Ancient Musician - Modern Philosophy

Thank you, Scott, and I want to give a special thanks to Pastor David and the rest of the staff for giving me this privilege to speak with you these two Sundays.

It's always a joy to come back and be with you here at Faith.

I also want to tell you right up front that I forgot my watch.

I usually haven't worn a watch since I've been retired, and I forgot it again this morning.

Some of you may know that they only installed a clock after I left.

There used to be a calendar up there.

I understand there have been a couple times when Pastor Scott spoke that they put, they thought the calendar was back up there, but he and I have a running contest as to who has preached the longest at this church.

Also, I want to thank some people who came a distance to be here.

I talked to Jeff, and he said he got up early to drive over here from the lake.

And there are a couple, well, maybe three crazies that drove 890 miles to be here this morning on motorcycles.

I'll let you figure out who that might have been.

Last week we looked at one of my favorite characters of the Old Testament, Aesap.

And we had a sermon entitled Ancient Musician, Modern Problems.

This week we're going to look at that same psalm and look at the message, Ancient Musician, Modern Philosophy.

Last week was a narrative sermon.

I attempted to become Aesoph and tell you his story as he has recorded it in this psalm, which, as most of you know, was to be sung.

This week we'll look at it in a more traditional way, in an expository way.

I call your attention to the climax of the Psalm, verses 25 and 26.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And beside you I desire nothing on earth.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Wow.

What a testimony.

Hear it again.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And beside you I desire nothing on earth.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

I'm not there yet.

I can't say with the passion that Asaf said those words 3,000 years ago, whom have I in heaven but you?

And I desire nothing beside you on this earth.

Can you?

Well, this is a huge contrast, verse 25 and 26, with the way the psalm started out.

There we saw the chief musician for King David in charge of the choral services, starting out by saying, God is truly good to Israel, but he found, as he started to write this song, that God hadn't been good to himself.

So in these first 16 verses, we see a man who is angry at God.

Notice, but as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

David looked around him and he realized that the righteous were not the ones being blessed by God, seemingly, but the wicked.

And he goes on to say, not only were they prosperous, but they were healthy.

And they lived a life of ease, all in contrast, seemingly, with what he was experiencing.

And he had the frustration of wanting to be able to share this with other believers, but instead he found other believers attracted to the wealthy lifestyle of the wicked.

And who are you able to share these things when you question the goodness of God?

Asaf wondered if God even knew what was going on down here.

So he bore the seeming unfairness of God alone, and it became so troublesome to him that he questioned his faith and his decision to follow Jehovah.

Now you have to put yourself back in the place of Asaf.

He's leading this great choir of praise and thanks to God.

All the while he's thinking, why has God been so unfair to me?

He's a man who, with his sons, wrote twelve of these psalms that we have in our Bibles and have in our homes.

And yet he questioned the goodness and fairness of God.

Somebody said, are these uh the sermons that you're preaching here of ones that you dug up from ones you spoke here before?

Always trying to keep me honest.

I said, Well, the first last week I had preached here before.

But I know one thing, you probably didn't remember it.

And I'm reminded that the Lord chose to use four Gospels, many of them which repeated the same story.

So I don't feel so bad if I repeat a sermon.

But this sermon was new.

Because I was studying it again, and the Lord brought to my attention something that I hadn't seen before.

And I found two questions that haunted me.

First, how did a man like Asaf, the chief musician of King David's administration, how did he come to the point of questioning the fairness of God and even his faith?

How can a minister have those kind of questions?

And second, how did he get from his question of God's fairness to the testimony of verses 25 and 26?

How did he get from there to the 25 and 26?

It's almost if in the first passage, verses 1 to 16, he's like this.

And in the last section, he's like this.

How did that happen?

So those are the two questions that I want to look at this morning.

And the first question: how did Asaf get to the point of questioning the fairness of God and even his faith?

As I look through this passage, it seemed that Asaf had a three-legged philosophy of life.

Now we all live by a certain philosophy, certain values.

Asaf had them, and they show up in what he gave us in this passage.

And the philosophy of life that Asaf had made it impossible for him not to question God's fairness.

The first leg of his philosophy of life can be seen in verses 2 and 3, 13 and 14, and 15 and 16.

I want you to hear the emphasis with which I read these.

But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling.

My steps had almost slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

13.

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence, for I have been stricken all day long and chastened every morning.

15, 16.

If I had said, I will speak thus, behold, I should have betrayed the generation of thy children.

When I pondered to understand this, it was too troublesome in my sight.

The first leg of Aesop's philosophy of life that led him to question the goodness of God can be summarized by just saying, it's all about me.

It's all about me.

Did you notice the personal pronouns?

I, me, mine, repeatedly.

Yes, God had said in the Old Testament that He would bless those who obeyed God and punish those who didn't.

And God does say in the New Testament that God richly supplies us with all things to enjoy, but it seems Asaf had the philosophy that God always should bless him and not the wicked.

Because he was God's follower and he was in God's service.

Now, I've been there from time to time where Asaf was, haven't you?

When difficult things come our way, what do we do?

We wonder why God is allowing this to happen to us.

God doesn't seem to be keeping his part of the bargain.

Because when we trusted him, didn't we get his blessings that were to follow in our experience?

And surely we have many of them.

But there are difficulties that the scripture tells us will come our way too.

But it seemed that Asaf always expected God to be blessing him, and especially financially and with good health and a life of ease.

And he was, after all, a minister.

Surely God should bless those who serve him.

If I go through life thinking that it's all about me, then I certainly am going to be disappointed and come to the point of questioning God's fairness.

But there's a second leg to Asaf's philosophy that contributed to his thinking that God was not fair, and it's related to the first.

He started out, you remember, surely God is good to Israel.

And then he starts talking about the wicked.

And we understand what was good in Asaf's thinking.

The goodness of God for Asaf, as defined in verses 3 to 9, was prosperity, wealth, health, a life of ease.

Notice verses 3 to 5.

For I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there are no pains in their death, and their body is fat.

There's no trouble as other men have, they're not plagued like mankind.

Goodness for Asaf was material things.

Life is all about things.

God's blessings are material.

Now there's a whole group of ministers today who are preaching the prosperity gospel that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy, and if you're not, there's something wrong with your faith.

But life didn't work that way for Asaf.

In other words, the wicked who were healthy and wealthy and living a life of ease.

And if you go through life thinking not only that life is all about me, but it's all about material things, then you're going to be disappointed when they don't come as you expect, and you're going to end up questioning the fairness of God.

But honestly, don't we sometimes envy those things that other people have, and oftentimes people who do not claim to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and wonder why God hasn't blessed us that way.

This passage is a great warning to the steps of envy that we all live in danger of.

But how much is enough?

Randy Elkhorn has said that if you have food and shelter and clothing and transportation, you are in the ninety-fifth percentile of people on this earth.

Food, shelter, clothing, and transportation.

If you have food, shelter, clothing, and two means of transportation and some discretionary money, that is fun money, you are in the ninety-eighth percentile of people on this earth.

Where does that put you?

Randy writes, too often we assume that God has increased our income to increase our standard of living when his stated purpose is to increase our standard of giving.

Many, if not most of us, have bought into Aesop's philosophy.

It's ancient, but it's very current.

It's all about me and it's all about things.

He may have been an ancient musician, but he had a modern philosophy.

But there's a third philosophy, third leg of his philosophy that contributed to his frustration with God's goodness.

And you can see that third leg when you observe the time element of this passage.

I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, increased in wealth, all day long, every morning.

What time frame is that?

It's present time.

So that's the third leg of his philosophy.

It's all about me, it's all about things, it's all about now.

Wow, isn't that modern philosophy what most Americans have bought into, and maybe even believers?

If we believe that, it's all about things, it's all about me, and it's all about now.

You, like Asaf, are going to be disappointed with the fairness of God.

But now note, there's another time word that he uses in verse 17.

Until.

He says it was like living like a beast in the field, senseless and arrogant.

So there you have why Asaf's ancient philosophy of life led him to question God's fairness.

This life is all about me, and it's all about things, and it's all about now.

I'm pretty sure that you too are disappointed with God.

It's an ancient philosophy.

Or is it?

I believe it's the default philosophy that we have all inherited from our fallen parents living in a fallen world.

Many of our young people have embraced this philosophy of pursuing the greatest pleasures, the greatest toys, because after all, it's all about me.

Yes, I'll follow the Lord Jesus as long as he falls in line with my philosophy.

It's all about me, it's all about things, it's all about now.

I sometimes saw this in counseling with young couples when we started to talk about things that they want in their marriage as far as material things, goals.

And I discovered that many of these young people have on their gift registry what it took their parents their entire life to acquire.

Isn't that true?

So this is where Asaf came from, which caused him so much anger with God's goodness and fairness.

But we started by showing where he ended up.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And beside you I desire nothing on this earth.

My flesh and heart will fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

So I wanted to answer a second question.

How did God change Asaf to this new philosophy?

From me things now.

As we pointed out last week, it was a visit to the sanctuary of God.

God has always chosen to meet with his people when they're gathered in his name.

And it was there that God showed Asaph the end of the wicked.

And that view of what was going to happen to the wicked changed him dramatically in three ways.

He understood that no man, not even the wealthy man, could escape death.

He saw, secondly, that material things are not part of the permanent, but they're part of the passing.

And he saw third that there is life beyond here and And now that perspective was so dramatic that it changed Asaf.

Now we can see some of this transformation coming out in these verses, in verses 23 and 4.

It isn't just about me, no, it's about God.

A God who is with me.

He's holding my hand when my feet are about to slip.

It isn't about material things.

No, it's about things that are not seen, like the nearness of God, which is my good, that God is my refuge when I'm going through difficult times.

That God guides me with his word.

And it's not about now on earth.

No, it's about eternity and glory.

In verse 24b, he says, and afterward receive me to glory.

But it's in 25 to 26 that Aesop's new philosophy of life is full bloom.

Look at the contrast.

It's about me.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

No, it's not about me.

It's about you.

Notice the contrast.

Life isn't about desiring material things.

No, besides you, I desire nothing on earth.

And life isn't about the now.

No, it's about the hereafter.

My flesh and my heart may fail, and they will, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

You see what a transformation from me things now to God, to desiring God, to eternal things that matter.

I asked myself, how is this how is this real to me and to you?

Whom have I have in heaven but you?

I thought, well, what do I do when I wake up in the morning?

I think, well, what am I going to do today?

You see, I'm retired.

I have some choices, you don't.

But what if I woke up and I said, what does God want me to do today?

Wake up and I say, well, I want to go here and I want to go there and I want to do this and I want to do that.

What if I said, Lord, what do you want me to do today and where do you want me to go?

And I usually think of, who am I going to see today and what am I going to say to them?

And what if I said, where do you want me to go and whom do you want me to talk to, Lord?

It's not about me.

It's about him.

And I usually end up spending money, groceries, things that we need.

What if I said, what is it really that God wants me to do with his money today?

And what things could I do that make an eternal difference to someone, someone who may maybe, like the scripture says, not even a cup of cold water will go unrewarded if it's given in Jesus' name.

It's not about me, it's not about things, it's not about now, it's about God, it's about desiring God, it's about things that last forever.

So Asap, through that sanctuary visit where God showed him the end of the wicked, got a new view of life's priority.

God, not you or I, is most important.

It's about him, it's not about you.

Regardless of what you think of Rick Warren, he said it better than anyone I know in the beginning, the first page, the first paragraph of his purpose-driven life.

He says, it's not about you.

The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness.

It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions.

If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God.

You were born by His purpose and for His purpose.

It's not about me.

It's about God.

He got a new priority of life.

He also got a new view of life's possessions.

He adopted a new value system.

Spiritual blessings like God's presence, God's nearness, God's guidance, God's counsel.

God himself replaced the value he had placed on material things like health, ease, and prosperity.

That's what Paul said, didn't he, in 2 Corinthians 4.

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things that are not seen.

And Asaf also had to set his watch to a new time zone.

He had a new view of life's progression.

He had a new view of life's priority, a new view of life's possessions, a new view of life's progression.

That's for those of you who are wondering if I was going to have three P's in a row.

No longer is his time frame just temporal.

His clock reads eternal time.

What am I going to do today that counts for eternity?

We look not at things that are seen, but at things that are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

I go back to that and I thought, boy, I'd sure like to have been in the sanctuary of God when God met Asaph that day.

How do you suppose that happened?

I don't think God appeared to him in a vision, although he might have.

Maybe it was at the funeral of his neighbor.

Maybe it was something that he was leading his choral group in singing.

And those of you who have performed and been part of groups like that know that the words of this music can become so part of you that your emotions just well up and you end up worshiping God.

I don't know what happened in the sanctuary of God, but something happened that changed him from me things now to sing God desiring him and doing things that last for eternity.

You know, God may do that in a place like this, but sometimes he does it in a near-death experience.

I was getting ready this morning and I had uh CBS on, and they were talking about a man who a number of years ago literally died as he walked into the hospital.

He hadn't been feeling well, and he went to the hospital and he literally died.

They worked on him for an hour to resuscitate him, then packed him in ice, and he came through it.

And they were talking about the importance of cold water in recovering to keep the brain from deteriorating.

And you remember some stories of kids that have drowned in streams or under the ice in Fargo a number of years ago, and they rescued these people after minutes and sometimes hours have gone and they've come back to life.

And the commentator said, Boy, that is that must be a day to remember.

And he said, every day is a day to remember.

It's not about things.

It's not about now.

So how can I apply this today?

I would encourage you to do something that some of you think, oh, I'd never do that, so that's why I'm gonna suggest it.

Why don't you take a walk in the cemetery?

See, if the Lord hasn't come back, someday there's gonna be a stone and your name's gonna be on it.

What do you want them to see?

If you, you know, you get you get a little space, for goodness sakes, as preachers have to condense everything down to a little space.

What are you gonna put on there?

It was about me, it was about things, it was about now.

I've never seen that.

What do you want people to remember you for?

Second, sit down and make a list of your desires.

Asaf was angry because he hadn't been blessed with material things, and he ended up and said, All I desire now is you.

So make a list of your your desires, make a bucket list of all the things you want that you think will make you happy, all the material things.

If I just had this, if I just had more likes on my Facebook page.

How much is this about me and about things and about now?

And how much is it about desiring God?

Are you honest enough to do that?

And then the last thing, take one of your material blessings.

You're you're in the 95th percentile, I can guarantee you.

You all drove here, you all had transportation, you're all dressed, you you didn't wonder where your morning meal is gonna come from.

You're in the 95th percentile.

Take some of those blessings of which we're all so blessed with and turn it into something that will make a difference for eternity.

Oh, Pastor, I I don't have that much money.

Sell something.

I used to laugh when it went down south, and I don't mean to make fun of it because we just have a different location.

But we went down south when Carrie and Rob were stationed in Little Rock in these beautiful ranch-style homes with three car garages, and all their cars were parked in front or on the street, and occasionally you'd see the door up, and it was because all the stuff was packed into the garage.

Couldn't get the cars in.

Sell something and turn it into something that makes a difference for eternity.

Jim Elliott, some of you remember him in the 50s, said, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Wow.

That'd be a great thing to put on your tombstone, wouldn't it?

Jesus said, Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth nor rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in or steal.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

All of those who live and adopt Aesoph's original philosophy of life, me, things now will one day have regrets.

Let's not be one of them.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And besides you, I desire nothing on earth.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Lord, thank you for an honest man who confessed the struggles that we go through, who had modern problems and a modern philosophy, and yet you met him in such special ways to turn his life around.

And we pray, Lord, that that may be the case for us.

Oh Lord, we are so blessed, and yet all of our lives seem to be consumed with wanting more things that don't matter for eternity.

Help us, Lord, to wake up in the morning and say, What do you want us to do?

Where do you want us to go?

To whom do you want us to speak?

What money do you want us to spend?

Because it is, after all, about you, not us.

It's about eternal things, spiritual things that last for eternity.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.