Psalm 73 | The Nearness of God is My Good

Jerell Carper continues our Psalms series by looking at the introduction to Book 3, Psalm 73. The author wrestles with the age-old question, "Why do the wicked prosper and the innocent suffer?" When we find ourselves in the tension between the correct answer and our lived experience, we need (1) honesty (2) an encounter and (3) perspective. Prosperity is not what God gives us, but who God gives us (himself). 

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost 

Series: Psalms 

Transcript

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A psalm of Asaph. God is indeed good to Israel, to the pure in heart, but as for me, my feet almost slipped. My steps nearly went astray, for I envied the arrogant. I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have an easy time until they die, and their bodies are well fed. They're not in trouble like others. They're not afflicted like most people. Therefore, pride is their necklace and violence covers them like a garment. Their eyes bulge out from fatness. The imaginations of their hearts run wild. They mock and they speak maliciously. They arrogantly threaten oppression. They set their mouths against heaven and their tongues strut across the earth. Therefore, his people turn to them and drink in their overflowing words. The wicked say, How can God know? Does the Most High know anything? Look at them, the wicked, they are always at ease and they increase their wealth. Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing? For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning. If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed your people. When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless until I entered God's sanctuary. And then I understood their destiny. Indeed, you put them in slippery places, you make them fall into ruin. How suddenly they become a desolation. They come to an end, swept away by terrors, like one waking from a dream. Lord, when arising, you will despise their image. When I become embittered and my innermost being was wounded, I was stupid and didn't understand. I was an unthinking animal toward you, yet I am always with you. You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory. Who do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. Those far from you will certainly perish. You destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, God's presence is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell about all you do.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

So we are looking at that Psalm, Psalm 73, and as uh Charlotte was reading it with one eye, I was like, why did I decide to preach this psalm? Um I didn't want to shy away from some of the trickier psalms because I think we can learn how to read them. And there's I could have picked some of the really easy ones, like last week, Psalm 23. Everyone loves it, it's easy to preach. This is a little bit uh trickier. So um you're reading your Bible, you come across this psalm. What do we do with Psalm 73? There's some wild stuff in there, some wild stuff. Um, well, just before we jump into that, um each week we're gonna be learning just a quick psalm reading skill. Uh last week we talked about the fact that the psalms are supposed to be sung and prayed and meditated on and chewed on, not just studied and dissected, but brought into our lives and repeated. I know some of you are listening to that John Foreman song on repeat, and you I gave you some Lectio Divina practices. Well, our psalm skill number two is that the collection of psalms has an intentional structure. So one of the reasons I've always rolled my eyes at churches doing summer in the Psalms is because it treats the Psalms like just this random grab bag of 150 things we could preach on that are totally disconnected. Um, and since it's summer and people are gonna be really scattered, we don't want to do a series, so let's just do the Psalms. And I've always just cringed because I believe the Psalms are structured and do have a flow to them, and I always have wanted to try to do justice to that. Um, if you didn't know, they're intentionally compiled into five books, which kind of represent the Torah, the five books of Moses. Um, Psalm one or Psalm 1 and 2 are viewed as the introduction to the whole book, and then each book has a beginning and an end. Uh, the end is typically a praise psalm that ends in doxology. The final book ends in a series of five praise songs. Um, the seams are really important. They're called seams, so where you switch from book one to book two, book two to book three, um, those kind of set the tone uh for the book. The general flow of the book follows uh the story of God's people, mostly receiving these promises and feeling very hopeful. And then the middle part is a lot of wrestling with, hey, you said this was going to be true, but it doesn't really seem like it's panning out. And then somehow they come full circle, and at the end the book moves toward praise. So you could say Psalms moves from petition to praise or from lament to praise. Um and we are in Psalm 73 today, which is the very beginning of book three on the seam. So if you're paying attention to reading Psalms, just read the ones around it. Try to pay attention to the flow. Um, there's not always amazing correlation you can find, but there's a lot of scholarly research on how these psalms are compiled and structured. The Bible project video, if you watch that on the Psalms, has a really good job of showing that visually, which surprise. All right. So I have a question, which we've already we've primed the pump, and I want to say it maybe a different way, and it's this how do we respond when God doesn't work the way he's supposed to? How do we respond when the world that God created doesn't work the way he's supposed to? If we were following God and we identified with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 2,500 years ago, we would live by wisdom, riddles and poems and sayings that guide who God is and what he's like and how the world works. And one of these riddles, one of these wise sayings is how this Psalm starts. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. This is how the world works. If you are pure in heart, if you're part of God's people, you're practicing covenant faithfulness, you will receive God's goodness and blessing if you're pure in heart. God will bless you with food and land and protection and prosperity if we're God's covenant people. So this is just kind of this is the correct answer on the test. Like, is God good to the pure in heart? You're like, the 4.0 students, yes, he is good to the pure in heart. You know, good job, Charlotte. You did it. Um, and so then the the author quickly transitions, and I just keep in mind this is like corporate prayer book worship of God's people. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I nearly lost my foothold. I actually envied the arrogant, I saw the prosperity of the wicked. So there's this introduction of this tension. All right, I know this is true. For people who are pure in heart, God blesses them. But I actually started envying the wicked who were prospering. Um, we'll get to parallelism at another psalm study, but you can see how my feet almost slipped, I lost my foothold, I envied the arrogant, the prosperity of the wicked. So there's parallelism going on there. We're back to this path metaphor. I'm walking on this path and my foot almost slipped. Um, this past weekend we were camping at Bryce Creek and I went down to the river to like wash out some dishes. It was this metal bowl, a knife, a spatula, and a whisk as I made pancakes just in this metal bowl. And I wash them in the river, and I'm walking back and I step on this rock that moves. And I like I full-on yard sale. Uh I threw this metal bowl up. Like it was a cartoon crash. And this clanging everywhere in these rocks, I my hand is bruised. I couldn't ride my bike here. I was riding like this because I landed on some sharp rock and I got my jeans all wet and nobody saw it. And I'm telling you this on public radio. And my foot slipped, and I just threw the bowl up and I had a total big crash. And I think that maybe that's how we think about a foot slipping. But later on, we were on a little hike when our kids were running up ahead, and a bunch of kids running up, kind of chasing each other. And eventually the trail went up on this cliff and kind of came around this corner, and there was this railing that was supposed to be there, but had been pushed down. And this trail is narrow. There's like a wall on this side, and it is probably 80 to 100 foot just drop. I mean, no kid is is gonna do well. And we get like, oh man, okay, our kids are up ahead, like they made it through this corner. We get to them, I was like, Man, were you guys careful around that corner? And they were like, What corner? And I we think of like your foot slipping, it's like, oh, I just I just stumbled, but I think maybe what this author is talking more about is like having like a really significant fall. Um, your foot slips, um, and here is why, here's what happens. He looks out and he sees the prosperity of the wicked. It's when our honest experience doesn't match the correct theological answer, right? We're afraid if we're honest, maybe if it's true. And I think a lot of us have these tensions in our life, really deep questions about God or the Bible or theology, and sometimes we're afraid to ask them. But it's the age-old problem. Why are the innocent suffering? But then these wicked people, why why are they rich and arrogant and thriving? It just doesn't seem to check out. Even if we're not an ancient Israelite, we kind of get that in the ethics of our general day. What's interesting though is that the issue is envy. The the author isn't necessarily concerned with the philosophical question of why do the wicked prosper. He's the wrestle is I actually want to be like that. Like it's a why should I be pure in heart if it doesn't matter, if the wicked can prosper, then I might as well just be wicked. So I want to give us three kind of, I'll stick with the foot slipping footholds, three footholds as we process our own deep questions about God. Um, maybe if it's this question, um, that would fit pretty well. The first foothold we need when we encounter a dissonance between the theologically correct answer and then our felt experience is we need honesty. Honesty. And Charlotte and Logan hinted at that of sometimes we're afraid to be honest because we think maybe it will come true then. Or we grew up in a faith that didn't want us to ask questions because it might, you know, I don't know. We might find an answer we weren't looking for. But here's this kind of raw honesty. Look at these wicked people, they have no struggles, their bodies are healthy and strong, they're not plagued by human ill, pride is their necklace, they clothe themselves with violence. This is good poetry. Their callous hearts come iniquity, their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff and speak with malice and goes on and on. They say, How would God know? Does God not know anything? And so in our little group, we ask, like, who are who are these people? Like, who are the people you associated with this when you were were talking? And I won't say what Daniel said, but I'll tell you what I said. It's clearly someone who has a lot of wealth and power and good fortune. Like, it seems like the dice roll always just ends up in their favor. They always get dealt the good hand. They started with privilege, that that privilege has gone on. They're arrogant towards others and they mock God. Um, and so I call them spoiled brats. Spoiled brats. Um, Pete Santucci has a book called Everyday Psalms, and it's the Psalms in everyday language. If you think the language of the Bible is weird, he uses the word pop icons, so Justin Bieber, no, I'm just kidding. Um, but selfish, greedy, arrogant, and if you're reading wisdom literature in the Bible, there's a lot of these texts like Proverbs 3, 9, and 10, Proverbs 8, 18 to 19, Proverbs 10, 4 to 5, Proverbs 14, 24, that clearly say, hey, if you are faithful to God, he will give you prosperity. If you're wicked, you will not experience that. And so there's like this deep theological dissonance, but this author has the courage to say it, to write it, and it becomes part of the worship of God's people. And so we don't need to be afraid of asking honest questions. And middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students in the room, you're gonna be at some point breaking away from the faith of your parents, and it's gonna have to become your own. And every generation is gonna have different questions, and so I invite you to wrestle through them and wrestle through them in our community. But here's this honest confession surely in vain I have kept my heart pure, that I've washed my hands in innocence when all day long I've been afflicted. Every morning brings new punishments. So it's vanity. It's why would I follow God? Why would I take the sacrifice of being faithful and do all these difficult things for this God who then doesn't care? And I'm just afflicted when I look, and the people who don't care about God are just, you know, they got pools and nice cars and whatever, vacation homes. So I must have kept my heart pure and vain. It's a really personal request, it's not as much philosophical, it's it's about what is going on inside of this person. And um, I tried not to compare this to like being in professional ministry versus like having another career because there's pros and cons of every career. But I do think about that sometimes, just as a pastor, like this trajectory I've chosen, and there's pros and cons. But sometimes I look, I'm like, man, that career path and just like what it would have given me, like that just looks so much cooler than what I'm doing right now. And so um, I do I feel personally like I wrestle with this. Um, but I want to applaud this psalmist because they're being honest and they're actually thinking about it and writing it down. I think a lot of us just kind of have the temptation to just check out, right? Like, I just want to watch some World Cup, forget about my problems. But there's this clear wrestling going on that's written out in really good poetry and prose. So the first foothold when we encounter dissonance between theological truth and our experience, the first foothold we need is honesty. The second one for you note takers is we need an encounter. We need an encounter. Here's what the psalmist says. If I had spoken like that, I would have betrayed your children, which I always laugh at this because I think you wrote it down. We're all reading it, so you did. But, anyways, I think he means, you know, maybe more like carried that thought to its fullest extent, if I would have allowed that to play out. When I and and look at this, this is this is really what I want to draw our attention to. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply until I entered the sanctuary of God, until I entered God's presence, and I understood their final destiny. So you can see this wrestling between cognitive dissonance, but then an emotional experience. And we have a lot of educated people, we believe in using our brains, but there almost seems like the way out isn't always having all the answers about what God says about evil on paper, but an encounter with the living God who can actually do something about evil. This is kind of the question that Job asks in the book of Job. Psalm 73 is often associated with the book of Job. His friends are like, surely you're not innocent, otherwise, all this bad stuff wouldn't be happening to you. He's like, No, I am, I am. And so his friends are actually applauded as not faithful. The Job stays in the tension, and Job's way out of the tension isn't actually a clear answer. It's just this divine encounter that goes on and on and on about just the scaled difference between Job's small experience and God's large reality. I don't know if that satisfies you, but this is what I think the psalm is saying. That something about the presence of God changes this psalmist. Until I entered the sanctuary, until I entered the temple, the place where God dwelled, and I encountered this bigger God that's up to something bigger, who is bigger. Then I was somehow satisfied with this tension. And what's interesting is that the psalmist kind of sees it's this this psalm really points forward theologically. The worldview of the ancient Israel at this point is not focused on it's gonna be bad here on earth, but when we get to heaven, everything's gonna be great. There isn't this well-developed future theology of escaping earth and going to heaven. So bad things can happen here, but heaven's gonna be fine. So let's just suck it up and like eventually it's you know, we'll get what we we want. So there's this wrestling, but but it points forward. Somehow there seems to be some final call of justice, some final hand that's dealt where those who do trust God receive abundance, and those who were wicked are dealt with. There's something that's pointing forward here, and he says, Surely you place them on slippery ground. Paying attention? Who almost slipped? They are the ones that are slipping. Oh, that's good poetry. You cast them down to ruin how suddenly they're destroyed, they're completely slept away, swept away by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. There seems to be this like pending fate. And I was reading some authors. Um, Tremper Longman was a really good, balanced author. I like this Old Testament scholar, and he was saying how it doesn't fit neatly into these categories if it's only about this earth that eventually the wicked all receive what's coming for them. Because we know people that never do. It's like your whole life was easy, your whole life it worked out for you, and you died a wealthy, awesome life person, right? But it's also can't fully be this, well, everything is bad here, it's all about the future, because that that theology hadn't fully been developed at this time. And so this is an interesting psalm. It I don't think it fully resolves all the tension we want it to, but there seems to be some forward-facing thing that eventually, eventually justice will be served for these people. And those who are faithful will not slip. Those who did not trust will actually end up on the slippery ground. He goes on and says, When my heart was grieved and my spirit was embittered, I was senseless and ignorant, I was a brute beast before you. Um, we should probably do one of our psalm studies on just kind of the intense language that happens in the psalms sometimes. Uh, we do read a psalm every Sunday, and Charlotte and I, you know, sometimes we look at each other like, oh my goodness, what are we reading? It just needs explanation, but it sounds so extreme, you know. Um, and we'll talk about that, but don't let it scare you. It's part of part of the nature of the literature. But here's where the psalm gets good, and this is why I picked the psalm, and this is where I want to kind of dig in just a little bit. Yet I am always with you, presence. You hold me by my right hand and encounter. You guide me with your counsel back to the path metaphor. This feels like Psalm, we're back to Psalm 23. Afterward, you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? Like the skies, I look up at the skies, all the gods I could have, all the all the future that I could have. You are the prize in heaven, but also and on earth nothing I desire beside you. God is still the prize on earth. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. We're back to this concept of dwelling with God and an encounter with God. And one of the big theses of this psalm that I think is essential to our understanding of salvation is this prosperity is not what God gives us, but who God gives us. Who is Himself. Prosperity is not what God gives us. The wicked have nice cars and nice houses and nice vacations and good jobs and promotions. It's not what God gives, but it's who God gives. It's that God gives himself, that whether on earth or in heaven, God is my portion. I have this per this person, this God who I can dwell with. And I think this is essential to our understanding of what it means to be saved. Is not that salvation is something that God gives you, but salvation is receiving God Himself, His presence. And that can be done here and now, and that will be done in the fullest of time in the new creation. And many of you know that I have a little bit of a bone to pick with an oversimplified gospel that is very personal and simply talks about getting your personal sins forgiven so you can go to this, to go to the good place and not go to the bad place. And this is one of the reasons that I struggle with that, is because I I think it sets up the prize as something other than God Himself, and it doesn't allow room for the prize being experienced here on earth right now. So God says, I am with you. The psalmist is wrestling with this kind of cognitive question, enters into God's dwelling place, encounters God, and leaves with the knowledge. That the prize is not what God gives us, but who God gives us. And that those who are faithful to Him can experience God's presence here and now. And Lauren and I were talking about this. And we're different because I actually envy the I envy people with awesome nice stuff. She worked in like financial advising for a little while and encountered people with enormous wealth. And just, no, none of you. Don't worry, none of you. And just just was communicating the the level of just misery and depression and purposelessness that goes hand in hand with this significant amount of wealth. And she's like, I don't actually envy those people. I was like, well, let me try it. Let me just maybe. I think I could still keep my head on straight. Um, and it does leave us wondering like, is that actually prosperity? Is having whatever you want, having power, get getting away with being slimy, is being wicked actually a place of prosperity, or is it actually a place of deep brokenness? And I think we can read Jesus ahead and hear his words that the kingdom of God is actually upside down, that it's the broken who encounter life, it's the poor who know abundance. And we need to be careful because we are in one of the most wealthy and comfortable locations, both time and place of human history, and um we can really get, we can easily become the wealthy who find it difficult to experience the kingdom of God. And the last thing we need, not just honesty, but not just an encounter with God, but we need perspective. We need a full scale, like a whole life perspective. Here's what the psalmist says those who are far from you will perish. You destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, this is like the cross stitch, this is the this is the art above your grandma's bathroom, but as for me, it is good to be near God. Those who are far from you will perish, but as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge. I will tell of all your deeds. There seems to be this perspective that the author has that somehow when we look at the whole scope, and we could zoom out of the moment of wealth or arrogance or greed or kind of just, you know, bashing God that the injustice between the wicked and the poor, there's this perspective that God's presence is near those who are suffering, that ultimately those who trust can experience his presence now and forever. And so I I do think about that, I do think this is something, not that it's all okay here, but there is some final call. And if we could think about just the short term of your life, if you're in your 30s, your forties, your fifties, your sixties, you know, what's the life expectancy? How many more years do you have? What is your life about? Like what are you striving for? What are you trying to create? What do you think the good life is? And the psalmist kind of comes full circle and wrestles that it actually the good life is God's presence. The good life is being near Him, not the investment you could have made or the job you could have taken or the house you should have bought or the promotion, whatever that you wish you had, or looking out. But it's no matter where you are. In fact, probably more likely that if you are struggling, you're going to find God's presence. And no matter what, there will be a reckoning and you will encounter the presence of God for eternity if you trust in God. And so I don't know where you're at. I don't know which of those footholds like struck you and helped you, but it's just a few questions for you this week as you wrestle through this psalm. The first is how can you be honest? Just the first foothold. And I want to encourage you to not be afraid to ask big questions. I took a deep dive into this book called Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright. Chapter two isn't credible. It actually surveys the whole story of the Bible through the lens of evil and justice. Um he stresses the fact that the Bible doesn't always give us answers on what God says about justice, but he but the Bible gives us answers on what God does about injustice. It's what that's this God that can actually do something about evil. And so if you if you're kind of there, this question of evil and suffering and how does God allow bad things to happen, I would recommend that book. The second is how can you encounter God? What if the next step of your theological pickle isn't more information about God, but a deeper encounter with God? We have information overload, and there is a Jesus who loves you and who forgave you and wants to be with you, who is the cosmic event where God does deal with evil, and you can have an encounter with God in Christ. And then finally, how can you gain perspective? Is there a way to zoom out a little bit and remind yourself of how it all shakes out? We're gonna get to the story of God conclusion and talk about a new creation, and that practice that we associate with the new creation is actually generosity, which everyone is like, yeah, we should be generous people. But when you know how it all shakes out, then the money you have or the resources you have, you can just hold those with an open hand and they can just flow out of you. We can become generous people because we know how the story ends. Whereas if we were, if that was our prize, then we would hold it with our knuckles white. So there you go. Um, this psalm is meaningful to me. I preached it to my high schoolers when I was a youth pastor one time at a camp. I'm like, who would do this? I did. And it because it was when I was first encountering the theology of union with Christ, and it just struck me that the solution to this person's trouble was an encounter with the presence of God, that it's good to be near God. And so I think this in psalm is an invitation to be honest with your struggles, but to allow those to drive you to an encounter with the presence of God. Um, not necessarily solving all of the answers on paper, but I don't think that means we dismiss them or accept trite answers. So um we're gonna continue our liturgy with some stuff, but I will pray really quick because that's what we do as Christians to transition out of things. Father, we're here at Camus, looking out these windows at little kids, not listening to Gerald's sermon. And we want to have a space to be honest with our wrestlings. I pray that we trust your grace and you know everyone here where we're at, deep darkness or just chipping along. Uh, may you help us to be a community of people who is honest, who encounters you, and who has perspective, and help us to wrestle with this psalm and uh deep in our hearts, and help us not to slip, to not look at the prosperity of the wicked um and to envy that, myself included, first and foremost. In Jesus' name, amen.