Faith under Fire (Psalm 73)

Find your Faltering, Flickering, Fading Faith under Fire: "...till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood …" (Ps 73:17).

A. Faith professed (Ps 73:1). God is good.

B. Faith questioned (Ps 73:2-14). The evil of envy.

C. Faith refocused (Ps 73:15-20). A new perspective.

B1. Faith unquestioned (Ps 73:21-26). Guided by God's counsel.

A1. Faith affirmed (Ps 73:27-28). God's closeness is good.

5 books of Psalms corresponding to the Torah:

1. Book 1 (1-41). Genesis. Songs of relationship...with God.
2. Book 2 (42-72). Exodus. Songs of redemption...delivernace by God.
3. Book 3 (73-89). Leviticus. Songs of refuge. Sanctuary of God. [reflection]
4. Book 4 (90-106). Numbers. Songs of repercussion. Rebellion...against God.
5. Book 5 (107-150). Deuteronomy. Songs of revival. Renewal with God.

A. Faith professed (Ps 73:1). God is good. Never doubt the goodness of God.

1. What is the psalmist's foundational belief and profession of faith (Ps 73:1)? Is this the main theme of Psalm 73?
• Why is God good to Israel (Gen 12:2-3)? Is God good to you? Why (Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 4:8, 16)?
• What does it mean to be "pure in heart" (Mt 5:8; Dt 6:4-5; 2 Pet 2:14)? What did Kierkegaard say?
• Is everyone in church "pure in heart"?

B. Faith questioned (Ps 73:2-14). The evil of envy.

1. What did the psalmist see (Ps 73:3) that caused him to almost lose his faith (Ps 73:2, 4ff)?
   • What does envy and jealousy do to a person (Ps 73:2; Gen 3:1, 4-5)?
   • What causes envy (Gal 5:19-21; Rom 6:12-13; Rom 8:5-6)?
• Do they seem to die peacefully surrounded by loved ones (Ps 73:4)?
• What do they not seem to face (Ps 73:5)?
• What do they not hesitate to display (Ps 73:6)?
2. What is their appearance (Ps 73:7a)? Their thought world (Ps 73:7b; Rom 1:21)?
• Their speech and lifestyle (Ps 73:8-9)?
• Their influence (Ps 73:10)?
• Their thoughts about God (Ps 73:11, 9)?
• Their net worth (Ps 73:12)?
3. Compared to the wicked, what did the psalmist think about the way he lived (Ps 73:13)?
• How did he feel about his life (Ps 73:14)?
• What does "heart" and "hands" suggest?
• What caused him to think and feel like this (Job 1:9; 2:9)?

C. Faith refocused (Ps 73:15-20). Find a new perspective.

1. Despite his inner conflict, struggle and torment (Ps 73:16), who was he concerned about (Ps 73:15)? Why (Jn 13:34; Mt 18:6; Rom 14:13, 15, 21; 1 Cor 8:11-13)?
2. How does his view of God (Ps 73:17) differ from the wicked (Ps 73:11)? What did he discover and understand (Ps 73:17b)?
3. What is the ultimate destiny of the wicked (Ps 73:18-20, 27; 1:6; Dan 12:2; Mt 7:23; 25:12)?

B1. Faith unquestioned (Ps 73:21-26). Go with your gut to God.

1. When he thought of himself with envy and self-pity (Ps 73:2-3, 13), what did he realize about himself (Ps 73:21-22; 49:12; 92:6; Prov 30:2; 2 Pet 2:12)? Was he different from the wicked (Rom 7:24; Gen 6:5; Isa 59:2; Jer 17:9)?
2. When illuminated what did he realize about God (Ps 73:23; Jn 6:39; 10:28)?
3. How is his future difference from the wicked (Ps 73:24, 17-20)?
• What does it mean to be taken "into glory" (Gen 5:24; 2 Ki 2:1, 3, 5, 9, 10)?
4. How should Christians discipline themselves living in this world (Ps 73:25-26; 1 Jn 2:15-17; 1 Pet 1:3-4)?

A1. Faith affirmed (Ps 73:27-28). Being close to God is good.

1. Why is it good to be near God (Ps 73:28)? What does it mean to make God your refuge? How do you do that?

Find your Faith that is Faltering and Flickering under Fire (Psalm 73) [When your faith is challenged]. Psalm 73 explores themes of faith, envy, and the ultimate justice of God. It highlights the challenge of faith when confronted with the visible success of the wicked, and the ultimate goodness, faithfulness and justice of God.

• Ps 73:1; Mt 5:8. What does it mean to be "pure in heart"? Pure means more than clean-minded, though it certainly includes it (2 Pet 2:14). Basically it is being totally committed to God. "heart" occurs 6x in this psalm (Ps 73:1, 7, 13, 21, 26 [twice]). 
• Ps 73:2-3. The evil of envy. The psalmist is refreshingly frank for his crisis of faith (Ps 73:2). He confesses to envy and to only judging what he saw (Ps 73:3). Spiritual self-interest and self-pity drains all the joy out of your life, making it impossible to enjoy what you have. The power of envy made even the Garden of Eden feel that it was not enough (Gen 3:1, 4-5).
• Ps 73:4-9. The sound and sleek. The elites, the beautiful people, have healthy, sleek bodies, which they display dauntingly (Ps 73:4) and arrogantly (Ps 73:6, 8). They have wealth and power to avoid the burdensome responsibilities most people face (Ps 73:5, 12). They are fortunate, but they take full credit for it (Ps 73:6, 8). The world considers them "blessed." Their vanity is intimidating, limitless, overblown, overweening and oppressive (Ps 73:7). The root for their arrogance is that they see no need for God, while laying claim to both heaven and earth (Ps 73:9).
• Ps 73:10-14. Do I get anything for being godly? Am I being godly for nothing? In the world sin seems to pay off and is even well thought of, even by the godly who are drawn to it and even seduced by it (Ps 73:10). It is the worship of success and wealth. It unmasks the psalmist's heart. His obedience was not a way of pleasing God but rather a means of getting God to give him what he wants and expects. God has become just a necessary apparatus for his own gain and benefit. In every difficult situation, God is saying, "Are you serving Me for Me or for something else?" As Satan says to God, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" (Job 1:9).
• Ps 73:15-20. The dawn of truth. Turn from self-interest (Ps 73:3) and self-pity (Ps 73:13) to remember basic responsibilities and loyalties (Ps 73:15). Though the psalmist had no answer from God (Ps 73:16), the shift of attention released him from fixation on those who prosper and succeed in the world (Ps 73:3-5, 9, 12). The first step out of the sinkhole of resentment and envy is to enter the presence of God with His long-term perspective (Ps 73:17): the rich without God will be eternally poor (Ps 73:18); the celebrities without God who receive all the attention of the world will one day be ignored (Ps 73:18-19). All the world's power and wealth are like a dream. They can neither enhance nor ruin a Christian's deepest identity, happiness and inheritance.
• Ps 73:21-26. Self-awareness and future confidence. The antidote for envy and self-pity is humility. The psalmist knew that his sin hurt him (Ps 73:2, 13) and others (Ps 73:15). Finally he saw he had been as arrogant toward God as the people he despised. There is in us a fierce, instinctive self-will as unthinking and inhuman as that of a wild beast (Ps 73:21-22). Deep in us something snarls, "No one tells me what to do." Only by admitting this darkness within can the glorious word of grace--"yet" (Ps 73:23)--dawn on him. God will never let him go. Only when we see the depth of our sin will we be electrified by the wonder of grace.
• Ps 73:27-28. The certainty of personal conviction. 

Sadness:

• "Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness is the roots. Happiness is the branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth." - Osho

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes and say, 'O God, forgive me,' or 'Help me.'" - Billy Graham

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." - Psalm 46:1 (The Bible)

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." - Kahlil Gibran

"Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with." - Mark Twain

"The sun never stops shining, sometimes you just have to look beyond the clouds to see it." - Unknown

"Even in the darkest moments, God is there. He is our comforter, our healer, and our hope." - Rick Warren

Sadness, Sorrow and Suffering:

1. "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." - Rumi
2. "Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter." - Rumi
3. "Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy." - Rumi
4. "Our faith is strengthened, and our character is tempered when we endure suffering and pain with an unwavering trust in God's goodness." - Charles Stanley
5. "God sometimes takes us into troubled waters, not to drown us but to cleanse us." - Author Unknown
6. "The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing." - A.W. Tozer

"God is the God of the valleys. And sometimes it's in the valleys, I've learned, that He teaches us the most about Himself." - Louie Giglio

"Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised." - Joni Eareckson Tada

"There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still." - Corrie ten Boom

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." - Kahlil Gibran

"Sorrow with God’s help can be the means of much good." - Charles Spurgeon

"Our joy does not come from the absence of suffering but from the presence of God." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"The Christian often tried to hold on to both heaven and earth; but our Lord Himself, in His greatest agony, let go of heaven for us, and let go of His hold on the earth, that He might draw us to Himself." - Horatius Bonar

"The cross is the suffering love of God, the only love that can and will suffer to all eternity." - George MacDonald

"Sorrow comes in great waves... but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us. And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain." - Henry James

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." - Kahlil Gibran

"God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars." - Martin Luther

"Suffering is the heritage of the bad, of the penitent, and of the Son of God. Each one ends in the cross. The bad thief is crucified, the penitent thief is crucified, and the Son of God is crucified." - Oswald Chambers in Christian Discipline.

"The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God!" - Fyodor Dostoevsky

"God's mercy is so great that you may sooner drain the sea of its water, or deprive the sun of its light, or make space too narrow, than diminish the great mercy of God." - Charles Spurgeon

"The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh." - Jonathan Edwards

"God uses suffering to purge our pride and our self-sufficiency, to show us our desperate need for Him, and to drive us to a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him." - Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Pain and Suffering (Reasons for and why):

1. "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." - C.S. Lewis
2. "Suffering is the heritage of the bad, of the penitent, and of the Son of God. Each one ends in the cross. The bad thief is crucified, the penitent thief is crucified, and the Son of God is crucified." - Blaise Pascal
3. "The great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go, God's love for us does not." - C.S. Lewis
4. "Suffering is part of the divine mystery. It is not a punishment or a curse, but a grace. It is an opportunity to access God in the most intimate way." - Richard Rohr
5. "The suffering of the world is not the failure of God's love for us; it is the revelation of God's love for us." - Stanley Hauerwas
6. "Suffering is not an elective, it is a core course. It's not an exception, it is the norm." - Timothy Keller
7. "Suffering is not an elective. It's not an option. It's not a choice. But how we respond to it is." - Tim Keller
8. "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." - Kahlil Gibran
9. "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." - Helen Keller
10. "Suffering is part of the divine idea." - Charles Spurgeon
11. "God is the comfort of the distressed, the light of those in darkness, and the relief of those who are suffering." - Saint Augustine
12. "The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing." - A.W. Tozer
13. "God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love." - C.S. Lewis
    
    
14. "When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly." - Edward Teller
    
    "God has not promised to keep us from pain, but He has promised to be with us in it." - Max Lucado
    
    "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Confucius
    
    "Suffering, in one form or another, is inevitable. But how we respond to it can transform our lives and the lives of others." - John Piper
    
    

Faith:

• "The state of the heart determines whether a man lives in the truth, in which God's goodness is experienced, or in the semblance of truth, where the fact that it 'goes ill' with him is confused with the illusion that God is not good to him" (Martin Buber, Right and Wrong, 1952).
• "Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times." - Martin Luther.
• "Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation." - Andrew Murray
• "Faith is unseen but felt, faith is strength when we feel we have none, faith is hope when all seems lost." - Catherine Pulsifer
• "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King Jr. 
• "Faith is believing BEFORE what will only make sense AFTER." - Romans 8:31, 28; Gen 50:20.
• "Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them." - Alistair Begg
• "Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light." - Helen Keller
• "Faith is like radar that sees through the fog -- the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see." - Corrie Ten Boom
• "God will always be with you, even in the darkest storms."
• "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods." - C.S. Lewis

The psalmist is struggling with envy and bitterness as he observes the apparent prosperity of the wicked.

What is the initial declaration about God's character in Psalm 73:1, and how does it contrast with the psalmist's own experience and feelings?

How does the psalmist describe the prosperity and circumstances of the wicked in Psalm 73:3-12?

What are the specific behaviors and attitudes of the wicked, as mentioned in these verses?

What impact does the prosperity of the wicked have on the psalmist's faith and perspective, as seen in Psalm 73:2, 13?

How does the psalmist describe his own experience and struggles in these verses?

What emotions and inner turmoil does the psalmist express regarding the apparent success of the wicked?

How does the psalmist's experience in these verses reflect common struggles with envy and doubt in our own lives?

What do you think the psalmist is wrestling with in terms of his faith and understanding of God's justice and goodness?  

What is the turning point in the psalmist's perspective, and how does he find resolution to his doubts?

1. What foundational belief do we see Asaph holds in verse 1? (Psalm 73:1)
2. In what way had Asaph almost stumbled? (Psalm 73:2-3)
3. What lesson do we learn from this about where to search for answers to life's tough questions? (Psalm 73:16-17)
4. What answer did Asaph discover to this problem? (Psalm 73:17-20)
5. What will finally happen to the wicked? When will this happen? Who will cause it to happen? (Psalm 73:18-19, 27)
6. What do these verses teach us about God's character? (Psalm 73:23-26)
7. How do we see Asaph's attitude changing in verse 22? (Psalm 73:22)
8. How do we see prayer changing his feelings and attitude as he moves through the Psalm? (Psalm 73:28)

The turning point is in Psalm 73:17-20, where the psalmist enters the sanctuary of God and gains a new perspective on the destiny of the wicked.
What does the psalmist ultimately conclude about the fate of the wicked and the righteous?

He concludes that the wicked, despite their apparent prosperity, are on a slippery path towards destruction, while the righteous are held by God and will be ultimately rewarded.
How does the psalmist describe his relationship with God in Psalm 73:23-26?

He describes his nearness to God, acknowledging that God is his strength, portion, and refuge.
What are the psalmist's final thoughts and expressions of faith in Psalm 73:27-28?

The psalmist expresses his commitment to remain near God, to make the Lord his refuge, and to proclaim His deeds.