and afflicted and rebuked every morning.
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You see, all that holiness, all that piety, all those commands I followed, they didn't amount to anything.
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It's vanity.
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God has done nothing but reach out and harm me.
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The wicked have overpowered me because God's hand is against me.
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There's been nothing good come from following you, God.
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That's what the psalmist is saying here.
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That's how I feel.
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Because of a life of continually seeing the wicked prosper and succeed.
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Friends, we too covet and we do not get.
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And so it seems at times that following God only brings pain and sorrow and disappointment.
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But the fact is, though, that resentment and disillusionment grows when we have fixed our eyes on something else rather than God.
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When we experience envy, what we're ultimately saying to God is that he has messed up.
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He should have given us something better.
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He should have given us something different.
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We know better than he does.
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We would make a better judge than God is.
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He should just ask us.
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This is a slippery place, friends.
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We need the grace of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our hearts to help us see how we've judged God for not giving us more, for not meeting our needs in the way we want him to meet them, for rejecting his provision because we are discontent with his gifts, shaking our fists at our Creator.
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But the psalmist catches himself here and he says, If I had said I will speak like that, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
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He's saying that if he had given in to the envy, if he had voiced how he really feels because of all the hardship in his life that he's experienced, all the ways that he's been sinned against by other people, if he said following God doesn't pay off, he would be leading other people to stumble as he knows he would be stumbling.
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He understands that to throw in the towel and give in to that burning anger would not only cheat himself, it would be double-crossing the family of God.
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And as one of David's chief musicians, Asaph had an important role in the temple.
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He composed songs for congregational worship.
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His words carried real weight.
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So he's not only concerned for himself, he's concerned for the nation who follows his God.
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How much more do our leaders give account for the words they use?
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We as God's children, as his blended family, we need to watch how we speak about God's decisions and his provision in our lives.
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Friends, do we have an equally cautious attitude when we struggle with envy?
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Do we recognize where the fruit of this poisonous tree is coming from and reject it in our lives?
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The idea that it should have been us.
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How could he get that?
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How could she do that thing?
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This feigned safety net, it shows how double-minded that we are.
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Do we vent to others under the guise of close relationship?
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I can tell you this because you're my friend.
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When really we're badmouthing someone who got what we want.
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Or we complain because God didn't do what we wanted him to do.
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Do we give a cold shoulder when someone gets what we want?
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Do we become passive-aggressive?
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And many times the other person doesn't even know we're upset and never knew we wanted that to begin with.
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How foolish we can be, friends.
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Do we speak and act just like the wicked?
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Do we believe that God doesn't care for us and has left us?
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That thought that if we could just trade places with them, then everything would be okay.
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If we just had what they had, we would be at peace.
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If God would just see things my way, then it would be smooth sailing.
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This is what the psalmist is wrestling with here.
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He's struggling with the sovereignty of God, wrestling with the problem of evil, perennial apologetic issues for Christians for centuries.
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How do we square the fact that God gives good things to some and withholds from others?
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That he gives hardship to some and blessings to others?
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How do we square the fact that God causes his Son to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike?
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How do we square the grind of our life with the promise that God wants to use us and bless us as we follow him?
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To cause them to flourish and to prosper and to raise us up.
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How do we square all those things?
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We're not going to solve all those questions this morning, by the way.
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That's different sermons.
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Just saying that these are tremendously difficult topics for us to think through, to wade through, to wrestle with.
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How many of us have wrestled with these questions before?
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For ourselves, for others.
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We've all done so.
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Refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and doubting his goodness can lead us into the sin of envy.
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We must be on watch for that.
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And Asaf said that when he tried to understand all these things, it was wearisome.
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He was burdened.
00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:53.759
And the only thing that changed him, the only thing that caused him to turn his anger at the wicked and his doubt in the goodness of God into hope.
00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:56.559
He says he went to the sanctuary of God.
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He went to the temple, and it was there that he discerned the end of the wicked.
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:04.880
And this brings us to our third point, the resolution.
00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:17.359
Asaf looks at the lives of the wicked, those who never suffer want, never suffer affliction, always increase in prosperity, and those whose deaths come peacefully.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:22.400
And he says they are actually the ones who are in slippery places.
00:20:22.880 --> 00:20:26.079
God, he says, makes them fall to ruin.
00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:30.559
They're destroyed in a moment, swept away by terrors.
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He likens God to waking from sleep and putting off the wicked as somebody forgets a bad dream.
00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:40.400
Obviously, that doesn't mean all the wicked die young.
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That doesn't mean that they plummet into ruin in this life.
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Many times we never see the end of such people.
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But going to the temple reminds Asaph that ultimately the wicked don't stand in God's favor, they stand in his condemnation.
00:20:55.759 --> 00:21:06.000
Asaph remembers within the sanctuary that ultimately God's people stand in security and abundance, while the wicked actually stand in greatest need.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:14.240
For Asaph, going into the sanctuary helps him to see rightly about those on whom he looked with bitterness.
00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:24.160
And this realization makes him look at his envy and recognize that his inordinate desire for what others have has actually dulled his heart toward God.
00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:27.839
It made him unreceptive toward the Father.
00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:32.720
Even like a beast, he says.
00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:54.720
The music and the liturgy that we use, they point us toward the truth that God's word is just and true.
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:58.960
That God Himself waits for his people to draw near and invites us to do so.
00:21:59.119 --> 00:21:59.759
It's what we're doing.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:06.640
Here today, we're getting a heavenly perspective on this life with all of its woes and struggles.
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It's because going to the sanctuary causes us to remember God's continual presence with us, his provision along the way through the shadow of death, his direction through his life-giving word and our reception into his glory.
00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:31.279
Coming to church isn't simply stepping into a room to sing some songs and hear a talk, take some bread and wine and leave for the week ahead, meet some good people.
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Coming to church is a radical reorientation of our priorities.
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And it's based around the reality of our justification, the continued work of the Spirit in our hearts, and the promise that we will see him as he is because we will become like he is.
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:46.799
Glorification.
00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:49.200
And it's why Asaf breaks into praise.
00:22:49.279 --> 00:23:01.759
He says, Whom have I in heaven but you, the Lord of all creation, my maker and redeemer, my refuge, because you are faithful and good, I know that there is nothing on earth that can compare with you.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:08.799
There is nothing that I could ever possess that will come close to matching my security in you both now and forever.
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Although I'm mortal and will certainly pass away, yet I will hope in you because you are my refuge.
00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:28.480
When the world challenges me to look at what I don't have and feel that I have been forgotten and passed over, I will remember that I have already received, both now and in the age to come, eternal life.
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And that is all I desire, God.
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You are all I desire.
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Do we think like that?
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Does coming to worship make our hearts sing like this?
00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:42.880
For what we have in Christ.
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Asaph here, he's saying that the one whose hope is in God has eternal refuge.
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:51.200
How can we have that rest?
00:23:51.519 --> 00:23:54.640
How can we stop the sickness of envy in our hearts?
00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:58.799
We must find contentment in God and rest in Him.
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Friends, the Bible is clear about the sin of envy and all that it brings into our lives.
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Proverbs 14, 30 says that a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.
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I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that before, but it is true.
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:16.880
True words.
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Envy turns our heart upside down, it dulls our affections toward the Lord.
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In the New Testament, Jesus' half-brother James calls the wisdom of envy unspiritual and demonic.
00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:36.960
That anywhere you have envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder in every vile practice.
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:43.839
A heart looking for what it doesn't have is restless, it's unsettled, and it makes us waste away.
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And Jesus says, our Lord says in Matthew 5.8, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
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Now Jesus isn't saying that somebody who works really hard at moral purity can get to heaven.
00:24:59.920 --> 00:25:01.440
That's not what he's saying.
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Jesus was talking to his disciples, people who already followed him as master.
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It's only by trusting in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, friends.
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It's only by being purchased by his blood, shed on the cross, that we can find refuge in God, that our sins can be forgiven and washed away.
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The Bible tells us that when we believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, a new nature that enables us to long for God more than the things we don't have in this world and the things that we want.
00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:42.240
He makes us able to receive the gift of Christ's righteousness on our behalf, merited through a sinless life of service and suffering by Jesus.
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And that perfect record of sinlessness, it's given to us as if we had lived a perfect life on our own.
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And when we really believe that, when we really live into the gospel with all that we have, then the world and everything that we might have becomes less and less precious as Jesus becomes more and more precious, more and more beautiful.
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:13.599
We can see the world rightly because we have been given the eyes of faith and a heart of peace.
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:16.319
Do you have that peace, friends?
00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:20.160
Do you have confidence in knowing that the Lord is your refuge?
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.680
That He's given you everything He needs, that He's given you Himself.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.440
You can know that peace and have that refuge today.
00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:29.200
Jesus waits for you.
00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:30.480
Come and get Him.
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:31.839
Amen and amen.
00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:33.279
Let's pray.
00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:37.599
Our Father, we thank you for your word to us.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:48.160
We thank you that it pierces to the division of joint and marrow, convicting us of our sin, renewing our strength and faith to live for you.
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:53.519
Help us, Father, to never shake our fist at you because we doubt your goodness.
00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:59.440
Help us never to sin against you with the corrosive arrogance that comes from envy in our hearts.
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:09.839
But Lord, help us to find in you everything we ever needed, everything we could ever want, and everything that we desire as we set our hearts on you and follow Jesus.
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:11.680
It's in his name we pray.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:12.640
Amen.
00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:13.519
The following is a message from Trinity Grace Church in San Antonio, Texas.
00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:18.719
For more information, please visit TrinitygraceSA.org.
00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:24.719
Good morning and welcome once again to Trinity Grace.
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I'm Adam.
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I'm one of the pastors here.
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If you would please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to Psalm 73.
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If you don't have a copy of God's word, the text is printed for you in your bulletin.
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And while you're making your way there, children, I want to ask you a few things.
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Our young disciples, I want you to be thinking about a time whenever you wanted to say something, but you knew that you should not do it.
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I want you to listen for an explanation of what envy means.
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And I want you to be listening for how God satisfies our deepest longings.
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This morning we're continuing our Summer in the Psalms series by taking a look at a psalm of ASAP.
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And this psalm begins a series that goes from Psalm 73 to 83, psalms that variously describe God as a strength and portion, one who will judge with equity, a majestic God who rescues, and whose deeds must be repeated and retold to the next generation.
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And we see some of these themes in our psalm today, as we'll discover.
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And that's because the Psalms are the songbook of the Christian life that God gave to us.
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And they meet many of our greatest needs, desires, and fears, and they engage with things that we struggle with on a daily basis.
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And this morning we're going to be considering the problem, the sin of envy.
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What is it?
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How does it show up in our lives?
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Where does it come from, and what does God's Word have to say about it?
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We're going to be talking about these things under three headings the crisis, the turn, and the resolution.
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That's your three points if you're taking notes.
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The crisis, the turn, and resolution.
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So with that in mind, listen or follow along as I read from God's Word.
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Psalm seventy three, a Psalm of Aseph.
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Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
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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.
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For they have no pangs until death, their bodies are fat and sleek.
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They are not in trouble as others are, they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
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Therefore pride is their necklace.
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Violence covers them as a garment, their eyes swell out through fatness, their hearts overflow with follies.
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They scoff and speak with malice.
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Loftily they threaten oppression.
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They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue struts through the earth.
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Therefore his people turn back to them and find no fault in them.
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And they say, How can God know?
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Is there knowledge in the Most High?
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Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches.
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All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
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For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
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If I had said, I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
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But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.
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Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end.
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Truly you set them in slippery places.
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You make them fall to ruin.
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How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.
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Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
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When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant, I was like a beast toward you.
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Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
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You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
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Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is nothing that I desire on earth beside you.
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My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
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For behold, those who are far from you shall perish.
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You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
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But for me it is good to be near God.
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I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
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This is the word of the Lord.
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Let's pray.
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Holy God, we come to you this morning and we thank you for your word.
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We ask that the reflections of our hearts would be focused upon you this morning as the Spirit moves and shapes us more into the image of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ your Son.
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In His name we pray.
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Amen.
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Have you ever wanted to say something?
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It was right there on the tip of your tongue.
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Maybe a little bit of sass or snark, a well-placed barb into the side of a sibling, a well-kept secret from a friend that you conveniently dredge up in a moment of retaliation?
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You ever say something like that?
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And you just know if you said that, you might feel a whole lot better in the moment.
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But the long-term outlook for you might not pay off.
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Some of us are squirming a little bit this morning, I imagine.
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Well, I I learned from a young age, personally, that I had to watch what I say.
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And generally I'm a quick learner.
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But there were so many times in my life when my mouth was cashing checks that my body couldn't afford.
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Couldn't cover them.
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I think I've shared this before, but my mom always told me, she said, Boy, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it too.
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That's what she used to tell me all the time.
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You know, a moment would come when everything inside of me was screaming to tell someone else how I felt.
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And it always seemed to happen when I felt that I had gotten a bad deal.
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Something wasn't fair.
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Something hadn't worked out the way I wanted it to.
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Somebody in authority over me had passed me over.
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They didn't see anything that didn't make a difference to them.
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They didn't care for my story.
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Any of us been there?
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I imagine that all of us have.
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Maybe before the car was even parked this morning, right?
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But I think you're in good company.
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This is a common experience in life.
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You know, we were created by a God who is holy and just to be like Him.
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And so when we perceive deep down that we've been done wrong, whether true or imagined, we want to react to that.
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We want to point out the injustice, to set the record straight.
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And the words from our passage echo this experience that we all have together as humanity, that sense of injustice of being on the short end of the stick.
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And it can drive us toward the disease of envy.
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And it leads to a tension in our hearts, which is our first point this morning, the crisis.
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The psalmist begins this psalm with a declaration.
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Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
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And now hold that as we journey on, because then the psalmist goes into all these ways that he perceives God's goodness to those who don't love or follow God.
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God is good to the pure in heart, he says.
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But he almost disbelieved that.
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Quite a picture.
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They mock God and his creation, and their tongue walks confidently over everyone and everything and every circumstance, in the power of their own confidence, always at ease, always gaining, always getting ahead, he says.
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And then he says, Why?
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Why, God?
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If you're so good to the pure in heart, then God, why do those who hate you, who mock you, why do they get everything?
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Why is it easy for them?
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And why do I get nothing?
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ASAF sees only poverty and hardship when he looks at himself in the mirror.
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And he looks at the wicked and those who prosper, and he sees only prosperity and ease.
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And so he senses injustice.
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Have you ever had that feeling?
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Ever been sickened because someone else got something you wanted?
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Something you thought you deserved, that should have been yours.
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:40.559
Maybe a raise.
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Maybe you've been working long hours at work, overtime, weekends, holidays, putting the job first, everything else second, because you want to get to the next level, that next promotion so that you can provide for your family.
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Honorable, right?
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Because if you could just get that raise, that promotion, if you could just have that, then you know you would be set.
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You could rest.
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But someone who didn't work as hard as you got it instead.
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Maybe good health.
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You worked hard for years to take care of yourself and family, exercise, eating right, doctors' checkups, all that kind of stuff.
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Because you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and it honors God to keep your body healthy and to have a long life.
00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:33.600
But instead, God has allowed you to become sick.
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You've been afflicted, and you're angry about that.
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This is envy that can lead to resentment and bitterness, friends.
00:10:43.919 --> 00:10:46.559
Maybe good grades or athletics.
00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:52.559
You've been told your whole life about how hard work is important, and you've done that in every area of your life.
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Early mornings and long nights in the books, endless practices, also you can get ahead.
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You can be competitive.
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You can earn the scholarship or the dream job that you want.
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Because you know that doing your best, well, it makes your parents look good and it makes you look good, right?
00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:15.120
But no matter how hard you try, someone always gets a higher grade.
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Someone always performs better.
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And they don't seem to work as hard as you do.
00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:24.879
This is envy that leads to animosity, friends.
00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:27.360
Or maybe it's an image of yourself.
00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.799
How you want to be seen and known by the world.
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You know, we live in a digital world driven by social media, and despite your best efforts to curate your life for the approval of others, you find yourself sick that someone else's life seems more perfect than yours.
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So much so that you begin wanting what they have, coveting what they have.
00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:59.279
This is envy that leads to depression and disconnection, which drives dishonesty and leads us to disengage with other people.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:05.519
We could go on and on all morning, but these experiences fill our lives, friends.
00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:15.519
One minute, hopeful and engaged in daily living, the next minute, sick, because what we've been setting our hearts on has now gone to somebody else.
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And we can't stand it.
00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:19.360
That's what envy is.
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:25.120
It's the discontent and resentment we feel towards others who have something we want.
00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:29.279
What ASAF writes about here is common to everyone.
00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:32.960
It's difficult to see others get the things that we want.
00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:42.799
And if we're really honest, y'all, it's even more difficult when they're unbelievers, those who don't follow the way of Jesus.
00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:48.240
If you're here and you're a Christian, then you know that God is good to his children.
00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:51.279
That's what the Bible tells us from start to finish.
00:12:51.519 --> 00:12:56.879
But if we're honest, we kind of think that we should get special privileges because we're God's children.
00:12:57.039 --> 00:13:01.519
I mean, shouldn't he give us the very best of everything here and now in this life?
00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:07.840
Surely following Jesus should count for more than the sorrow and pain that we've experienced, right?
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It's in those moments when envy rises up in our hearts to meet the injustice that we perceive.
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When we're discontent at God's decision not to give us something we were sure should have come to us.
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When we find that all our brilliance and hard work can't finally make the grade or make the cut.
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When we find that there was someone else more deserving than we were, when our lives don't look like someone else's and it just drives us crazy, we are crushed and we taste a little bit of our own ruin.
00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:54.399
It's in those moments that it becomes really tempting to throw in the towel, to give up on following God because it hasn't paid off like we thought.
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In fact, we're only more beaten down than before, more hungry and needy than we'd ever imagined, and far more powerless to help ourselves than we'd want or believed.
00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:09.440
It's a crisis, friends, between the hand we've been given and the hand that we desire.
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And that crisis can lead us in different directions, which brings us to our second point this morning, the turn.
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The crisis can lead to bitterness and resentment, or it can lead us someplace else.
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And if it's bitterness and resentment, then we have become disillusioned to the life of faith, to following God.
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And Asaph picks up on this same feeling when he says, All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
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For all the day long I'm stricken and afflicted and rebuked every morning.
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You see, all that holiness, all that piety, all those commands I followed, they didn't amount to anything.
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It's vanity.
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God has done nothing but reach out and harm me.
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The wicked have overpowered me because God's hand is against me.
00:14:59.919 --> 00:15:02.720
There's been nothing good come from following you, God.
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That's what the psalmist is saying here.
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That's how I feel.
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Because of a life of continually seeing the wicked prosper and succeed.
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Friends, we too covet and we do not get.
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And so it seems at times that following God only brings pain and sorrow and disappointment.
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But the fact is, though, that resentment and disillusionment grows when we have fixed our eyes on something else rather than God.
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When we experience envy, what we're ultimately saying to God is that he has messed up.
00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:38.080
He should have given us something better.
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He should have given us something different.
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We know better than he does.
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We would make a better judge than God is.
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He should just ask us.
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This is a slippery place, friends.
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We need the grace of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our hearts to help us see how we've judged God for not giving us more, for not meeting our needs in the way we want him to meet them, for rejecting his provision because we are discontent with his gifts, shaking our fists at our Creator.
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But the psalmist catches himself here and he says, If I had said I will speak like that, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
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He's saying that if he had given in to the envy, if he had voiced how he really feels because of all the hardship in his life that he's experienced, all the ways that he's been sinned against by other people, if he said following God doesn't pay off, he would be leading other people to stumble as he knows he would be stumbling.
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He understands that to throw in the towel and give in to that burning anger would not only cheat himself, it would be double-crossing the family of God.
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And as one of David's chief musicians, Asaph had an important role in the temple.
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He composed songs for congregational worship.
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His words carried real weight.
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So he's not only concerned for himself, he's concerned for the nation who follows his God.
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How much more do our leaders give account for the words they use?
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We as God's children, as his blended family, we need to watch how we speak about God's decisions and his provision in our lives.
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Friends, do we have an equally cautious attitude when we struggle with envy?
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Do we recognize where the fruit of this poisonous tree is coming from and reject it in our lives?
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The idea that it should have been us.
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How could he get that?
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How could she do that thing?
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This feigned safety net, it shows how double-minded that we are.
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Do we vent to others under the guise of close relationship?
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I can tell you this because you're my friend.
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When really we're badmouthing someone who got what we want.
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Or we complain because God didn't do what we wanted him to do.
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Do we give a cold shoulder when someone gets what we want?
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Do we become passive-aggressive?
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And many times the other person doesn't even know we're upset and never knew we wanted that to begin with.
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How foolish we can be, friends.
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Do we speak and act just like the wicked?
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Do we believe that God doesn't care for us and has left us?
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That thought that if we could just trade places with them, then everything would be okay.
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If we just had what they had, we would be at peace.
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If God would just see things my way, then it would be smooth sailing.
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This is what the psalmist is wrestling with here.
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He's struggling with the sovereignty of God, wrestling with the problem of evil, perennial apologetic issues for Christians for centuries.
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How do we square the fact that God gives good things to some and withholds from others?
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That he gives hardship to some and blessings to others?
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How do we square the fact that God causes his Son to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike?
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How do we square the grind of our life with the promise that God wants to use us and bless us as we follow him?
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To cause them to flourish and to prosper and to raise us up.
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How do we square all those things?
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We're not going to solve all those questions this morning, by the way.
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That's different sermons.
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Just saying that these are tremendously difficult topics for us to think through, to wade through, to wrestle with.
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How many of us have wrestled with these questions before?
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For ourselves, for others.
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We've all done so.
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Refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and doubting his goodness can lead us into the sin of envy.
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We must be on watch for that.
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And Asaf said that when he tried to understand all these things, it was wearisome.
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He was burdened.
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And the only thing that changed him, the only thing that caused him to turn his anger at the wicked and his doubt in the goodness of God into hope.
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He says he went to the sanctuary of God.
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He went to the temple, and it was there that he discerned the end of the wicked.
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And this brings us to our third point, the resolution.
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Asaf looks at the lives of the wicked, those who never suffer want, never suffer affliction, always increase in prosperity, and those whose deaths come peacefully.
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And he says they are actually the ones who are in slippery places.
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God, he says, makes them fall to ruin.
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They're destroyed in a moment, swept away by terrors.
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He likens God to waking from sleep and putting off the wicked as somebody forgets a bad dream.
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Obviously, that doesn't mean all the wicked die young.
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That doesn't mean that they plummet into ruin in this life.
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Many times we never see the end of such people.
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But going to the temple reminds Asaph that ultimately the wicked don't stand in God's favor, they stand in his condemnation.
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Asaph remembers within the sanctuary that ultimately God's people stand in security and abundance, while the wicked actually stand in greatest need.
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For Asaph, going into the sanctuary helps him to see rightly about those on whom he looked with bitterness.
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And this realization makes him look at his envy and recognize that his inordinate desire for what others have has actually dulled his heart toward God.
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It made him unreceptive toward the Father.
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Even like a beast, he says.
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The music and the liturgy that we use, they point us toward the truth that God's word is just and true.
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That God Himself waits for his people to draw near and invites us to do so.
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It's what we're doing.
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Here today, we're getting a heavenly perspective on this life with all of its woes and struggles.
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It's because going to the sanctuary causes us to remember God's continual presence with us, his provision along the way through the shadow of death, his direction through his life-giving word and our reception into his glory.
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Coming to church isn't simply stepping into a room to sing some songs and hear a talk, take some bread and wine and leave for the week ahead, meet some good people.
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Coming to church is a radical reorientation of our priorities.
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And it's based around the reality of our justification, the continued work of the Spirit in our hearts, and the promise that we will see him as he is because we will become like he is.
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Glorification.
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And it's why Asaf breaks into praise.
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He says, Whom have I in heaven but you, the Lord of all creation, my maker and redeemer, my refuge, because you are faithful and good, I know that there is nothing on earth that can compare with you.
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There is nothing that I could ever possess that will come close to matching my security in you both now and forever.
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Although I'm mortal and will certainly pass away, yet I will hope in you because you are my refuge.
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When the world challenges me to look at what I don't have and feel that I have been forgotten and passed over, I will remember that I have already received, both now and in the age to come, eternal life.
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And that is all I desire, God.
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You are all I desire.
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Do we think like that?
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Does coming to worship make our hearts sing like this?
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For what we have in Christ.
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Asaph here, he's saying that the one whose hope is in God has eternal refuge.
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How can we have that rest?
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How can we stop the sickness of envy in our hearts?
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We must find contentment in God and rest in Him.
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Friends, the Bible is clear about the sin of envy and all that it brings into our lives.
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Proverbs 14, 30 says that a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.
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I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that before, but it is true.
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True words.
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Envy turns our heart upside down, it dulls our affections toward the Lord.
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In the New Testament, Jesus' half-brother James calls the wisdom of envy unspiritual and demonic.
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That anywhere you have envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder in every vile practice.
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A heart looking for what it doesn't have is restless, it's unsettled, and it makes us waste away.
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And Jesus says, our Lord says in Matthew 5.8, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
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Now Jesus isn't saying that somebody who works really hard at moral purity can get to heaven.
00:24:59.920 --> 00:25:01.440
That's not what he's saying.
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Jesus was talking to his disciples, people who already followed him as master.
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It's only by trusting in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, friends.
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It's only by being purchased by his blood, shed on the cross, that we can find refuge in God, that our sins can be forgiven and washed away.
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The Bible tells us that when we believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, a new nature that enables us to long for God more than the things we don't have in this world and the things that we want.
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He makes us able to receive the gift of Christ's righteousness on our behalf, merited through a sinless life of service and suffering by Jesus.
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And that perfect record of sinlessness, it's given to us as if we had lived a perfect life on our own.
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And when we really believe that, when we really live into the gospel with all that we have, then the world and everything that we might have becomes less and less precious as Jesus becomes more and more precious, more and more beautiful.
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:13.599
We can see the world rightly because we have been given the eyes of faith and a heart of peace.
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Do you have that peace, friends?
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Do you have confidence in knowing that the Lord is your refuge?
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That He's given you everything He needs, that He's given you Himself.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.440
You can know that peace and have that refuge today.
00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:29.200
Jesus waits for you.
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Come and get Him.
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:31.839
Amen and amen.
00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:33.279
Let's pray.
00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:37.599
Our Father, we thank you for your word to us.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:48.160
We thank you that it pierces to the division of joint and marrow, convicting us of our sin, renewing our strength and faith to live for you.
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:53.519
Help us, Father, to never shake our fist at you because we doubt your goodness.
00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:59.440
Help us never to sin against you with the corrosive arrogance that comes from envy in our hearts.
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:09.839
But Lord, help us to find in you everything we ever needed, everything we could ever want, and everything that we desire as we set our hearts on you and follow Jesus.
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It's in his name we pray.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:12.640
Amen.
