The Goodness of God

[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Good morning If you have a Bible turned to Psalm 73, we're going to be in the entire Psalm this morning as you're turning there

[SPEAKER_01]: If you are new to citizens, if you're visiting us this morning, good morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: My name is Jayman, and I'm one of the pastors here.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're honored that you are visiting us, honor that you are worshiping with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: For the rest of the summer, we will be in the book of Psalms.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've done this the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: handful of summers that we spend at least the month of July looking at different Psalms.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I really do love this book of the Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are a number of things we could highlight about the book of Psalms.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that is true is that the Psalms are prayers.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the prayer book of the people of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: These prayers have been prayed not just by their

[SPEAKER_01]: prayed these Psalms as prayers the most quoted book of the Old Testament in the New Testament is the book of Psalms and so personally I've told you this before but I am better at talking about God than I am talking to God and so my prayer life needs help and I have found that help in these Psalms they're teaching me how to talk to God and so Psalm 73

[SPEAKER_01]: is a man talking to God about something very important and very personal, and I want to consider that this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: My high school years were lived in a small East Texas town and church was a small Baptist church.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was the kind of town where you saw everyone in town at the football game on Friday night.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you saw most everyone in town again at church on Sunday morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a man in that church who was a cattle rancher and he also owned the only feed store in town.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you greeted him at church, you went up to him and you shook his hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, it hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like being grabbed by a mountain.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then if you were to ask him how are you, he would say this every single time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He would say, God is good all the time and all the time, God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're in the car with the rollers on the way to one of Adelin's basketball games or on the way to one of Elis soccer games, you will hear the game-time playlist that we listen to to get the kids hyped up before their game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're in the car with us and you're listening to the game-time playlist, you will hear a few songs you'll hear we are the champions by Queen, which is a bit presumptuous to listen to on the way to the game, but that's how much confidence we have.

[SPEAKER_01]: You would hear lose yourself by Eminem the clean version obviously don't stress and you would hear these words from this song got his good all the time If he ain't Then you lie in In the rain in the shine Got his good all the time written by it's theologian force frame

[SPEAKER_01]: If you are in Little City, which is our birth through Kinder Ministry here, you, on any given Sunday, you learn one of five foundational truths.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus came to save sinners.

[SPEAKER_01]: God wants to talk to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: God made everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's in charge of everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you believe that?

[SPEAKER_01]: God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: The goodness of God is what this Psalm is all about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse 1.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure and heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: A pure and heart does not mean sinless, none of us are.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pure and heart is just a way to describe those who believe in God and who follow God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so this is foundational theology for the people of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: The people who believe in God believe that God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there is a God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he is outside of space in time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is all powerful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything that exists came from him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's not distant.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's personal.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's not unknowable, but he's revealed himself to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he is not malicious or evil or cruel.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does good because he is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he is good always.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if all the Psalm said was this, if all the Psalm said was truly God is real to those who are pure and heart, it would be worth having that in our Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it doesn't stop there.

[SPEAKER_01]: It actually takes a bit of a turn, verse two.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled.

[SPEAKER_01]: My steps had nearly slipped.

[SPEAKER_01]: For I was invious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do when you doubt the goodness of God?

[SPEAKER_01]: You see something, you experience something, you go through something, you endorse something that's cruel, painful, unexpected, unjust, and this thought, this feeling, this fear, enters into your head, enters into your heart, and it lingers there, is God good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if he is, then why am I seeing what I'm seeing?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I going through what I'm going through?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I experiencing what I'm experiencing?

[SPEAKER_01]: This Psalm is written by a worship leader named Asaph.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Asaph is a big deal.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was appointed by David, and then he served under Solomon, and his job was to lead worship in the temple in the very presence of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He writes a few other Psalms that you can find in the book of Psalms, other places in Scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: We hear about a group called The Suns of Asaph, and that could be his actual children.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like to think it was his band's name.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's this godly, influential writer and leader and singer over the people of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what he says.

[SPEAKER_01]: Surely, God is good to Israel to those who are pure and heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: My feet had almost stumbled.

[SPEAKER_01]: My steps had nearly slipped.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what that means?

[SPEAKER_01]: In Psalm 1,

[SPEAKER_01]: the righteous are described as those who do not walk in the way of the wicked.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in the book of Psalms, where your feet are is a metaphor for where your heart is, and Ace F says about his feet, I'm stumbling.

[SPEAKER_01]: I almost slipped.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's describing doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Crisis of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't fall, he didn't apostasize, he didn't deny his faith, he didn't run away, but he's not standing firm, he's wavering, and here's why he's wavering, because his theology truly got his good to Israel seems to be contradicting his experience, the wicked are the ones who prosper.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that God is good, but I see the prosperity of the wicked and what I see is making me question what I believe, have you ever, friend, have you ever doubted the goodness of God?

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good, my child is very sick.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good, my marriage is very broken.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good, my life is not what I thought it would be.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good, the most prideful, cruel, arrogant, narcissistic people get the easiest life.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I'd be married by now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: My children have run from the Lord and I pray that they wouldn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm depressed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm anxious.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much injustice in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got a text on my way to church this morning that the member we were praying for to get good news got bad news.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: What I see, what I experience, what I'm going through right now is making that hard to believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so what I do with that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Hear

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if anything more important than for you to believe that God is who he says he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if anything more important than for you to believe about your God that he is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: My favorite Psalms commentary made this observation, the denial that God is good begins in the garden and undermines all of human existence.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the story starts, the accuser, Timbs, Adam and Eve, did God really say you won't

[SPEAKER_01]: So God must be holding out on you, and if he's holding out on you, he must not be good to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the inception of all sin was tied to the temptation to deny God's goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what happens is if we deny God's goodness, there's this whole cascade of consequences.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll not obey him.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will not worship him.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will not trust him.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will not come to him for comfort.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will not believe in his promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: If he's not good, why would we even try any of that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Some 63 says, God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you because my soul, thirst for you, our soul, was made for God, made to desire God.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if we believe about God, that something in him is contaminated, something in him is not pure, then the very thing that we were made for is the thing that we will not pursue.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all that to say this beloved, there's nothing more important than to believe that God is who he says he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: No one who has doubts about the character of God remains neutral with those doubts.

[SPEAKER_01]: No one, we either doubt the character of God and then we move from God or we move towards God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 73 is about someone who doubted God's goodness and then moved towards God.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a prayer.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so what I want to do is I want to walk through this prayer and then I'll give us some space to pray this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's disclaimer, what we're not offered this morning is a quick fix.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not one prayer away from all your doubt being all gone for good.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the antibiotic you take for a few days and then you're all better.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the simple food that you eat for the rest of your life to nourish your soul and fight for faith to believe that God is who he says he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's three parts of this Psalm.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to just walk through these three parts and then make space to pray.

[SPEAKER_01]: A staff looks out, he looks in, and then he looks up.

[SPEAKER_01]: He looks out, he looks in, he looks up.

[SPEAKER_01]: First four, you'll notice that he says they throughout this section, he's looking out at those around him.

[SPEAKER_01]: For they have no pains until death,

[SPEAKER_01]: Their bodies are fat and sleek.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're not in trouble as others are.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're not stricken like the rest of mankind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pride is their necklace.

[SPEAKER_01]: Violence covers them as a garment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their eyes swell out through fatness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their hearts overflow with follies.

[SPEAKER_01]: They scoff and speak with malice.

[SPEAKER_01]: They threaten oppression.

[SPEAKER_01]: They set their mouth against the heavens.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their tongue struts through the earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, God's people turn back to them and find no fault in them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they say, how can God know?

[SPEAKER_01]: is their knowledge in the most high, behold.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you hear what he's praying about?

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything he sees, what he's experienced.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't dress it up, he doesn't sanitize it, he doesn't pull punches, he speaks plainly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, the wicked are mocking you, God.

[SPEAKER_01]: The wicked are so rich, they're doing so well that they're getting fatter and fatter while the people of God live meal to meal.

[SPEAKER_01]: They wear pride like it's jewelry, they wear the blood of the innocent, like it's a new shirt, and they do all of that in nothing bad happens to them.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no consequence for the way that they're living.

[SPEAKER_01]: And while all of that is happening, the people of God are suffering, and then some of God's people are turning towards the wicked and saying, OK, if they prosper, that I'm going to live like them so that I can get the life that they get.

[SPEAKER_01]: and who's he saying all this to?

[SPEAKER_01]: God.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I expect?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I think we expect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 28 is how the Psalm concludes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry to spoil it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It says this in verse 28, for me it is good to be near God.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of the Psalm, he affirms as his grand conclusion, the very thing he starts questioning at the beginning of the Psalm.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I expect is I expect verse 28 to come right after verse three, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: My feet nearly slipped.

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw the wicked, but God is good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for to just be this very quick resolution, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: For us to not, for us to try to rush out of the discomfort of doubt by affirming the thing that we know we're supposed to say is true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, ASAP goes nine unfiltered verses as to why he's doubting the way he's doubting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he tells it to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he's making his case for why he's doubting the goodness of God, why he's making what it is around him and his life that's making it hard to believe what's hard to believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think the fact that this is preserved for us in the word, God wanted you to read those nine verses.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this tells us something beautiful about God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine a child comes home, middle school age child, and stands in the living room, and announces as loud as they can.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like being part of this family.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know how dad could respond to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Dad could start listing off all the sacrifices he makes, how hard he works.

[SPEAKER_01]: He could name all the worst families he knows that they could go be a part of.

[SPEAKER_01]: He could give a lesson on gratitude.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: All that would be fair.

[SPEAKER_01]: What if child comes home and announces, I don't like being part of this family.

[SPEAKER_01]: And instead, Dad stops what he's doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sits down and he says, tell me about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't defend.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has a question.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then he just lets child talk.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things the Psalms teach us about God is he is a tell me about that God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why else would he preserve these prayers in his word?

[SPEAKER_01]: If there was not space to turn our honest, unfiltered thoughts into prayers, then God would have only preserved the positive Psalms in his word.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't only get Psalms about worship and you don't get Psalms about gratitude, but instead what we get is we get Psalms about doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God doesn't just preserve the conclusions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 3 doesn't immediately turn into verse 28.

[SPEAKER_01]: What you get is you get honesty that almost feels like accusation and God welcomes it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the invitation.

[SPEAKER_01]: God wants you to talk to him about your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even about your doubts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even about, he wants you to turn your thoughts, your honest thoughts, and turn those honest thoughts into honest prayers, to tell God what it is about life that is making his goodness hard to believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't have to spiritualize it or sanitize it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ace F, doesn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cory Tin Boom, she's one of my favorite authors, favorite writers, one of my favorite people.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to meet her one day.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in one of her books, she makes this comment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Often, I've heard people say how good God is.

[SPEAKER_01]: We prayed that it would not reign for our church picnic and look at the lovely weather.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, God is good when He sends a good weather, but God was also good when He allowed my sister Betsy to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's jarring.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's upsetting to read out loud.

[SPEAKER_01]: But here's a woman who hold on to God's goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: without having to dress up the brutal suffering of her life.

[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't, she doesn't write and say, God was also good when my family went through some hard times.

[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't dress it up.

[SPEAKER_01]: She names it as ugly and horrible as it was when I watched my sister starve to death in a concentration camp.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she can hold both together.

[SPEAKER_01]: The ugly details of her suffering and the belief in God's goodness because she knows that God knows.

[SPEAKER_01]: and he sees and he was there.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we come to God in prayer, we don't have to hide from Him what's going on in our hearts and in our minds.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we're doubting His goodness and then also doubt that He doesn't know or doesn't care, then that's gonna drive us further from Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to bring these things to Him in prayer, to name it ugly,

[SPEAKER_01]: to speak out loud to God in prayer, the naked undressed reality of our pain and suffering.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, this is happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, this isn't working.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, I'm hurting.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, I feel like you're not watching.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is itself an act of belief.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is one of the most important parts of the soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: All in vain, verse 13, have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

[SPEAKER_01]: For all the day long, I've been stricken and rebuked every morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I had said, I will speak with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a weird some task.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not talking they, he's talking I.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's describing what's happening in his interior life because of what he's seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if you heard this as I read it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's conflicted.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does obedience matter?

[SPEAKER_01]: I've kept all these commands.

[SPEAKER_01]: Was this a waste of time?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm rebuked every morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know that feeling when you are trying to obey Jesus and you just feel constant conviction over your inability to completely obey Jesus?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what he's describing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm rebuked every morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does it match?

[SPEAKER_01]: I even try anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Denise, is this?

[SPEAKER_01]: If I go to my ministry job,

[SPEAKER_01]: And I stand on stage and I say this out loud like it's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I turn my questions about God's goodness into conclusions about God's character, then that would betray the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to betray the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to hurt the people of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's conflicted, he's caught, in which he's paying attention to what's happening in his own heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as he pays attention to what's happening in his own heart, he finds out a lot of different things that are happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: If God is good, isn't good, the none of this matters.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if I say this out loud, then I'll betray people and I don't want to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let me make an observation we need.

[SPEAKER_01]: As he faces his doubt, as he struggles, as he considers what's happening inside of him,

[SPEAKER_01]: Self-aware, he knows what's going on in this heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: He can name the dialogue of his interior life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what many of us do, whether life is hard or not, we just suppress or we ignore what's happening inside of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, maybe this morning, it's just hard to follow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe

[SPEAKER_01]: The book of Psalms is just hard to get into, because the tone and the tenor of it is so interpersonal, it is so aware, it is talking openly about things that people can't see and so you're bringing those things into the light.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't pay attention to those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our beliefs, our doubts, our feelings, our fears.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to not pay attention to what's happening inside of you, to not pay attention to your interior life, is to ignore the very center of where Jesus wants to bring change.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Aceaf at one point, he had these doubts for the very first time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He saw someone godly person flaunting their sin and getting away with it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he thought this thing is got good.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then it happened again, and he felt the same way, and it happened again, and he felt the same way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what he didn't do?

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't just tuck that away somewhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't just write a happy song to distract himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't just get a glass of wine to numb those feelings.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said something going on out there is revealing something that's happening in here and I need to pay attention to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, oh, please hear me.

[SPEAKER_01]: His self-awareness,

[SPEAKER_01]: did not lead to self-reliance.

[SPEAKER_01]: He paid attention to his internal life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He realized, in paying attention to his internal life, that he did not have the internal resources to help himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's why he says, I thought how to understand it and it's a weird, some task, trying to understand myself, trying to fix myself was exhausting.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hear me, we are living in a therapeutic, cultural moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there is good to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're no longer ignoring mental health like we did.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's an in-vogue thing to talk about emotional health.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's less stigma around different kinds of suffering as there was in previous generations.

[SPEAKER_01]: People now are more open to going to counseling than they were 13 years ago when I started pastoring here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's good in that, depending on the counselor.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's good in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you know what it has produced and so many people.

[SPEAKER_01]: an awareness of the self that keeps us trapped within ourselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where I'm a hyper-aware of how I'm feeling and hyper-aware of how I'm impacted by my circumstances and hyper-aware of what's going on inside of me and at the same time, I believe that I have within me all I need to handle all of that, which keeps me stuck.

[SPEAKER_01]: I read an article about all this, and forgot everything I read except this one line.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our culture of self is not written by a Christian, just written by a journalist who is observing what's happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our culture of self-awareness is not creating a people of resilience, because our self-awareness is not lead us outside of our self, and so we stay unchanged.

[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine if ASAP wrote like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: ASAP writes and says, obedience doesn't matter, and I'm just being honest.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I feel, and then he stays there.

[SPEAKER_01]: A.S.F.

[SPEAKER_01]: writes and says, the wicked make me question God's goodness, and so I'm just gonna stay inside my house for the rest of my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I don't see it, then I don't have to deal with it or confront it.

[SPEAKER_01]: A.S.F.

[SPEAKER_01]: says, I'm from now on, I'm gonna be the doubting guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I see someone with a lot of faith, I'm gonna go up to him and be like, well, have you seen the wicked?

[SPEAKER_01]: They're doing great.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my doubt is going to become contagious.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to define me.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a kind of, that is, a kind of self-awareness that wants transparency without accountability.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wants to be honest, but never challenged.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wants answers, but does not want to change.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I love about the Psalm, in his part of the Psalm, is asaf as honest, that he's doubting God's goodness, and then he's honest about who he will become if he listens to his doubt and lets his doubt win.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll become a person who doesn't care about obedience, I don't want to become that person.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll become a person who's confused about who I am, who betrays the people of God, and I don't want to become that kind of person.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he does not ignore what's going on inside of him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't idolize what's going on inside of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, he looks in, he tells God what's happening, he's honest with God about what's happening, but he does not stay there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Beloved, we cannot stay there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cannot stay stuck inside of ourselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we face what's going on, we have to look outside of ourselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the real invitation of the Psalm.

[SPEAKER_01]: To look out.

[SPEAKER_01]: to look in, but to not stay there, A.S.F.

[SPEAKER_01]: looks up, and this is where his confidence in God's characters restored.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says this verse 15, but when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a weird, some task until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned therein, would you pause me for a minute?

[SPEAKER_01]: I went into the sanctuary of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is so deeply encouraging to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means he went to do his job.

[SPEAKER_01]: He went into the temple, he got his guitar, he stood on stage, he led worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what many of us think is you can only do that kind of thing if your faith is at a hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_01]: Asaf, you can't lead worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're doubting the goodness of God, take a vacation, go sell insurance.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't go on stage as a pastor, doubting that God is good and then sing those songs, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And what we believe is something similar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can't come to church, you can't serve, you can't pray, you felt that some of us this morning as we sang these first few songs.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't sing with confidence if I'm not completely sure about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what we often do is we believe that if there's any doubt

[SPEAKER_01]: Then we can't do anything at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: If there's any doubt at all, we can't worship at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: If there's any doubt at all, we can't serve it all.

[SPEAKER_01]: If there's any doubt at all, we can't obey it all.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what you call it when you do the opposite.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what you call it when you're doubting God's goodness and you show up still.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're doubting God's goodness and you serve still and seeing still and pray still.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is called faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: To not do any of that because of doubt,

[SPEAKER_01]: is to worship the doubt, to wait until we have strong faith is to worship the faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: But our faith is not in our faith, our faith is in our God.

[SPEAKER_01]: So here it again.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even weak faith in a strong God is more than enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: ASF models that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned therein, truly you set them in slippery places.

[SPEAKER_01]: You make them fall to ruin how they are destroyed in a moment swept away utterly by tears like a dream when one wakes, oh Lord, you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

[SPEAKER_01]: He looks up.

[SPEAKER_01]: He goes into the temple, he goes into the sanctuary, and he gets, he gets God's eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: This all started because of something he saw, and it changed for him when he started seeing with God's eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Truly, you set them in slippery places you make them fall to ruin.

[SPEAKER_01]: That hadn't happened when he praised this prayer.

[SPEAKER_01]: The wicked are still prospering.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he is speaking about something that will happen, but hasn't yet happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what he's describing is, is when he looks up to God, he gets God's perspective, and he sees with God's eyes, which means he sees God's future.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there is coming a day where all of those who have terrorized the world in wickedness, have denied and mocked and rebelled against God, God will call all in justice to an account.

[SPEAKER_01]: And ace of the seeing that kind of day,

[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever circumstance it is that you are in now, whatever circumstance you may be in one day that will make you question the goodness of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: What you're invited to do is to look up to God and to follow the present into the future that God sees.

[SPEAKER_01]: And look, there is pain in the world that I just don't begin to know why.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, there are circumstances where I don't begin to know how to describe how God's going to bring good out of that circumstance.

[SPEAKER_01]: All I know to do is to think about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we were gathered around the cross of Christ at Jesus' crucifixion.

[SPEAKER_01]: while he hung there.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we were there with Mary and with John and with Jesus' mom and we were watching.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if we're there, the moment that they pierced his side with that spear, and if all we saw was Jesus bleeding out and breathing his last, and if all we had was our eyes in that moment in that dark, despairing present, and that's all we could see, we would have asked,

[SPEAKER_01]: Did God break his promise, but to look up?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like what we now know is that what God saw was Easter and what He had planned even on that day was resurrection.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we look back on that Friday.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't just call that Friday good, but we call God good, because we see that Friday through the victory of resurrection.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God already knew, God knew on Friday what everyone else found out on Sunday, the invitation to look up.

[SPEAKER_01]: even in this moment, while the wicked prosper, while the cancer spreads, while the relationship ends, while the body is failing, while the home is still empty, whatever circumstance brings God's goodness into question, look up for the faith to believe that the God who turns crucifixion into resurrection has a glorious future for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't see it, but he can.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't control it, but he does.

[SPEAKER_01]: This present is painful, but in Christ your future, your future is beautiful.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a poet author writer who lived in the 1800s named William Cooper.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of his adult life, even after his conversion, he lived with severe mental illness, multiple suicide attempts, multiple year-long depressive episodes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a few stands, as deep in unfathomable minds of never-failing skill.

[SPEAKER_01]: He treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.

[SPEAKER_01]: He fearful saints, fresh courage, take the cloud you so much dread, are big with mercy and shall break and blessings on your head.

[SPEAKER_01]: Judge not the Lord by feeble sins, but trust him for his grace

[SPEAKER_01]: His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.

[SPEAKER_01]: The clouds, one day, will break in mercy and blessing.

[SPEAKER_01]: What feels like the frowning face of God right now will one day give way to his smile.

[SPEAKER_01]: The suffering will bloom, your life will be beautiful.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you cannot see God's goodness in your present, would you see it in your future?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's there.

[SPEAKER_01]: When my soul was embedded, when I was pricked and heart, I was brutish and ignorant, I was like a beast towards you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nevertheless, I'm continually with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You hold my right hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: You guide me with your counsel, and afterward, you will receive me to glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the most beautiful verses and all of the Psalms, whom have I in heaven but you?

[SPEAKER_01]: And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you.

[SPEAKER_01]: My flesh and my heart, my fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sees, he looks up.

[SPEAKER_01]: and he sees God's future.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sees the justice that will come, but that's not all he sees.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sees God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sees that God only is there a good future coming for him, but he sees that God himself is his good right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: and nothing can, whom have I in heaven but you, and there's nothing on earth I desire besides you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Augustin about this verse says it this way, the Psalmist asks no other reward from God except God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone who begs a different reward from God is rating what he wants to get more highly than the God who he hopes will give it.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's award is simply God himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: In our elementary ministry, we define all the attributes of God, his love, his mercy, his justice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the way we define God's goodness, God is good, not, he does what is best, not, he has what is best, not, he knows what is best, God is good, he is what is best, he himself is the goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're invited to remember as we look up.

[SPEAKER_01]: that he is good, and there is not, there is not a circumstance in your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a circumstance in your life where God will withhold himself from you.

[SPEAKER_01]: ASF says I was bitter and was like an animal to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even then you held my right hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: Asaf says, I was brutish, I was like a beast, and you held my right hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, my foot nearly slipped, but I did not fall, not because I held on to you, but because you never let me go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even when I doubted your goodness, you did not stop being good to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is grace.

[SPEAKER_01]: In that grace that Asaf experienced in part, we get that grace in full.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus our Savior, He faced the Psalm 73 temptation, Satan offered Him the path of ease if He just denies God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He tempted Jesus in the wilderness the same way he tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, but Jesus did not stumble, he did not waver, he did not slip, he followed the goodness of God and obedience to God all the way to the cross and through the grave and his flesh did not fail and his heart did not fail and because Jesus conquered this temptation, because Jesus himself clung to believed, held firmly to the goodness of God, he draws us by grace into the arms of God,

[SPEAKER_01]: God is so good to you, beloved, that He died for you, to make you right with Him, to draw you near to Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is what is best.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because of Jesus, our Savior and our Lord, nothing, nothing can separate you from your good God, not even you.

[SPEAKER_01]: even when we stumble, he never lets go.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what do you call that kind of God, who gives that kind of grace and who loves us at our worst?

[SPEAKER_01]: You call him good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Asef concludes it this way, but for me, it is good to be near God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, you are good.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are good to us, Lord God.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are good for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thank you, Lord, that you just so generously provide for your people.

[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't about me, but you knew that I would need this song.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you knew that so many of your people would need this song.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have an ancient brother in ASAP who went through this common

[SPEAKER_01]: desperate experience, and you didn't just meet him, and you didn't just welcome him, and you didn't just guide him by the hand, and you didn't just hold on to him and never let him go, but you offer the same mercy and grace to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we thank you, God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Beloved, would you just spend some time in prayer?

[SPEAKER_01]: If belief in the goodness of God is just easy for you this morning, would you just get, would you give thanks for that?

[SPEAKER_01]: consecrated, remember it, there might be coming a season of life where it's not as easy to believe so would you hold it now so that it can sustain you then?

[SPEAKER_01]: If you like ASF, could say what I see is making it hard to believe what I claim to believe would you just ask God for help?

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, he is a tell me about that God and remember, you do not have the resources within yourself to rescue you out of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to look up, look up to God, see his good future, look up to God, see his goodness to you right now in the present.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you just pray, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you meet us, Lord God, by your spirit?

[SPEAKER_01]: Your nearness is our good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we need you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.