The Confusing Experience of Faith, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Faith means you believe in the extravagant goodness of God, which was demonstrated at the cross. Humility realizes how unworthy and how undeserving you are of that love and when you are overwhelmed with humility and when you believe in the God that revealed himself on the cross, then envy and doubt will disappear like the morning mist. Welcome to another day of gospel-centered teaching here on Summit Life with pastor and author J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. I think it's safe to say that when life is going well, it's easy to announce that we trust God's plan. But what about when everything seems to be falling apart, when you lose your job or your home or you're diagnosed with a terminal illness? How do you trust God in those situations?

Does faith just mean that we skip along and pretend everything's fine? Pastor J.D. addresses those questions today as he continues our series called The Whole Story. We're looking at one specific chapter from Psalms that captures the theme of the entire book.

So let's dive in. Psalm 73 is a psalm about the universal problem of doubt, a psalm of Asaph. Asaph was David's worship pastor. Verse 1, That's his statement of faith. That's what he believes with his mind. But now he's about to tell you in the next several verses what he feels with his heart, because those are not always the same thing.

Verse 2, Which is almost always the case. Envy is, of course, when you want somebody else's life. You want their possessions. You want their opportunities. You want their looks.

You want their talents. And this psalm helps you label envy for exactly what it is, doubt, and the goodness of God towards you. Verse 4, They have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong.

They're beautiful. They're free from common human burdens. Verse 5, They've got house cleaners and assistants, and they wear designer clothes, and their kids go to school on scholarship, and then they get awesome jobs because they know people.

Therefore, Verse 6, Pride is their necklace. What's really galling is that they take credit for it all, as if the reason they have all this stuff is because they're just more awesome than the rest of us. They don't seem to be aware of the fact that it's just because their parents are rich, and it's not because they're smarter than we are.

It's just opportunity. They clothe themselves then with violence. Their pride makes them hateful, disdainful toward others. They really feel like they're better than everybody, like they deserve all the perks, like they deserve their status. They feel like they should get to make all the decisions for everybody else, and then they oppress people. They trample people just because they can get away with it.

Nobody stops them. Verse 8, They scoff. They speak with malice, with arrogance. They threaten oppression, where their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.

Does God even realize what's going on? They ask. Verse 12, This is what the wicked are like, always free of care. They just go on amassing wealth.

That's the only thing that they're worried about is how to get more. So he says, I'm the one that's envious. Verse 13, If I've been wasting my time, why'd I even take the trouble to be pure? All I get out of it is trouble, and whoa, all the day long, every day, all day, all this stuff I've done for God, I tried to obey him. But if I'd spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. It was something.

There was something, y'all. There was something about verbalizing that statement that woke him up. So he hears himself verbalizing this statement and realizes he hears himself admit that the reason that he had been serving God was so that God would make his life easy. And the Spirit of God very quietly whispers to him, Why are you serving me? Are you serving me because of what you think you can get from me? Or are you serving me because you want more of me?

Because those are two entirely different reasons. Verse 17, He continues, So one day I went into God's sanctuary to meditate, and then I thought about the future of these evil men. In the midst of his doubt, he comes into the presence of God, and this is what he sees.

He sees two things. First, verse 18, what a slippery path they are on. Suddenly, God will send them sliding over the edge of the cliff and down to their destruction, an instant end to all their happiness and eternity of terror. Their present life is only a dream. They will awaken to the truth as one awakens from a dream of things that never really were.

Here's number one. Eternity, he says, is going to restore the balance. Scripture presents this life as so quick. It's like a dream, right? But it seems so real in the moment. The writer here, Asaph, is like, that's what life is like. If you, if for those outside of God, death is going to be a sudden awakening from their illusion of success and power. It's like suddenly you wake up out of a dream, and what seems so real is all just an illusion, and it's over. The way one guy says it, the rich without God are on their way to being eternally poor. Celebrities without God are on their way to being eternally ignored. It's like that awful scene where Steve Harvey crowned the wrong Miss Universe.

Do you remember this thing? Now, I read about it in the news, which meant when I watched the YouTube video, I knew what was coming. And you're watching this poor girl who gets crowned Miss Universe. This is her lifelong dream. She's always wanted to be Miss Universe. And you're watching just the elation on her face, and you're just kind of shaking your head going, don't be happy.

This is not real. It's just a minute. It's going to turn into the worst moment of your life because Steve Harvey's already walking back on stage with that goofy look on his face. And he's going to be like, I call him the wrong person, and it's all my fault, you know. And he's going to take it off your head and put it on this other girl's head, and your joy is going to turn into disaster.

What this writer, Asaph, is saying is Steve Harvey's already on the stage, and all this joy you think you got is going to just disappear. Because if you had to choose, be the second Miss Universe, not the first one, because the first one, it lasts for just a second, and then that crown is gone. Why don't you labor for the crown that does not fade and is never taken away? You see, on the flip side, for the believer, all the pain they go through is going to seem meaningless compared to the joy that they experience one minute into eternity. One minute, one minute into eternity. There's a verse that I give you a lot that I would, you should just tattoo this verse on your heart. You definitely should have it memorized. Romans 8, 18, I consider.

It means I've thought about it. I've thought about it. Our present sufferings are not even worth comparing. Paul's a varsity sufferer.

I've told you this, right? I mean, his suffering is not light. He was like, I got shipwrecked a bunch, and got beaten, and forsaken, and I got stoned a bunch of times. And one time I was like throwing some sticks in a fire, and there were 20 guys standing around, and a viper jumps out and latches onto my arm and hangs there. I mean, talk about something that makes you feel unlucky.

There's 20 guys standing there, and the viper's hanging off your arm, and Paul's like, yeah, you know, throws it off. He's like, I consider that all that is not even worth comparing. You can put in the same category with the glory that's going to be revealed in us.

I can't even say that this is worth it. They don't even belong in the same sentence. They don't belong in the same sentence. I got a friend, a father of three young children, who was diagnosed with a rare, very aggressive form of brain cancer.

Doctors say his chances of survival are not good, his story is absolutely heartbreaking, and, of course, he, along with many of us, are praying for complete and total healing. But he said something the other day that just really struck me. He was quoting C.S.

Lewis. He said, you know, when we get to heaven, it's not that we're going to look back and see the reasons that certain bad things happen and say, oh, oh, that's why that happened. Oh, I get it now. Rather, he said, we'll look back and we'll say, what bad things? What bad things are you even talking about? Because in that moment, we'll be so consumed with God's finished product that we'll scarcely even remember the process that he used. And even the things that were painful in our lives that brought us closer to God, we'll actually find the kind of joy in them because while it hurt us and it took from us things that we loved, it gave to us something that we learned to love even more. Y'all realize how short life is. If you think you're fine without God, do you realize that this life, James 4, 14, he says, it's like a vapor.

It's like the breath that comes out of your mouth on a cold morning that appears for just a minute and then it's gone. Life is like walking around with a backpack that has a time bomb in it that you have no idea when it's going to go off. But you know that it is going to go off.

He says, that's what life is like. Death is coming. It's certain it's appointed unto you.

One time to die. God knows the day that it's going to be. You don't know it. He's appointed it for you. And after that, there's going to be a judgment. The dream is going to be over. Are you prepared to awake to reality? And believer, you may not see it now, but all this pain is just temporary and it's going to be over soon. God is more real than the ground that you're standing on. And you're already more rich than if you possessed all the jewels that lie beneath our feet in the earth and the caves we haven't discovered yet.

They're already yours. And you're just seconds away from saying, what pain are you talking about? For the believer, the brief pain of this world is the closest to hell they will ever come. And for the unbeliever, the brief pleasure of this world is the closest to heaven they will ever come.

And it's just seconds away. Only when you learn the brevity of life, are you ever going to look at life the right way? Which is why Moses in the Psalm that he wrote said, Psalm 90 verse 12, teach us to number our days. Man, teach us to think about how short life is because only then will we have become wise. It is only when you think about the brevity of life. It's only when you think about the brevity of life that you'll ever develop the right perspective on, on life itself. It's only when you think about how short life is that you can gain wisdom.

Here's what I've noticed. Almost all the questions and the doubts we have about the goodness of God are predicated on the assumption that life is long. When you realize, and you think about life being a vapor that lasts for just a few seconds in scope of eternity, then all these questions about the goodness of God, they just sort of disappear because your life, this is like, it's just, it's just, it's just 70, 80, 90 years and then there's eternity and it just seems like nothing.

And so what Moses says, what Asaph says is, don't live for the dream, live for real things, live for eternal things. So he says, verse 22, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. Yet I'm always with you. You hold me now by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel afterward, you will take me into glory. I was like a beast before you. Beasts don't think much about the future. They think about the present.

Here's the other thing. Beasts don't typically love you for you. They love you because of what you can do for them.

I mean, there's some of you with dogs that really offends you, but you know, it's typically a dog or any animal is more interested in what you can do for them than they are in your personality. And what he says is, I've been treating God in ways that I would hate to be treated as a person. I mean, what if you found out, what if your dad was like really rich and people are kind of becoming your friend and somebody shows a romantic interest in you and you find out it really has nothing to do with you. It's that they want your dad to do something for them. You would feel used.

You would feel rightly angered. And Asaph says, that's exactly how I've been treating God. He's not been beautiful to me.

He's been useful to me and I've been like a beast to him. So he begins to pray who I really have in heaven, but you, who do I have in heaven, but you and then on earth, there's nothing I desire besides you, the riches that I want and I need are in you. It's not just that I'm excited that one day I'm going to get my Mercedes Benz. No, it's that when I get to heaven, I'm going to be with you because what makes heaven heaven is not a Mercedes.

What makes heaven heaven is my merciful father and I already got you here on earth, which means that already on earth, I got the best part of heaven in my heart. Even if I'm not fully in his presence yet, and that's the secret to the Christian's joy. Yes, life is fraught with pain. Yes, there's lots of disappointment, but I got something that's better than anything life can give and the death can't take away.

Here's the question. Do you believe that Jesus really is better than anything else life can give or do you believe he's something that's better than whatever death can take away? Because if so, then you'll start to look at pain in your life differently. I've told you the story before about Joni Eareckson-Tada, a quadriplegic who lost complete control of her arms and her legs in a diving accident she had when she was a teenager. She said, now as a much older lady, she said, I am okay with losing the use of my hands and my feet for the last 60 years.

And listen to this, I would not change a thing because that accident brought me nearer to God. Can you say that from your wheelchair? Can you say, thank God that I lost the use of all this because it gave my heart something that was better than anything else life can give? How about this?

Can you say that when your kid's in a wheelchair? Can you say, you know what, if God's going to use this to teach them more about his grace and his mercy, then we'll learn to even give thanks for the things in our life that are painful because they are gateways for us to know him. Suffering drives you like a hammer on a nail deeper into God's love. Suffering will drive you like a hammer on a nail deeper into God's love. Envy or anger at God can reveal to you how dissatisfied you are with him and how unbelieving you are about his goodness.

Here's the summary of the psalm to quote John Piper. Jesus really is better than anything life can give to us, and he's better than anything that death can take away from us. Do you believe that?

Do you believe that? There's a missionary named Alan Gardner, lived in the early 1800s. Now, a long time ago, but there's an island off the coast of South America that was unevangelized, and he wanted to carry the gospel to him. So he, with one other guy, went on a ship down to this island, and they were supposed to be followed by only two days by a ship that had all their supplies.

And so they arrived on this island, but the other ship never showed up, and so, essentially, they starved to death. About three months later, they found Alan Gardner's body, and beside his starved body, he was his journal, open journal, and the last entry he had written into his journal had a reference, Psalm 34, 10, and he had written out, I am overwhelmed with the sense of the goodness of God. Can you say that when your ship does not show up? Can you say, I am still convinced of the goodness of God, because the goodness of God is not given to me primarily as a ship that comes in, it's given to me in the presence of himself, and the promises that he will never take away. Seemingly unanswered prayer can be God's invitation to press more deeply into him. We sometimes look bewildered into heaven and say, God, why didn't you answer this prayer? Let me use a story from the, kind of the, one of the heroes of prayer, George Mueller.

Anybody that's into prayer will talk about George Mueller. He lived back in the 1800s. He got these stunning, remarkable answers to prayer.

Just, I mean, it's truly bizarre, you should read his biography, but he ran an orphanage. More than once, he would, in front of the orphanage, would say, not have any food for the orphans, and he would stand up with them on the, you know, around the table with nothing on the table. He's like, we're going to thank God for the food that's not here, because God promised he's going to supply it. And he would thank God, and before the prayer was over, more than once, somebody would knock at the door. It was a baker with bread or, you know, some other milk.

I'm like, hey, we just want to come give this to you. Just amazing. Everybody knows those stories about George Mueller. The one they don't know is that when he was in his late 40s, early 50s, his wife contracted rheumatic fever. And so he prayed for God to do a miracle, that God would heal her of rheumatic fever, because she was his number one kind of help in the ministry that he did. He prayed earnestly, but God didn't heal her.

She died. But the last verse he read to her on her deathbed was Psalm 84-11. No good thing will he ever withhold from those whose walk is blameless. So he said, sweetheart, if God's good plan included you getting healed, then he would give it. But if not, then I know that he's got a better plan. And my trust and your trust in God is not conditioned on what he gives or doesn't give in terms of a physical health. Our trust in him is gifted on or built on the fact that he gave himself to us in the cross of Jesus Christ.

And he will never take that away. You see, at some point, life is going to lay you on your back, if it has not already. And lying there on your back, you're going to have to ask, is God really good or is he not?

When the job doesn't come through, right, when the body doesn't get better, when the cough doesn't go away, you're going to say, do I really trust him? You're going to say, is his presence and his promise, are they enough for me when what I thought was going to happen didn't happen? Do I really trust that he's guiding me with his right hand?

His right hand, by the way, means his hand of strength. That promise, he will guide you with his right hand, is found 166 times in the Bible. Will you believe that God is guiding you with his right hand in every situation?

That there's not one stray molecule that is out of place? That he will sustain you? He will never let you fall? He will never let you perish? You want to know why the psalmist says he believes it?

I think the answer hinges on one little word you read right over top of, but you got to notice it. It's back in verse 22. Verse 22, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a bruised beast before you. Yet, that's it, that's the word, yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand yet, even after I was beastly toward you. Somehow, you didn't leave me, you held me.

Even when I didn't trust you, when I didn't think you were good enough, you kept holding on with your right hand of strength, even when I put a nail through it. Because he would rather go to the cross and be humiliated and tortured than lose you. That's how great his love is for you.

And see, that makes him more desirable to you than anything else on earth. Because he says, where else am I going to go on earth to find that kind of love? Where do I find that kind of love that would never be taken away? Well, who do I have in heaven but you? There's nobody that loves me this way. There's nobody on earth that loves me this way. So nothing I desire is more than you.

You really are better than anything else life could give to me. You're more secure than anything that death could take away from me. You see, it turns out that the antidote to envy and doubt, which again are the same thing, is going to be two things that you see in this psalm. The answer to envy and doubt is faith and humility.

Faith means you believe in the extravagant goodness of God, which was demonstrated at the cross. Humility realizes how unworthy and how undeserving you are of that love. And when you are overwhelmed with humility, and when you believe in the God that revealed himself on the cross, then envy and doubt will disappear like the morning mist.

Now notice his conclusion. Here's how he ends the psalm. Verse 27, those who are far from you will perish. You destroy all who are unfaithful to you. He ends this psalm basically by asking this question.

Listen to this. He ends by basically saying, if not Jesus, who? Where are you going to turn? Saint Augustine, 1500 years ago, talking about this psalm. He said, if you don't like God's answers in the psalm, which sometimes you don't, like I want to see it now. He's like, okay, we'll turn to your God for deliverance on the day of trouble. Oh, you say, Augustine said, oh, you say, I don't have a God. I am my own God.

Fine. Turn to yourself on the day of calamity that you know it's coming. Because death comes for us all. And in that day, why don't you turn to yourself to deliver you?

The way I've described it to you before is like this. It's kind of like when you go into that hospital room and you're lying on that gurney and they're taking you in for open heart surgery. And we, your family and friends, we're going to gather around your bed, before they will you in the room, and we're going to lie to you. You know, we're lying to you and we know you're lying to you. Because we're going to look at you and we're going to say, Hey, we're with you.

We're with you. And you know, that's not true. Cause when they put the strap, a little mask of you and you go under, we're all staying up and we're drinking coffee in the waiting room. And when they pull out that knife and they start to cut through your chest, they ain't cutting into our chest, they're cutting into yours.

They're cutting into yours. And in that moment, unless you have a God that is bigger than life, a God that is stronger than death, alive in your heart and in your soul, then in that moment, you are utterly and totally alone. And so the Psalmist says, where else am I going to go? Because there's nowhere I can go.

You're the one. You're the only one that's stronger than death. The way it reminded me of when Jesus gave a very unsatisfactory answer to his disciples, they were asking a bunch of questions and Jesus gave the answer. And they're like, we don't like that answer. So a bunch of them left and Jesus turned to the 12 and he's like, you're going to go away also? And the apostle Peter, in one of his few shining moments in the life of Jesus, looks at Jesus and is like, where else are we going to go? You're the only ones with the words of eternal life. I don't like your answer.

It kind of makes me mad. I wish you did it differently. I don't know where else to go though, because only you have the power to overcome death. You're the guy we saw walking on the waves. If you're going to walk on the waves and you can raise people from the dead, I'm sticking with you. That's the question you got is where else are you going to turn? Where else have you seen a God love you like that?

Where else have you seen a God raise himself from the dead? If not Jesus, then who? What are you going to turn to?

Where are you going to go in the day of trouble? And the Psalmist says, doubt. Doubt has driven me to you. To follow Jesus doesn't mean that you cease to doubt. It doesn't mean that you can explain everything.

You can explain everything. To follow Jesus simply means that you come to the conviction that it's worth it. That there's no other alternatives. And that one day, here's what faith is. Faith is acting in a way today that you know one day you'll be glad that you did.

It means you don't understand everything now, but one day you will. And you're enduring things now because of the treasure that God has given in you. That's the invitation of Psalm 73. Are you ready to respond to that invitation today? If you've never trusted God with your life, we would love to help you take that first step of faith.

Send an email to requests at jdgrier.com or call us at 866-335-5220. And we'll connect you with some resources to help you get started on this journey of faith. So in addition to these broadcasts, we've also got a lot of other resources on our website, right, JD?

Yeah, and even some new resources. You can now sign up for our brand new daily devotional that'll get delivered right to your inbox every day. Something short that I've written that goes along with whatever teaching you're hearing on Summit Life.

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Or you can give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, inviting you to join us again Friday when we continue our series called The Whole Story on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.