Be seated. Beloved Grace Church, it's always a privilege and a joy to share God's Word with you, to worship together in spirit and truth. And if you have your Bibles, let's turn this morning to Psalm 73. We'll look at all of Psalm 73. When we're approaching a psalm, it is important to think about what type of psalm it is. There are psalms of praise, there are psalms of lament, there are psalms of thanksgiving, and there are psalms of wisdom. This today, Psalm 73, is a psalm of wisdom. Our invitation is to feed from the tree of life that is God's Word. And so we're going to look at all of Psalm 73, And we're going to read all of Psalm 73. But before we do, let us look to our risen, ascended in throne Savior for help by His Spirit that He might grant us illumination. Let's pray. We thank you, O Lord and God, thrice holy God, King of the universe. We thank you, Creator and Redeemer and Father of the Lord Jesus. We thank you that you've enthroned at your right hand the beloved Son. our Savior, our covenantal friend. And Lord Jesus, we see you with eyes of faith, and we ask that as our risen, ascended-in-throne Savior at God's right hand, full of grace and truth, full of the Holy Spirit, that you'd pour out your Spirit upon us now, that we would have ears to hear, hearts to receive, minds to understand. And we pray that you, shepherd of the sheep, we would hear your voice as your flock, that you would continue to guide us, to guard us, that you would lead us to these green pastures beside still waters, that you would restore our soul, and you would continue to show us the way of righteousness. We pray for your servant. that he would decrease, that you might increase, that we would be transformed from one degree of glory to the next, that we'd leave here changed, different than the way we came in. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' holy name, amen. Reading Psalm 73, this is God's word. It is his most holy, his most inerrant, his infallible word to us, and it is his word to us this morning. It's the word that he chose for you in your life, at your stage, and your circumstances from before the foundation of the world for this day. And this is what our shepherd says. 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. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues 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. 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. If I had said I will speak thus, 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. Truly, you set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. How they're destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly. by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You 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 what on earth do I desire besides you? My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 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 to God. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works." Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Perhaps on vacation, or while you've been traveling, you've gone into a gift shop and you've seen the Life is Good wear. You've seen the Life is Good canteens, the Life is Good water bottles, the Life is Good hats, the Life is Good stickers. Perhaps you've purchased one. Whenever I see the life is good, I'm reminded that as they're telling me that life is good, they're also defining what is the good life. And if you remember the stick man, he's always smiling, and he's always cycling with strength, or he's rowing, or he's starting a fire because he's out camping. But he's full of strength. He's healthy. He's prosperous. He's happy. I have not seen the ones with the stick man with the cancer hat. At the bedside, losing a loved one, standing with the tear, saying, life is good in my loss. Life is good in my depression. These t-shirts, these stickers, They make me ask the question, is life really good? And if so, how are you defining it? If I had my t-shirts, they would be, life is hard, but blessed. On the front, life is hard, but blessed in Christ. Though I don't think they would sell as well. My point that we want to look at in this passage this morning, beloved, is that God defines the good life for us. In fact, life is good and truly good because God is good. And that means even in adversity, even when we wear the cancer hat, even when we get the depressive news, the discouraging news, the job loss, even when times are hard and we feel at the end of ourselves, we understand that God defines what life is and that it is good. And so, one strength we have as believers is that we can go, by God's grace, the wise way that Psalm 73 gives us, the way of wisdom that is the way of knowing God and His presence, knowing that He is near, whether we are going through prosperous times or whether we're going through very hard, adverse times of suffering. Now, the psalm is broken down in three primary parts we want to look at. And in each of the three parts, it begins with truly. And so part one says, truly God is good to Israel, to the pure in heart. And then that part goes to verse 11. And we will call this first part, how life seems, if you will, under the sun. How it seems with eyes of sense, with eyes of sight. How life seems sometimes. And then the second part begins with truly in verse 12. The ESV translates it, behold, but in the original language it is truly. to reminding us that the author is telling us something else that we want to pay attention to. Truly, these are the wicked, always at ease. They increase in riches. And then part two goes through verse 17. Part two is the wisdom transition. It's where the author, though life seems a certain way, he begins to take from the tree of life God's Word. He begins to see God by faith and everything changes. In verse 18, again truly the third part, verse 18 through the end, he then realizes that truly you set them in slippery places. You make them to fall, to ruin. And so, considering this first part, the author knows of this truth that truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. He's able to establish that truth. But this psalm of wisdom invites us, beloved, as Jesus' sheep, to struggle sometimes in life, in the Spirit, through the Word, to gain strength of faith. so that we can truly be wise. Because in verses 2 and 3, the psalmist begins to look at his neighbor, at those around him, and what he perceives, or the way that life seems is, though he is struggling in distress and adversity, He is even struggling with bitterness of heart. He, a believer in God, is going through very difficult circumstances. His temptation then, in verse 2, is he's realizing, my feet almost slipped off the path of wisdom. Remember the path of wisdom. Wisdom is a path we follow, looking to God through His Word. Looking, if you will, now as the New Testament Christians, as those who can see Christ seated at God's right hand and enduring the race with perseverance to the end. But He tells us that I had almost stumbled on that path. My feet had nearly slipped. Why? Because I was envious of the arrogant. when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." See, this is where we want to ask, is the only good life the prosperous life? Is it the life of ease? Because it's very easy as God's people to be tempted to think that's the case. And so we, beloved, are being called to consider this in our own hearts. Are we envious of our neighbors, of those around us, when we see that they're healthy and wealthy and strong, when we're not? When their families may be growing in different ways, where they're taking the best vacations, and they're buying the bigger homes. When their lives at work seem to be promotion after promotion, and we're being overlooked. when we're being made fun of in school, but the bullies are getting ahead. They're wearing the best sneakers. They're in the right groups that we want to be a part of. And so we look and we envy the arrogant. We see their prosperity. And the natural man thinks that the true life, the good life, is the prosperous life or the life at ease. It is ultimately. It was in Eden and it will be again in the new heavens and new earth in the presence of God. But we've been tainted, we've been troubled by sin, by the reality of death, by suffering, by distress, by disappointments, by depression. And so he looks at the way things seem in verses 4 through 11. And what he sees is that the prosperous, the wicked who are prosperous seem to have the better lives. And what is it making out of them? They're healthy. They're wealthy, they're strong, but they're arrogant. They're proud. They strut about with their mouth and their malice before the living God, even saying in verse 11, how can God know? Is there any knowledge in the Most High? Where is your God and where is His judgment? You see, the question we want to ask here is, Why would a good God allow his people to suffer adversity? That's the question the psalmist is asking. Why must we, who are believers, go through adversity while it seems the wicked are being more wicked every day, more healthy, more strong, stronger, and prouder? The question at this point we want to ask is this. Is this prosperity? Do we really want the life that is prosperous that causes us to live at ease? That causes us, as the Lord Jesus gives in his parable in the Gospels, it says, I've had all that I need. I will live at ease. I will put my feet up. I will build bigger barns, bigger houses, and I will take it easy. I'll relax. I'll be at ease when the Lord says, tonight your soul will be required of you. Beloved, we have to think about life is good. What makes it good? God is what makes it good. God calls each one of us to have prosperity that is so not deserved by us. But he also knows that prosperity in large doses can often lead to self-reliant pride. So he loves us enough. He loves us as his people in Christ. He loves us as believers that he will cause us through adversity to be more dependent upon him, to trust him more, to love him more, to depend more upon him, to rest more in his strength and grace. So a thing that we can all struggle with is envying the wicked, envying the life that someone else has, and forgetting that God has, according to a wise and holy and very good purpose, appointed each one of us to have the life that we do have, and to enjoy Him through faith. Look at the second part that begins, truly these are the wicked. Again, saying to us, these are the wicked, they're always at ease. They increase in riches. And then he has this temptation. It's not only envy, but he begins to question God's goodness. And then he says, has my faith been for naught? For nothing? For vanity? For heavel? For meaninglessness? Have I washed my hands in innocence? Because verse 14 he says, all the day long I've been stricken. And this is where we want to be honest before God. We want to remember that we can be tempted to envy the wicked, beloved, and forget what the truly good life we have in God is. We can be tempted, beloved. to get to the place where we're questioning God's goodness. Sure, we can say that God is good. We believe that theoretically, theologically, confessionally, but we don't believe He's good to me, to us. You see, that's the difference. The psalmist begins by making this general, very beautiful claim that God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart, and then it's through the struggles, it's through this struggle to stronger faith that he can come out on the other side and say in verse 28, it is good for me to be near to God, because he's discovered that God is good. There's no reason to envy the wicked. There's no reason to think that our lives of faith are in vain. And beloved, I speak to every age, but I speak to especially you young people, children. Sometimes you're at school, you're in public, and you see the cost of following Christ, the cost of being a Christian, sometimes being rejected, sometimes people being mean to you. It seems like they have more stuff than you have. The very thing that you want, you see in their life and you envy and you forget your great and special and privileged calling to be a Christian. And it's easy to say, is this worth it? Is this worth it? Remember, our Lord Jesus tells us when he's speaking in the Sermon on the Mount, he tells us to enter into the narrow gate. Why? Because wide is the way and easy is the way that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many. Then he says, enter into the narrow way, the way of life, the way of wisdom, but know this, that way is hard because It's the way of following Jesus. When Jesus says, come, he says, I bid you to come and die. He says to us, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. And you will know the true life. You will know the joyful life. You'll know the glorious life. You'll know the beautiful life. You'll know why you're here. You'll know your purpose. And you will know your destination for what changes the psalmist. is when he goes, in verse seventeen, into the sanctuary of God. What is it here that serves as a transition for him by the Holy Spirit. Let me read verses 16 and 17 again. Listen, when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. That wearisome word, like the word vanity in verse 13, is wisdom language, isn't it? You remember studying through Ecclesiastes as a congregation, and you remember the vanity of vanity, or meaninglessness of meaninglessness, life under the sun, life as we perceive it, life as we see it. and how it's wearisome oftentimes to do this struggle. But here's what happens in verse 17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end." What is it that changes his mind? What is it that changes his heart? What is it that causes him to repent and say, as he does in verses 21 and 22, that, Lord, my soul was embittered. I was embittered because of my affliction, because of the adversity brought. I was pricked in heart. I was brutish, I was ignorant, and I was like a sense beast, a beast of instinct. It's this. He remembers that the true God, the Creator God, the Redeemer God, the thrice holy God is the one who meets with his people in the sanctuary. He's the one who draws near to his people through precious blood. At this time in redemptive history, through substitutionary blood. Through the substitutionary blood, through the Lamb slain in His place, He could come into the sanctuary. He could draw near to the throne of God and find mercy and grace to help Him in His time of need. He could know the true life in the sanctuary and get a glimpse of what heaven will be like in the very presence of God. And so it was there he realized sinners, the wicked, the ones who haven't a mediator, who have no priest, who have no substitutionary sacrifice in their place, they can't draw near to God and they don't want God to draw near to them. Because when God draws near and you've come into the sanctuary without a substitutionary atonement and without a mediator, it is wrath of God. It is the day of judgment. The kingdom has come in judgment. And so he remembers to keep the end in mind, that though life can have its prosperous moments and life can have its adverse moments, what matters most is that we can draw near to God. and to know His sweet power, His presence, His promises to be with us always, and to know His peace in whatever situation He calls us. You see, this is the last part, beginning in verse 23. This is where He comes to the singular, I, me, that I knew God was good, I knew he could be trusted in the abstract, theologically, confessionally, but listen to this. After he realizes the God who has drawn near, the God who's drawn near through a mediator, not in judgment, but in mercy and grace, he says this in verse 23, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me according to your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. This is only a pilgrimage, a temporal one at that, that will result in glory. And there is no reason that I should, that we should, compare the challenges and suffering and difficulties of the present age with the glories that are to be revealed to us. That hope that is seen is no hope at all. That's not the good life, but hope that is not seen. is the hope that we wait for patiently. And so he says, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and He's my portion forever, that if I have God, I can know that this God of power, this God of goodness, this God of mercy, this God of special presence by His Spirit with me, this God of peace, then I know that my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is my portion. I have God and I have Him as my very portion, as my heavenly Father. And then in verse 27 he says, those who far from you shall perish. You will put an end to everyone unfaithful to you. But for me, but for me, but for me, are you able to say this this day? Are you able to thank God in your prosperity today and be watchful? To be thankful and watchful. Thankful and watchful in your prosperity. Be careful in your ease. Be careful in your prosperity. Be careful! You remember one of our Puritan fathers using a kind of interpretation of Saul and David. He said, adversity has killed its thousands. The prosperity has killed its tens of thousands. Be thankful, but be watchful. And if you're in adversity today and your circumstances are hard, and this is so difficult right now, see the God who is near to you, who has come near to you through a mediator, by His Spirit, and be watchful as well as thankful. Be watchful, asking for patience, because it's very easy to envy the wicked, to envy someone else's life. It's very easy to question God's goodness. Not in the abstract. We're too confessionally informed for that. And it's easy for us to think, I guess my faith, maybe it's not worth it. It is. Because the last verse says, it's good to be near to God. God's drawn near to us because he wants a relationship with us. He wants to grow us. He wants to be kind to us. He wants to be merciful to us. And he wants us to grow into the likeness of his son. And so he says, I've made the Lord God my refuge. I may tell of all your works. Beloved, a few things to be reminded of. The only way we'll ever come ultimately to being able to say, God is good to me, it is good to be near to God, is that we see the Beloved Son, the Eternal Son, the Lord of Glory, who united Himself to our humanity, to take on not the life of a king in His estate of humiliation, but take on the life of a servant, one who would live the hard life, the difficult life, the one who would sing this psalm with us and know that through Gethsemane, Gabbatha, where he's judged on our behalf and condemned as a criminal to crucifixion, to Golgotha on the cross where he says, Eli, Eli lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He had the hard life for us. so that he could take away in his power and grace and spirit the life of sorrow, the life of sin, the life of suffering. He could defeat and disarm the principalities and powers of the devil himself and overcome death. on the third day. And He's the one ultimately that we sing this with in union with Him. I am continually with you as Jesus sang on my behalf. You hold my right hand, Jesus sang. You guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me to glory. And guess what? He made known to Him the path of life. And in His presence is fullness of joy. And guess what? Jesus risen, ascended, enthroned at God's right hand is enjoying the pleasures forevermore. And even in our adversity by His Holy Spirit, in our union with Him now, He invites us to enjoy Him as our portion so that we too can endure to the end, saying, with Jesus Christ, singing this psalm, praying this psalm, meditating this psalm, my flesh and my heart may fail me, but the Lord is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit, beloved. It's just a matter of time. We keep our eyes on Jesus and we walk on the path of wisdom. We remember he's wisdom incarnate and we need him so desperately. Let me remind you something. When the rich young ruler came up to Jesus, the assumption of the day was that if you were rich and you were prosperous, if you were healthy, wealthy and arrogant, that you had everything going for you. And he comes up and Jesus says, I want you to go and sell everything that you have and come follow me. And he left sad. And the disciples said to him, who then can be saved? If this guy with prosperity, this guy with a good life, if he can't be saved, who can? With man, this is impossible. With God, all things are possible. And do you remember what Jesus did when he saw the rich young ruler? This is how we're to do in our union with Christ, is when we see the wicked, we're not to envy them, beloved, we're to pity them. With compassion, with the deep compassion of Jesus. Because when he saw him, it says that Jesus loved him. Because he knew that he'd been duped. He'd been deceived into thinking he was living the good life and he was far from the good life. Jesus is the one that brings us near to God. He's the one in His risen, ascended, enthroned kingship as prophet and priest by His Holy Spirit. He draws us near and we can draw near to God and we can find help in whatever God calls us to. We can remember. That each one of us, each of our families, that we're all living according to the purpose and plan of God. There are no accidents in our lives. There's not a hair that will fall from our heads without the will of your Heavenly Father. And when He brings prosperity, be watchful yet thankful. And when He brings adversity, be watchful and thankful. And ask for patience, because what is he doing? We're following the pattern of the beloved son in his state of humiliation, awaiting the full glory to be revealed when we shall see him face to face. And what are we doing? We're denying ourselves. We're picking up our cross and following him. We're going on the narrow way that Jesus told us it's hard. And very few find it. But he says, enter through the narrow gate. And beloved, whether you are burdened today with adversity or prosperity, hear the Savior in saying, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. We can say with the psalmist in Christ, truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. And we can also say, but for me, it is good to be near to God. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works. So, beloved, as we consider this wisdom that the Lord Jesus planned for us from before the foundation of the world through Psalm 73 on this particular day in our circumstances and at this stage in our sanctification, let us be reminded that He is all we need. He is our hope. He is our Savior. He is our Lord. He sits at God's right hand, ready and willing to aid us in whatever place we are so that we don't envy the wicked, We pity them with compassion given by Jesus, and we invite them to come and know the truly good life in Christ. Because, beloved, the Bible teaches us that life is good because God is good, and He gives us this good life in Jesus Christ as gift. Let us embrace it once again today. And let us be thankful and let us remember that everything He's doing in and through our lives is for His glory and our good. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we're so grateful to have Your Word that we see with eyes of sense and we cannot see very clearly at times. We grow weary, our feet, we almost slip off the path at times. All of us, we're tempted. But thank you, Lord Jesus, that you've been tempted in every way as we have been, yet without sin. And though you even were tempted to say as the suffering servant, have I labored in vain in Isaiah 49 for You said, I will entrust myself to the Father and to His recompense. So even in that temptation that you never fell into in sin, we know that you are well acquainted with everything we're tempted with. And you have the grace and the strength, the compassion to help us. And so we pray, Lord Jesus, you would be ever nearer to us as you promised to be. and that we would say, you are continually with us, you hold our right hand, you guide us according to your word, your counsel, and afterward you will receive us into glory. Help this cause our affections to rise and say by the Holy Spirit, whom have I in heaven but you, and what on earth do I desire but you? My flesh and my heart may fail me, but the Lord is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For me, it is good to be near to God. We pray these things in Jesus' mighty name, amen.