Ancient Musician - Modern Problem

Our scripture reading for this morning is found in the book of Psalms.

And we'd encourage you to take out a Bible or your Bible and turn to Psalm 73.

And if you're using a Pew Bible, you can find that on page 485.

And we'll be looking at the first 16 verses this morning we'll be reading.

Psalm 73, beginning in verse 1: 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 pains until death.

Their bodies are fat and sleek.

They're not in trouble as others are.

They're 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 strut 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 I have 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 generations of your children.

But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.

Here ends the reading of God's Word, and it's our pleasure this morning to have Pastor Vic, our former lead pastor, come and bring us the word this morning.

Thank you, Scott.

And I also want to thank Pastor David and the staff for inviting me to speak this Sunday and next.

So that's always special to be able to come back to faith and share the Word of God with you.

I also want to thank you for coming because everyone I told that I was going to speak the first two Sundays in August said, oh shoot, we're going to be gone that Sunday.

I don't know how many people said that, and some even emailed me to apologize for not being here today.

I guess I shouldn't feel too bad because it is vacation time, but last week I spoke at Salem Central in Fargo.

And I've gotten to know some of the people there because I was there for most of the year in 2009, filling in between pastors.

And the people I knew heard that I was coming.

They called me up and said, shoot, we're going to be gone this Sunday.

And you know, even my wife is not here this Sunday.

Our daughter and grandkids who were here the whole month of July, they're not here.

So I'm assuming that you're here because you didn't get the word.

So I thank you for coming.

Now, as I said, I'm going to speak about Psalm 73 today and next week, Psalm 73.

Yes, it's possible to speak two sermons from the same psalm.

This Sunday is going to be a little different from next Sunday.

This Sunday, and the preacher has several different tools in his bag of tricks to preach.

We're used to expository sermons, which we read and draw out the meaning of the text and apply it to the situation of our life.

But there are topical sermons, and that's probably the most popular way men communicate the word in the pulpit these days.

They take a topic and sometimes trace it through scripture and add a few verses.

But there's also one that's called narrative preaching.

And narrative assumes the personage of the person that we're talking about.

Now, narrative sermons aren't very common because they're difficult to do.

First of all, you have to be kind of an actor.

And I'm not an actor, as you know.

If you didn't know, now you know.

And secondly, when you assume the personage of somebody else, it may come over as humorous when it's not humorous.

You may think it's funny because here is Lucan speaking as if he were somebody else.

Well, it isn't designed to be humorous.

Now, that's not to say that there isn't anything humorous in this message, but I'm going to say that you have to be of a certain age to catch the humor in this message today.

So we'll, when we get to that point, if you're that age and it resonates with you, please laugh.

So the rest of us will know that that was the humorous part.

But there is a positive side to a narrative sermon, and that is we all love a good story.

Jesus recognized that, didn't he?

He used parables over and over again to tell stories that people would remember.

So when we speak in a narrative form, we often remember it because it's in story form.

So this week is narrative sermon, Ancient Musician, Modern Problem.

Next week we'll look at this passage expositionally.

And I was excited to look at a passage that I had preached many times and was familiar to me, and actually has my favorite verse in it, to discover something new about the passage.

And what I discovered is how and why Asaf fell into the problem that we're going to see he had today, and how we may avoid that problem.

So that will be next week as we exposit the passage.

So I'm going to now assume the role of Aesiv, who lived 3,000 years ago, and I'm going to ask that the lights get turned up a little louder or a little brighter because when you're 3,000 years old, you can't see the notes quite as easily.

So if we could have a little more notes right down here, or a little more light right down here on my notes, I'd appreciate it.

I enjoyed listening to your worship this morning.

As a minister of worship myself, during King David's administration, I found it very interesting.

You had stringed instruments, and we had stringed instruments.

Your songs expressed praise to God, and so did ours.

There's one difference, however.

Our songs were much, much longer than your songs.

One of mine was pages and pages long.

You'll find it in Psalm 78.

We didn't always agree about music in our day.

Some felt the Psalter should be just songs of praise to our God.

Others, myself included, thought we should be able to express our emotion, our struggles, our trials in our songs.

For following God, as you've discovered, is not always easy.

Some wanted more instruments, some thought the instruments were too loud.

I played the cymbals, so nothing was too loud for me.

Some thought some of the songs were too repetitious.

Like Psalm 136, the great halal, where for his loving kindness is everlasting is repeated over and over again.

Those were our problems in worship a thousand years before Messiah.

You probably can't identify with them.

It's the lyrics, really, isn't it, that are important.

God didn't preserve the tunes of my songs.

You would have liked them, but it's the words that really matter.

Let me introduce myself.

I am Aesaph.

David appointed some of us Levites to be ministers before the Ark of the Lord to praise and thank and celebrate the Lord God of Israel.

I was the chief musician and was appointed to preside over the sacred choral services.

I also played the cymbals.

The writer of Chronicles described them as loud-sounding cymbals.

But others were singers, some played the harp, the lyre, and trumpets, and together we made sounds of joy to the Lord our God.

Our hymnal had five parts, and my sons, who were also musical, and I wrote twelve of the songs in our hymnal.

The most next to King David himself.

You maybe know the lyrics to one of my songs.

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

Though our songbook is very old, like songs today, it expressed the emotion and experience of a believer in his walk with God.

Who would have thought that our songbook and the songs that I have written would be in each of your homes here today?

Read those songs.

For the experience and emotions we feel in our journey of faith remain the same.

We are not that different, you and me, even though we lived centuries apart.

One song I wrote particularly troubled me.

I started the psalm wanting to praise my God for his goodness to our nation, for he had truly been good to us.

But then as I started to write it, I felt like a hypocrite.

I felt suddenly that God may have been good to Israel, but to me he had been unfair.

Have you ever felt that way?

You try to serve God and expect that in return God will bless you, and yet when you look around, you find that it's the wicked who are being blessed and the righteous who are being tormented.

The wicked are healthy and they're wealthy and they're living a life of ease.

Hadn't God promised us that those who loved and obeyed him would be blessed, and those who didn't would be cursed?

But honestly, at times it seemed just the opposite.

Here I was giving my life to the sacred service of Jehovah, trying to balance ministry and family responsibilities, and my kids were sick.

My wife was worn out.

My parents needed to be cared for.

And I was trying to keep the sacred singers happy because they felt they were being drowned out by the loud-sounding cymbals and the trumpets.

And then I looked at my neighbor.

Well, frankly, I thought God was unfair, for they had none of those problems and were very prosperous, living a life of ease.

I don't mean to be a gossip because this was well known, but my neighbors never darkened the door of God's house, but they were blessed.

He got wealthy selling overpriced camels, and they weren't always healthy either.

A friend bought one of his camels, sight unseen, and was told he'd have to pick it up in a corral south of town.

He had to walk over a mile for a camel.

And when he got there, the camel was half dead.

And his arrogance.

Take it or leave it, he said.

Plus the parties he had, all the parties he had, drunken parties, some of them even on the Sabbath.

And I tried to get through to him, but he told me in no uncertain terms where to go.

Go to Sheol, he'd say.

What a foul mouth he had.

Not only cursing me, but the God of heaven.

But you know what else?

His kids and parents, they weren't sick like mine.

But pictures of health, like trees growing next to the river Jordan.

I felt cheated by God.

I walked past this nice home of his on my way home from choir practice every day, and I saw other believers attracted to him, or maybe it was his wealth, and they were around him like thirsty dogs trying to drink from the overflow of his well of ill-gotten gain.

And I wondered, and I know they did too, if God really knew what was going on down here, since he didn't seem to do anything about the unfairness of life.

I confess there were times that I came home after a long day of rehearsing, my wife's weariness greeted me at the door, and my kids were sick, and I knew that tomorrow would be just the same, and then I'd hear the laughter and the dancing coming from my neighbor's home, and I wondered.

Was it really worth it to serve and follow Jehovah?

Honestly, my feet had almost slipped.

But whom do you talk to about these kind of things?

Other believers don't like to hear you challenge God's goodness and fairness.

After all, I was one of his servants in the service and of the worship of God.

Leaders aren't supposed to have questions about God's goodness, and so I kept it inside of me.

But it burned inside me like the heat of the desert sun.

Am I upsetting you?

I don't mean to, but sometimes we believers don't really talk about the things we don't understand about God.

We think that we may be the only ones who think those thoughts, and so we stuff them inside us, but they fester there.

I suspect that some of you have felt like I have, haven't you?

Be honest with me.

Haven't you wondered like I did about the great inequities of life?

When you have seen the wicked prosper, and your family has experienced illness or poverty or death.

How did you resolve the problem?

Well, maybe you haven't.

Let me tell you how God dealt with my dilemma.

It was, well, so simple that you might miss the importance.

He solved my dilemma of the inequities of life, not by changing my circumstances, which I had often pleaded with him to do, but by changing something much more difficult.

By changing me.

It happened one day while I was in the sanctuary of God.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that God met me there, for God has always had a way of meeting with his people when they're gathered to meet with him.

Do you know that?

That God wants you to gather in a place like this so that he can meet with us?

It was in the sanctuary of God that God allowed me to see the end of my neighbor's life.

I suddenly got a whole new perspective that all my neighbor lived for was not part of the permanent, it was part of the passing.

My neighbor was living for things that did not last.

What's more, God let me see my neighbor's heart, and I discovered not only that what my neighbor was living for wouldn't last, but it didn't satisfy.

He had pride and self-confidence, even arrogance, but his material things would never satisfy the deep spiritual needs down inside his heart when his life came to an end.

What's more, I realized that my neighbor was headed for judgment.

And when God moves in judgment on those who don't know him, my neighbor would be like a figure in a dream that is forgotten when you awake.

My feet had almost slipped, but it was my neighbor whose feet were on slippery places, not mine.

Suddenly I realized what a narrow focus I had had.

I was just focused on the here and the now.

I was living like an animal in the field, living as if this life is all there is.

How I had overestimated my neighbor's wealth.

It didn't last, it didn't satisfy, and he was headed towards judgment.

But not only did God impress me with the fact that I had overestimated my neighbor's wealth, but I had underestimated my own prosperity.

True, I didn't have much materially, but I had Jehovah's presence with me.

He always had a hold of my right hand, and his counsel was there to guide me in his word.

And instead of judgment, I had God's promise of glory with him.

Life, this life, is but a prelude to the main song.

Whatever happens in this life is nothing to be compared to what is to come.

I think many centuries later, the Apostle Paul said the same thing, didn't he?

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Wow.

Who needs anything more than that?

His companionship, his counsel, and his commitment for eternal life.

Would I trade this for what my neighbor has?

Would you?

I've learned that the wicked are not to be envied but pitied, for God's judgment awaits them.

But as for me, I revel in God's nearness.

Even when life seems unfair, and it still does at times, God is my refuge, and I rejoice in all that I have in Him.

Now I'm not a prophet, I'm a musician.

But please allow me to forth tell.

Some of the lessons I learned.

For whether you've ever felt like I have, someday you will.

First, be honest with God when you don't understand the inequities of life.

The Psalms are filled with honest people asking God the hard questions of life.

And after all, whom do we think we're kidding?

God knows our thoughts anyway, as King David used to say, He knows when I sit down and when I rise up.

You understand my thoughts from afar.

Recognize that God is big enough for your toughest questions, and that other believers in other generations have had questions like yours.

Second, don't expect that when you pray, God will always change your circumstances.

A lot of our praying is like that, isn't it?

We ask God to change whatever is troubling us.

But you know what?

He may do the far greater thing and change you.

I walked into the sanctuary a very poor man, and I walked out rich indeed.

No, the circumstances hadn't changed.

I was still poor, my kids were still sick, but God had changed me.

Some of you need to be changed.

You're bitter at God, like I was for the raw deal that you think you've gotten in life.

And like a sour note in a great musical piece, you're polluting the whole choral piece of God's song, which is your life.

It is you who need to change, not your circumstances.

Three, I learned that the great puzzling questions of life find no real solution until a man is able to see them from a long-range point of view.

Things became clear when I perceived their end.

I realized how narrow had been my vision.

Only when we have settled that which is eternal can we live meaningfully in the midst of time.

Again, the Apostle Paul said it, didn't he?

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

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

For I discovered something about true riches.

What greater riches can a man, woman, boy, or girl have in this life to know, really know that God is present with them in every situation, in every trial, in everything that brings joy, in everything that brings sorrow and grief.

When I'm young and when I'm old, Jesus, God's Son, told you that, didn't he?

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

What is that worth?

What is it worth to know that he holds my right hand and when I feel I'm about to slip, he doesn't let go?

What is it worth to know that he counsels and guides me in his word, the Bible?

What is it worth to know, not just hope so or think so or wish so, but to actually know that when I come to the end of my life, that God will receive me into glory.

What price can you pay for that?

Have you gotten to the place where you can say with me, Whom have I in heaven but thee?

And besides thee, I desire nothing on earth.

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

You have been very patient with me.

Spare me one more minute to summarize another lesson I learned.

I learned something that some of you may still have to learn.

I learned that if a man does not have God, though he has all sorts of material things, he is indescribably poor.

But if a man has God, though he doesn't have anything else, he is rich indeed.

Do you know that?

How would you answer the question in my song?

When the chips are down and life is coming to end, whom do you have in heaven but God?

When your flesh and your heart fails, and they will, who is the strength of your life and your portion forever?

My God, who met me in the sanctuary, will do the same for you.

He will give you his presence, he will be your pilot through life, and he will keep his promise for everlasting life.

Surely God is good.

God is good to Israel.

God is good to me, and he wants to be good to you.

Lord God, thank you for a man like Asaph, who was honest enough to express his questions about your goodness.

What a powerful psalm! And how you met him in the sanctuary of God and helped him have a long-range vision that helped him to see things that were eternal and not just material and present.

So, Lord, take your word.

And this week, as we have looked at it from a story form, and next week, Lord willing, we look at it more expositionally to learn how we can avoid the problems that Esaf experienced, we pray that you will take your word and speak to our hearts this week.

Lord, we are so blessed materially, and so much of our life is focused on things.

And we pray, dear God, that you will help this lesson to remind us again that it isn't the things of this life that matter, but the things that are of eternal nature that do.

We thank you, Lord, for our time together.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.