As the kids are heading out, you can turn with me to the book of Psalms. We are continuing again our running summer series of Summer Psalms. So we had a brief hiatus from Summer Psalms at the beginning of the summer. We considered our Polity series. Now we're back in Summer Psalms, and this week we're going to look at Psalm 73. So it's the beginning of book 3 of the book of Psalms, Psalm number 73. If you're not familiar with where that's at, it's basically smack dab in the middle of your Bible. Now unfortunately, we don't have the major screen in front of us this morning, so we don't have PowerPoint slides or anything like that. We'll have those coming soon when we get all that back up. So there's not going to be text displayed for you this morning. So I'll do my best to paint vivid word pictures so you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. That's where we're going to turn this morning. Now, if you look at Psalm 73, it starts out book 3. There's 5 different books in the Psalter. This is the start of the third book. And we meet a new character. We meet a guy by the name of Asaph, and we read there, this is a psalm of Asaph. Now, who is this guy? Well, he's got a special designation. He's actually a Levite, so he's part of the priestly tribe of Israel. That's his designation, and he's a special sort of Levite. He's a temple musician. So when we read about Asaph, and actually at this point there's A little more than a dozen psalms that are coming that are written by this man. Well, who is he? You can kind of imagine him, I think, as sort of an ancient Israelite worship pastor. That's who Asaph is. So instead of an acoustic guitar and skinny jeans, and if you're our worship leader, a V-neck— I think Zach loves his V-necks— you kind of have to imagine somebody with robes and playing a harp. Now that's maybe a little bit of a rough stereotype. But that's kind of what his role was. His role was to serve in priestly duties specifically about helping the congregation, the community, to worship corporately. But he had a special role as well. Listen to how unique his role and his gifting were. In 2 Chronicles 29:30, it says this: 'And Hezekiah the king and the officials commanded the Levites'—so commanded the priests—'to sing praises to Yahweh the Lord,' 'with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness and they bowed down and worshiped.' Now, we're talking centuries later. Hezekiah says, 'I want you to worship with this guy's songs.' Well, with these two guys' songs. The one guy you might have heard of. His name is David. The other guy is Asaph. So, consider this guy we're going to talk about we're going to talk about this morning, who wrote this psalm, gets mentioned in the same breath with King David, one of the most famous Israelites to ever live. David's also sort of the author of most of the psalms. Not sort of, he writes most of them. So it's kind of like if you're Ace, if you can think of a contemporary analogy, it's like he's being mentioned in the same breath with Stuart Townend or Matt Redman or Chris Tomlin. That's who this guy is like. That's the significance of who he is for ancient Israel. He's got that sort of game. But it also says something else. It says he's a seer. In another passage, it actually talks about the fact that the songs he writes are prophetic in nature. In other words, they're inspired. In other words, when this guy writes a song, you know, we think we love songs like 'In Christ Alone,' right? Or 'Behold Our God,' songs like that. Oh, those are great songs, man. We sing those songs and they just minister to me. They got nothing on Asaph. When this guy pens a song, the Spirit inspires it. Every word is inerrant, breathed out by God. This guy writes songs that inspire our current songwriters. That's who he is. That's what we're going to look at today. Specifically, we're going to look at one of his songs that deals with a very certain kind of temptation. The temptation to envy.
What does it look like when we're tempted with envy? Now, the song has a really unique structure. The first half is all diagnosis. He's diagnosing the problem. He's diagnosing the temptation, and it's his temptation. He feels it. And the second half is all remedy. How does he find the solution for his temptation? So those two pieces are going to mirror each other. If I had overheads, I would have set it up for you, but there's a really unique structure. It's called a chiasm, which means the whole psalm builds to a midpoint, and then the second half reflects and contrasts what happened in the first half. So there's like a parallel. You're going to see the first section is going to look like the last section, and the second section is going to look like the second-to-last section, and so on until that middle point, which is the turning point in the psalm. So you're going to see diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis, a turn, remedy, remedy, remedy. And each remedy reflects his understanding of the temptation to envy. So I'm going to try and paint that picture for you. And I did it with some alliteration. So you're going to hear the alliteration this morning. The first thing we see, the first part of this structure of the psalm, and this will help you to kind of imagine it too, it's sort of like an arrow. Chief's fan, it's like an arrowhead. There? Tracking with me? So this psalm, that chiasm builds towards that arrow. So if we're imagining the arrowhead, verse 1 is that widest part on the top. And this is what we see. We see Asaph lays out for us the problem. Listen to what he says in the first 3 verses. Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Now we see right away Asaph knows the truth. He's just stated it. I mean, the guy's a worship pastor essentially, right? He knows it. He knows God is good. God is good to His people. And yet, he finds himself in the throes of temptation. Verse 2 is actually this sort of sad contrast, right? God might be good and He might favor the pure of heart. But for Asaph, it's coming to that category of might, of maybe. But as for me signals that Asaph is basically up to his neck in temptation. Spurgeon commented on this psalm and said it describes a marathon of temptation. It's just sort of this long battle against wave after wave of envy. It's a serious situation. His envy has so gripped his heart that he says his feet have almost stumbled. His steps have nearly slipped. Now when I first read that, I was trying to figure out, so is he saying he's being tempted but he's not giving in? Or that he's actually in the midst of the sin of envy? Well, it's the latter. He's in the midst of the sin. It's not that it might happen to him. It's already there. It's already ensnared him. So how is he almost slipping? What does he mean by that? Well, what he's saying is that his envy has gotten so deep His jealousy and covetousness is so toxic that he's at the point of nearly giving up what he knows to be true. He's almost ready to give up on the truth that God is good and that God does good to those who love him. That's where he's at. You can kind of sense the gravity of the situation. It gets even more serious though when we grasp what he means by the phrase pure in heart. He's not just saying God is good to Israel and anyone who's pure in heart, anyone who's super holy. That's sort of in it, but it's more of a broader category. What he's saying is the pure in heart are those who love God with their whole being. He's referencing Deuteronomy 6:5, that famous passage, right? Jesus references it. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. That is the person who is pure in heart. The one who is single-minded in his love and devotion and reverence to God. That's the pure of heart. That's the one that God is good to. That's the one that God is for. And now Asaph, in his envy, is starting to doubt that. It's actually— he's becoming closer to the wicked people he envies, because of his envy, than he is to the pure in heart that he wants to be. Think about that for a second. His sin tempts him, and in that temptation, he looks more like the evil people he's frustrated with in the psalm than he is the pure in heart that he desires to be. It eats him up to the point he's about to slip. And he describes the problem in a nutshell. 'I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.'
That's the next piece of the pattern. The next part of that arrowhead. We're building towards the point. Point 2 of the diagnosis. He states the problem. Next, he says, 'I see the prosperity.'
And not like prosperity's bad. I see prosperity going to people who according to who God is shouldn't have it. If this world was working the way that it's supposed to work, the wicked shouldn't prosper, the pure in heart should prosper. But when I look around me, it's not that way. It's the opposite. I see these arrogant people, these evil people, and they're doing well. Listen to how he describes it in verses 4 to 12. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. No pangs. They don't have a thing to worry about until they die. Everything goes the way it's supposed to for them. They have not a trouble. They are not in trouble as others are. They're not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace. Violence covers them like a garment. These guys are so haughty. In their prosperity. They just flaunt it. They do whatever they want because they feel just totally impregnable, totally invulnerable. And then he says this in verse 7: Their eyes swell out through fatness. We'll get to that in a second. Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue struts through the earth. Therefore his people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease. They increase in riches.
I'm going to give a summary of what he's feeling here. It's sort of like, lucky them. They've always got it so good. Their spouses are more handsome. Right? Their careers are more successful. Their flocks just keep growing. Their garages just keep getting bigger. Everything goes well for them. Their wealth is already huge and it's just increasing. And you know what is worse? These are wicked, arrogant people. They're jerks. And their reputation is good. Everybody thinks they've got it all together. They're someone to emulate. What's going on? Well, the temptation to envy is seen in how perfect their lives appear. Now, we can kind of sense the deceitfulness of sin even in that, right? Nobody has it as perfectly as Asaph sang. Nobody goes through all of life without a single care until they die. Nobody does that. But in his envy, his perspective's gotten warped. He says even their pride and arrogance— think of this— seems attractive because they seem just so totally superior to everyone else. They're carefree. They're utterly fearless. They're so fearless, they don't even fear God. They blaspheme. They say statements like, 'What does God know? What does He see?' Worst of all, they get away with it. And they always get away with it. And they always have it easy, he says in verse 12.
Now, I want to go back to that really telling phrase in verse 7. He says, Their eyes swell out through fatness. That's a funny phrase, right? Well, to understand what he's saying, we would never say something like that today. In the ancient world, as strange as this might sound, obesity is a sign of wealth. The only people who can actually afford to get fat are really wealthy people. Everybody else is just scraping by, right? Trying to do what they can to make sure there's food on the table. But when you see somebody who's massive, you know this person has to be wealthy. They've got so much money, they can just eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. There's no care. There's no worry. And so there's actually this sense in the ancient world where to have girth just shows you've got a lot of money. And some of these guys were so wealthy and so indulgent in what they could buy food-wise with their wealth. And he says, Their eyes bulge out of their heads. They're so fat, there's fat behind their eyes pushing their eyeballs out. That's fat, right?
6 · Oswald uses contemporary analogies (Real Housewives, collagen injections) to illustrate how envy makes us desire things we know are ridiculous and won't make us happy
You hear how twisted the temptation of envy has become, though? Asaph is so jealous of their success, he wishes his eyes would bulge out of his head. He's thinking of this like a good thing. Everything goes well for them, man! They can eat so much food their eyes bug out of their head. I wish my eyes would bug out of my head! Sounds ridiculous, right? I don't think we're so much different. Maybe a little bit like watching the Real Housewives of wherever and seeing all the drama and the insanity and the morbid materialism and still thinking, 'I wish my life was a little like that.' 'Maybe my house doesn't have to be that big, but that's a pretty nice house.' Really, you're wishing your body was so full of fat that your eyes would bug out of your head. That's the contemporary comparison. Looking at people and thinking, 'Man, Bad dudes. But it'd be cool to live there. It'd be cool to live like that. That's the temptation he's facing. Maybe think of it like this: wishing you're so wealthy that the collagen injections make your lips bulge off your face. Man, I wish I had so much money I could like have just these big old duck lips. Just ugly, but everyone would know, 'Man, they must have money, because they spent $100,000 on those lips.' We look at those things and we think, 'Those are just ridiculous.' But in his envy— this is what envy does. It makes you long for things that you know, if you're thinking clearly, aren't good, aren't going to make you happy. And that's what we see next.
7 · Oswald expounds verses 13-14, showing Asaph's descent from envy into self-pity
See the problem? We see all the prosperity of the wicked, and then Asaph shows us the pity. Verses 13 to 14, listen to what he says: All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence, for all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. All in vain. I did the right stuff and you know what got me? Nothing. Lucky them. That envious longing now devolves into poor me. Poor me. Why don't I have what they have? His envy has gotten so toxic that now the worship pastor is convinced that righteousness, the stuff that the songs he's supposed to lead people in singing, the stuff those songs celebrate, he's convinced righteousness is a ripoff. Why was I wasting my time with it?
8 · Oswald identifies the theological tension at the heart of the psalm's first half: Asaph believes God is good and upholds the righteous, but his observation of the world seems to contradict this belief entirely
The whole first half of the psalm represents a tension. There's this tension of truth in conflict. Asaph believes, he states, God is good. He upholds the righteous. He upholds the pure in heart. But in verse 14, in the midst of his temptation, he bemoans the fact The temptation that everything in the world that he looks at seems to contradict what he knows to be true. I know God is for the righteous, but I look around me and what is going on?
9 · Oswald illustrates the tension between righteousness and prosperity with the Enron scandal, where hardworking ethical employees lost everything while corrupt executives received massive severance packages
You think of it, you're one of those people working for one of those corporations a few years back. All your money for retirement is invested in that corporation. And too bad you work for Enron or someone like that. And the whole thing falls flat. Your money's gone. A lot of these corporations, the CEOs, the CFOs, the COOs that led them into ruin get off with multi-million dollar stock options as they leave. You're sitting there looking at that thinking, 'What is the deal, Lord? Like, where's the justice? I've been working hard. I've been trying to glorify You with the work of my hands.' for 30, 40 years. I'm about ready to retire and now this happens? And that guy that's responsible for it gets a $65 million severance because he blew up the company? What was I doing for 40 years? Why was I seeking to be ethical?
10 · Oswald explains the deadly trajectory of unchecked envy: it progresses from self-pity to moral confusion where one begins to question whether sin is actually evil and righteousness is actually good
And that just starts to leak into self-pity. The idolaters win the wars, the greedy get rich, the cruel go unpunished. Here's the thing to think about: when the evil prosper and when the culture gets hostile, gets hostile to what God calls righteous and what God calls pure and what God calls good, That's when this sort of envy gets really dangerous. It gets deadly. It's not just that the sin is rewarding people. The envy and the subsequent self-pity push him to the unthinkable brink of thinking, 'You know what? Maybe it's not just that there's a reward for sin. Maybe sin's good. It's all vain. I've been doing this. Maybe I've got it wrong.' Maybe that is right. Maybe right was wrong and wrong was right this whole time, and that's why I'm not prospering. That's why I'm not doing well. Here's a paraphrase of verses 9 to 14. When I envy the wicked for their prosperity, it entices me to embrace their lifestyle. When they mock God, I start to turn my back on Him and convince myself maybe the evil they do isn't so bad. Who is God to say what's right or wrong? The bad people are doing better every day. Conclusion: maybe you're a fool to keep believing and living like sin doesn't pay, or that sin is really as evil as I've been led to believe. Now, does that sound familiar? We live in a day and age where we see that happening. Where in front after front our culture, even other Christians, are calling evil good and good evil. The indictment of Isaiah. That's a deadly poison if you can't control and you can't fight and you can't mortify envy. Because you know what happens? That envy just goes. Asaph is showing us, if that just goes and it's unchecked and you just let it feed and brood and the self-pity sets in, you start thinking, 'Why don't I just live like that? Why don't I just fudge on this part of the Bible that makes it hard to get ahead at work? Why don't I just fudge on this part that makes it seem like I'm always in the minority when shifts happen in the culture?' It would be a lot easier. I would be a lot more popular. Things would go better for me. Woe is me. That's the danger.
11 · Oswald expounds verses 15-17, marking the psalm's turning point
But then the enormity of such insane talk sets in. We finally reach that turning point. So we've hit the point of the arrow. He goes from diagnosis now to remedy. He talks about the problem. He talks about the prosperity. He talks about the pity, the self-pity that eats him. And now he finally sees the perspective. Verses 15-17. If I had said, 'I will speak thus.' If I would have spoken out loud everything I've been thinking about in the first 14 verses of this psalm. If I had articulated it and told people about it, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end. Verse 15 is the start of the breakthrough. He's not there yet, but he's starting to get there. He finally perceives just how sinful his thoughts have become. That his temptation has run to the point that if he'd spoken these things to others, he would have betrayed his people. He would have led the coming generations into total sin. Into total ruin. Man, if I had, as a worship pastor, as a leader of God's people, if I had started talking like this, the whole generation following me would have been led astray. I would have betrayed them. They would be led into ruin. So he senses that to envy the wicked, to envy their favored position, is actually to tempt the entire community. Have you ever thought about your envy in that way before? To be controlled by envy, to covet, to be jealous, it's to entice others to join you in it. It spreads. It's malignant. It has the possibility to tempt the entire community. He finally sees the true danger. He realizes, you know what envy is? Envy is secret murmuring. It's murmuring in my heart against God, against the God who's sovereign. Why has God given them that? How could God? I thought God was just. You hear the murmuring? You hear what's going on?
12 · Oswald unpacks verse 17 as the psalm's center and turning point
Fresh perspective finally comes to Asaph. From where? Where does it come? Well, it finally comes to end his pity party. It finally happens. He starts to head back to the place that's going to orient him rightly. Listen to what he says. He finds it in verse 17. Now before we go there, I want you to kind of imagine what he's been doing up to this point. Sort of like he went and sat in the Oak Park Mall, just watching everybody walk by with their bags of clothes, stuff. Just got laid off, did everything right. What's wrong with this picture? Goes back there the next day. It's still as bad as it was yesterday. He goes back the third day. I'm getting mad about this. He goes back the fourth day. Doggone it. I want some of that stuff. Is he helping himself? No. He's making it worse. You don't kill envy by driving through neighborhoods of the wicked wealthy, right? That's not how you cure it. Man, I go for my jog every day through that neighborhood. Just to see how they're prospering. That's not gonna help you. You don't get perspective by going and sitting outside in your car outside the house, or probably the gated community, of the Ponzi scheme guy who ripped you off. That's not gonna help you. What helps you? Verse 17 helps you. It's the center of the psalm, the point where the psalm turns, the great turning point of perspective. Where does Asaph get perspective? By going into the sanctuary of God. You catch what's going on? If he's left to himself, Asaph's envy consumes him. The whole first part of this psalm, he's just been sitting there looking around and the pity swells and the loneliness increases. Finally, he goes to the sanctuary. He's to the point where he's almost overwhelmed. His feet have almost slipped. But the sanctuary, the place of corporate worship, the place where God said He dwells in the midst of His worshiping people, finally gets His head back on straight. In the place where God's people sing and pray and preach from His Word, they center their gathering around the thing that shows them and gives them perspective, that rights their orientation. In that place, as they're surrounded by people who are singing songs that celebrate the right thing and not the wrong thing, They're surrounded by people who are willing to pray for them. They're having conversations with people who aren't driven by this envy. They're hearing from the Word that rightly describes how the world should be and how the world will be. Envy gets cut off. Envy gets killed. It gets mortified. It's there that he finally stops navel-gazing. He sees God accurately with the help of corporate worship. And it helps him to see the wicked with clarity as well.
13 · Oswald expounds verses 18-22, the first remedy
3 things we now see in the remedy. We've turned now, right? So it's been diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis. Oh! All of a sudden I see it for what it is. Now we're coming down the other side of the poem. There's going to be contrasting mirrors of remedy. The next thing he sees, the first remedy of three weighty realizations, he gets perspective and then he sees providence. The very thing he's been denying previously. In verses 18-22, he says this: 'Truly, You, God, set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. O Lord, When you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in my heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast towards You. So the poor me, the mirror, the poor me of verses 13-14 now turns into Stupid me. What was I thinking? Why was I pitying myself and longing for what they had? The dough moment comes when he remembers, you know what? God does still rule. God does still reign. Instead of feeling like he's about to slip and fall, what does he say? The wicked ultimately are going to slip. The wicked ultimately are going to fall. They're going to lose their footing. And this isn't just some impersonal You know, they're going to be going along and their prized donkey is going to break his leg and he's going to fall off and break his neck. That random stone that slipped. That's not what he's talking about. He's not just talking about some impersonal direction that history is heading. This dismissal is a personal rejection. I love how Derek Kidner in his commentary puts it: The eternal dismissal of this section is the 'Depart from me, I never knew you' of the New Testament. That's what's going to happen to the wicked. Because God still reigns. Because as crazy as the world seems right now, God is still enthroned.
14 · Oswald illustrates God's judgment with the film 'The Impossible' about the Asian tsunami
I saw a movie a while back, I don't even know how long ago, maybe 6, 9 months ago. It was called 'The Impossible.' I don't know if anybody's seen it. The movie is a telling of the story of the tsunami that hit a part of southern Asia a few years back. There's a massive tsunami, remember there's that earthquake, and this huge tsunami just out of nowhere rose up and just hammered several countries. And it nailed Thailand, and it actually, they did studies and it showed that It actually moved part of the country. There's islands that got tilted. And it was just a wall of water that came and just crushed everything in its path. And this movie tells the story of this family. They're a British family, if I remember correctly. And it's a husband and wife. And they've got their kids. And they're on vacation for Christmas 5-star resort in Thailand. You know, they've got this beautiful room, ocean view balcony, you know, there's this beautiful pool, they've got like the portable DVD player, I mean, they've got everything. And it's, you know, it's in Thailand, so you're aware there's also this contrast of the people around them. And here's this beautiful resort, and then there's poverty all around. When that tsunami hits, And that wave comes, that 5-star resort is like a building made of toothpicks. 5 minutes after the wave knocks them over, you can't tell who's wealthy. You can't tell who is impoverished. It sweeps like just this sweep and wave of fury. It's this storm of maelstrom that just comes and wipes everything clean. And it's just powerful. I mean, you watch it and it's just sobering to think of it. And you think, that's this little location. What about a flood over the entire earth? What about the final judgment? That's the image and picture that Asaph's giving us. You don't put envy to death if you stare at the present prosperity of the wicked. To kill that sort of envy, you need to remember their future. You need to remember the God who controls it. You need to remember that all the stuff that you think is so wonderful is as futile as everything I saw in that movie. Just gone. In an instant.
15 · Oswald uses Jesus's parable of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16 to illustrate the reversal of fortunes after death
It's like the parable Jesus tells in Luke 16. You've heard it before. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, who feasted sumptuously every day. His eyes bulge out of his head, right? And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. This guy's got it bad. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. So he's up in heaven. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, in hell, being in torment, He lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side, and he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. That providential reminder of God's control, of God's justice, of God's judgment for those who aren't pure in heart settles Asaph's envy.
16 · Oswald makes a theological claim about envy's satanic origin
Envy is spiritual suicide. It fashions us after its author. You know who the author of envy is? It's Satan. He's the archetypal envier of all history. He envies God. He wants to be like God. And so what happens? He falls. And when he falls, he leads all sorts of other angels, angelic beings, with him in the envy and in the fall. And then he actually envies after Adam and Eve. He envies the fact that they live in paradise. He envies after their image. You see that in their interaction in Genesis when the serpent comes and tempts them. The temptation is meant to take away from Adam and Eve something Satan doesn't have. He doesn't have that kind of fellowship anymore. He doesn't have that access. And more than that, he's not created uniquely as the man and the woman are in God's image. He envies it, and so he comes. And he seeks to destroy it. In his twistedness, he convinces them to corrupt exactly what makes them unique and special. In his twistedness, he gets his envy to spread to them. 'I can't believe you're not envious of what God knows and you don't know.' 'Maybe God's wicked not to let you know those things.' Maybe what you think is good is really bad, and what God said is bad is really good. Doesn't the fruit look tasty? Envy is spiritual suicide. When Asaph realizes God's control of the situation, he indicts himself for brutishly, he says, ignorantly acting like a beast. When I was deceived, I'm not just acting like a fool, I'm acting like an animal. I'm acting like I'm completely devoid of bearing your image. I act beastly. I think what he's saying in a way is, I act more like the devil than I act like you. I look more like the serpent than I do the God I'm called to lead people in worship of.
17 · Oswald expounds verses 23-26, the second remedy
But when I remember that God reigns, when I remember that in the end He will set the scales right, that He will wash away— it says the wicked will be like a phantom. The image there is, when this is all said and done, they're going to be so done with, so wiped away, It's just going to be like a mist that they were ever even there. You're hardly going to even see a shadow of the fact that they were around. That helps him. And then he sees the next piece of remedy, the second piece. The first piece, he remembers God's providence, that God will judge and set things right. The second piece is he remembers his portion. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand. So nevertheless, even though I acted like a beast, 'Even though I was brutish and ignorant, nevertheless, I'm continually with You. You still hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward, You will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.' Is this the same guy? This has to be a different psalm, right? They must have edited this incorrectly. This has to be Psalm 74 or 72. It's a totally different perspective. He goes from, 'Lucky them, they have it so good,' the mirror contrasting it now, 'Rich me! I have it so good! They don't have it good! They're heading down the wide road to destruction. Rich me!' That's the second remedy Asaph remembers. 'I have so much more than the wicked.' They might have Bentleys. I don't care. Look at everything I've got. Envy does— envy's done what envy does. It blinds him to the wealth he possessed in God. He's just pining after what others have, and he's completely forgotten everything that's his.
18 · Oswald unpacks the four-fold wealth believers possess in God: peace with God, security in His grasp, promise of future guidance, and reception into glory
Listen to how wealthy we find ourselves. That's how he describes it. First, he says we're at peace with God. Even though I'm acting ignorantly, I've been deceived, I've been sinning, I've been doubting God's goodness. He still offers me peace. Verse 23 reminds us we're continually with Him. Secondly, this is our wealth. We're in His grasp. He holds our hand. That's a pretty sweet image for the guy in verses 2 and 3 that says, 'I was almost slipping. I'm almost falling. Everything seemed unstable.' And then I got perspective and I remembered God holds my hand. He holds me secure. He holds me tightly. That's a wealthy thing to have. Third thing, we have the promise of future guidance. I know You're going to give me Your counsel. Your counsel is going to keep coming. Even though I'm going to be stupid in the future, You're going to remind me and help me and turn me back. And finally, ultimately, afterward, He'll receive us to glory. If you're scoring that at home, that's security in the present. It's security in the future. It's security forever. For all eternity and its heavenly and its earthly wealth. It's not like it's just, 'You just have to suck it up, man. Maybe you should hope you'll die in the next 10 years instead of having to suck it through this bad stuff for 50.' No, there's wealth here on earth. It's a rock and an inheritance that doesn't end with this life. It's a refuge in the storm now and a promise that there's going to be a day if you're with God, if you're pure in heart, there's no more storm at all. I love how Ray Ortland comments on it. He says Psalm 73 is spiritual medicine for hearts sick with envy. Verse 25 is a searching diagnostic of our hearts toward God. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire. There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. The total opposite of envy. Envy isn't just spiritual suicide. It's spiritual baloney. It's just not true. You don't get anything back for what you put in. For all the longing and lusting and obsessing and complaining, you don't get any satisfaction. You just get more longing and lusting and obsessing. Messing and complaining. That's what happens when you envy. It's insatiable. Even if you get more stuff, your envy is just going to grow. You're left as empty as you started. And besides that, as truth finally starts to triumph in his vision, you know, the first part there's this conflict of truth. What he believes to be true and what everything happens in the world shows him to be different. Well, now truth is triumphing. It's flexing its spiritual muscles. He's reminded he doesn't want just tons of stuff and reputation. He doesn't want swag and bling. He wants his portion. A portion that remains when the outward, his flesh, and the inward, his heart, those things of his life are at their end. He wants his portion. He wants his God. That's what I want. Why was I deceived by this? Why was I tempted by this envy? That stuff's not going to last.
19 · Brief biblical illustration of Joseph's brothers envying his coat, emphasizing the emptiness of what envy pursues
Joseph's brothers throw him in a pit because of a silly coat with a bunch of colors. They cover it in blood and they're walking home. And you think Simeon's sitting there holding this coat, just thinking, 'For this?' This is why we did it? This is why we have to break our Father's heart? For this hunk of cloth in different shades of color?
20 · Oswald shares a personal contemporary illustration of Derek Metcalf fighting envy
I'll share a prayer request. It shows you the total opposite of this. It shows you the remedy of remembering God is my portion, not this stuff. I got a prayer request for our care group. This week from Derek Metcalf. A lot of you know Derek. He's a guy with a bachelor's degree, working on a master's degree, working in a Walmart distribution center. Not exactly what you envision when you go to KU. He graduated from KU. He'd want me to say he's a K-Stater at heart. That's not probably how he wrote the story in his head. Well, he finds there's an opportunity for a job, a job teaching Greek, using his degrees, a job that would totally fit with where he feels his gifting and what he feels called to and what he wants to do. And so he sends out a prayer request and he asks the care group to pray. Now, if you're working that kind of job and you feel your gifting is in a different place, that could be an area for temptation. Even when you've got the job that you think lines up with your gifting, sometimes Envy can be a temptation, right? 'Man, I want my supervisor's job. I want my boss's job. I want that guy's job over there.' The grass is always greener. I love what he says. 'We've been praying as a family for a job that would allow me to be home in the evenings.' He's working the night shift with my family. 'Working normal hours, and I can't help but wonder if this, the job, this job at the Classical Academy is applying for is the Lord's provision. However, this is a man who's fighting envy. It is very possible that this position could also be the Lord's provision for another brother or sister in Christ. He knows there's 3 of them that have applied. So here's what I would ask that you pray. I'm thinking, pray that I get the job, pray that it's got a good salary, pray that the benefits are nice, pray that I can get out of Walmart as fast as I can. Pray that my hope would not rest in this position. Pray that I would accurately represent myself in the interview. I wouldn't deceive them just so I'd get the job. Pray that the applicant most suited to serve the kingdom in this capacity would receive the offer. Pray that that I would rejoice regardless of the outcome. You pray like that when you're battling envy with the portion of God. He concludes with this: My ways are rarely his ways, and his thoughts and intentions exceed my narrow view of the world. My position at Walmart has been incredibly sanctifying. And it is entirely possible that my time spent being refined there is not done with yet. Yet it is very much my desire to begin this new challenge and season of life. So, if the Lord wills. Talk about a position where envy could have so easily crept in. It would have seemed justified. I'm not even envying the evil. I'm just envying a job at a Christian classical school where I'll get to teach Greek and teach people about Jesus. I can justify that envy, right?
21 · Oswald makes a synthetic theological claim about Psalm 73's function: it transforms envy into godly desire and bitterness into contentment by fixing hope on God's reception of us into glory rather than present circumstances
Psalm 73 provides a powerful remedy for turning our envy into godly desire, for turning a bitter, pouting heart into one consumed and content with God. Let the wicked prosper at work. Let them prosper in the courts of public opinion. Let them prosper in the courts of human justice. Let them prosper, because we know in the end God will receive us. He will welcome us into glory.
22 · Oswald quotes Thomas Watson at length to illustrate the glory awaiting believers
Thomas Watson puts it this way: the wicked The wicked go through a pleasant way to execution. The godly go through a foul way to coronation. See how happy all the saints are at death. They go to a kingdom. They go to their portion. They shall see God's face, which shines 10,000 times brighter than the sun in its meridian glory. The godly at death shall be installed into their honor and have the royal crown set upon their head. They have in the kingdom of heaven the quintessence of all delight. That's a fun phrase. The quintessence of all delights. They have the beatific vision. They get to see God in His glory and it's going to change them into a shade of glory similar. They shall lie in Christ's bosom. That bed of spices. I don't know what a bed of spices is like. There is such a pleasant variety in the happiness of heaven that after millions of years, after millions of years, it will be as fresh and desirable as the first hour's enjoyment. I think it's going to be deeper. I think he sells it short. In the kingdom of heaven, the saints are crowned with all those perfections which they are capable of. The desires, the desires of the glorified saints are infinitely satisfied. You don't even think of envy. Every desire is satisfied. And when your desires go deeper, they become more godly and they're satisfied even more. There is nothing absent which they could wish might be enjoyed. There is nothing present which they might wish might be removed. That's your portion.
23 · Oswald expounds verses 27-28, the third remedy: the privilege of nearness to God
Final remedy, the privilege. In conclusion, verses 27 to 28: For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord my refuge that I may tell of all your works. Finally, the truth stated in verse 1, 'God is good to all His people who are pure in heart,' that truth gets affirmed. It gets really believed. Yes! After everything I've said, it is good! It is good to be near to God! That's the greatest remedy he sees. Seeing his bitterness for the ugly poison that it is, he decides, 'I would so much rather Draw near to God, to be near my refuge. The psalm's come full circle. It's finished the arrow. It's gone and it's back. And it's reflecting now and it's concluding. Verse 1, at the very end, temptation. This is what's going on, diagnosing it. It's horrible. It's disgusting. Here's the turning point of perspective, now coming back and realizing the truth I stated in verse 1 is true. It is real. I've experienced it. I know it. It's not just about what God can do for a person. It's talking about what God can be for a person. That's what he's saying. That's the privilege. I get to be near God. I get to be near the source of all joys.
24 · Oswald makes a theological claim about the relationship between belief, experience, and God's goodness
If we keep our hearts steady on truth, if we navigate the vagaries of this fallen world, this is what we get. Circumstances. Who prospers and who suffers here and now aren't nearly as important as our attitude, as our beliefs. What you believe, the purity of your heart, controls whether you live in truth and experience God's goodness or get overwhelmed by life and deceived into thinking that experience teaches that God isn't good.
25 · Oswald makes the sermon's climactic theological claim: God's goodness is most significantly experienced at the cross, where God's justice against wickedness and His provision of Himself as our portion converge
That experience of God's goodness And I think this is there. I see it in the last verses. It's so helpful. For me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell all your works. The experience of God's goodness is no more, nowhere There's no place where it's more significant than at the cross. It's there that you have this sweet convergence of God's just answer to wickedness and His provision, the provision of Himself as the portion. They meet there. How long, O Lord? Until now. How will you set this right? In the crushing of my Son. When you feel assaulted by all the injustice of this world, the cross reminds us no one has felt injustice more acutely than Jesus. And when you stand under the shadow of the cross, cross, you're reminded exactly how God ordained to bring us near. Our refuge—think about this—from God's wrath, the reason we're not going to face that judgment, the reason we're not going to be the rich man and we get to be Lazarus, that refuge is found under Christ's trembling, dislocated shoulders. As they bear God's wrath in our place.
26 · Oswald explains why envy is poison: the envious have no awareness or joy for God's greatest work at the cross
You know why envy is poison? Because the envious have no awareness. They have no joy for God's greatest work. It's only when we draw near and remember how and why we can draw near because of Jesus, because of Calvary, it's only then that we sense when personally God is our refuge. It's only then that we're able to proclaim all His works. Asa is saying, I'm going to proclaim Your works. You led us out of Egypt. You led us through the Red Sea. You conquered Jericho. You gave David victory over Goliath. You expelled the Philistines. Puh! You died in our place to ensure that we would have a hope and a future. That's the work You proclaim. That's the work You remember when You sit at the cross. It comes to the forefront. You see it as the great privilege it is. No one finds real pleasure or real delight or real contentment or real satisfaction in God except those who sit on Calvary's hill. That's the place where the Spirit teaches us the love of God for us in Christ. That's where the Spirit makes it real. That's where you sense, 'Oh, the depths of His love!'
27 · Oswald connects Ephesians 1 (read earlier in the service) to the cross as the display of God's eternal plan of adoption
What Zach read in Ephesians 1, From the beginning of time, before time, He set in motion His plan to display for us the love He had for those that He would choose in Christ. That they would come and they would see in the cross and what He would do to His Son to redeem them and to make them His own, to adopt them. They've been predestined in love for adoption as sons and daughters. That's why I'm gonna bring you near. That's the refuge where every truth proclaimed becomes truth vindicated and truth experienced.
28 · Brief illustration using Owen's metaphor of wine prepared for souls and Isaiah 61:10 to picture the delight of being clothed in salvation and righteousness, kept close to God
Owen describes it like wine prepared for our souls. It's here that we're kept closest to God and closest to delight. Isaiah 61:10: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.
29 · Oswald declares the vindication of verse 1: God is good to the pure in heart, who find real pleasure and unassailable delights in Him
The truth of verse 1 is vindicated. God is good, and the pure in heart, the holy, those who set their hope securely in him will find real pleasure and unassailable delights.
30 · Oswald concludes with a lengthy Owen quotation describing the soul bent to God's will who has peace and contentment because God cannot be lost
I'll leave you with a quote by Owen, final thing: The soul that sets up its rest and makes its great concern to walk humbly with God is brought to his foot, bent to his will, is ready for his disposal, and whatever God does in the world with himself his or others, he has peace and quiet in it. He has contentment. His own will is gone. The will of God is his choice. Whatever you will, Lord. His great concern lies not in anything that can perish, that can be lost. What a man shall see in the worst state and condition, that his great concern is safe. That though all is lost, God who is all is not lost. That this can never be taken from him. It fills his heart with delight. Is he in prosperity? He fears not the loss of that which he most values. Is he in adversity? Yet he can walk with God still, which is his all. He can therefore glory in tribulations, rejoice in afflictions. His treasure, his concernment, is secure. God is his refuge, his perfect portion. Would you bow your heads?