Psalm 73 verses 23 to 28. These are the words of God. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? There is none upon earth that desire besides you. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry. But it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord Yahweh, that I may declare all your works." So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. This psalm turns on the hinge of verse 17. Remember, he begins the psalm very envious, but the thing that triggers the difference for him is in verse 17, until I went into the sanctuary of God, into the holiness, beholding God's holiness in worship. And so he says, then I understood their end, and he describes how suddenly and utterly the wicked are destroyed in verses 18 through 20. And then he realizes that when he was envying the wicked, when he was grieved and vexed, verse 21, that he was being foolish and ignorant like a beast before God, and that the very God to whom he was treating in such a beastly fashion was with him the whole time. Here he was coveting and envying the wicked, and he had what the wicked would never have. Not only that, but the wicked were about to lose whatever they appeared to have suddenly, completely, devastatingly. And he has God, and he can never lose God, and he doesn't need anything in addition to God. That's what we are supposed to be refreshed in knowing and realizing when we come into the worship of God. This makes us reassess our present. Nevertheless, I'm continually with you. And of course, our past, he realizes that God was continually with him, even when he was mistreating God. He sees his life now as God taking him by the right hand and guiding him by his counsel. and it also makes us reassess our future. And afterward, you will receive me into glory. And this changes his definition of blessedness. Because up until the point of returning to public worship and having his heart and mind reoriented by God's Word, his idea of blessedness was all the stuff that the wicked enjoy, and yet the wicked are far from God. And so he said, no, being far from God, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry." His new definition of blessedness is to have God Himself. For me, good is to draw near to God, he says in verse 28. Therefore, what he is looking forward to in heaven as someone he already has on earth. Whom have I in heaven but you? So he is looking forward to heaven, but there is only one thing that ultimately matters for him in heaven, and that is to have God himself, to know God himself. But this God who will be his in heaven is already his now. I'm continually with you. You take me by the hand. You guide me by your counsel. It's one of the reasons why it's such a blessing when we are doing well and following God's pattern of starting and ending our days with Him, that we have that experience of the set time of coming with Him. Nevertheless, I'm continually with you, being led by Him. You guide me, you take me by the hand, and you guide me by your counsel." So we have the heavenliness of heaven, even now, if we live in fellowship with the Lord day by day as He instructs, and then especially on the Lord's Day, an entire day now of visiting heaven in Christ, but even then an entire day of coming before the holiness of God and realizing that God himself is the heavenliness of heaven. and that he already had God himself. Why would he be so brutish, so beastly, as to envy the wicked? And so may the Lord give us to remember that God has all blessedness in himself. and that any good that in us has already come from God, so having God Himself means that we already have all blessedness in Him in this life, and then of course forever in the next. Let's pray. Lord, we are continually with you. You hold us by the right hand. You guide us with your counsel. It is you yourself who will receive us into glory, and you yourself for the gloriousness of heaven. We pray that you'd make us to know your presence with us as heaven on earth. Forgive us our sin when we are envious or covetous. fearful, anxious, bitter. We pray that you would not let our hearts go after anything apart from you, and that you would grant to us that you would be our strength and our portion even now. Our flesh and our heart do fail in much, and yet, O Lord, we pray that when our flesh and heart fail, we will still have you, yourself, to be the strength of our heart and our portion now. We thank you that by your gracious work in Christ you will be the strength of our heart and our portion forever. Grant to us to enjoy you and to trust you and to praise you now and also forever we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.