Sermon Tone Analysis

SLIDE - Toolman

Topics: Perspective; intimacy with God

Tags: Rollercoaster: Overcoming your Emotions

Delivered: July 10, 2011 (Peace Church, Wilson, NC)

Crash and Burn

ATT

You recognize him as Tim the Toolman Taylor or “Santa Claus.”

Whatever the movie or TV show, you can bet that wherever Tim is, laughter is soon to follow.

But, like every comedian, comedy can be a cover for a wounded heart.

Tim’s wound came when he was 11 years old.

His father was driving home from a college football game when a drunk driver barreled into the family car.

Tim says that this, of course, changed everything forever.

In a 2012 interview he said:

Part of me still doesn't trust that everything will work out all right.

I knew my father was dead, but I was never satisfied with why he was dead.

I wanted answers that minute from God. (I wanted to say)"Do you think this is funny?

Do you think this is necessary?"

And listen to how he concludes.

He said: And I've had a tumultuous relationship with my creator ever since.

Can you relate to Tim? You’re just living your life and everything seems to be going ok, but totally out of the blue, disaster steps in.

It may be a wayward son or daughter, an unfaithful spouse, a close friend who disappoints us, the loss of a job, financial reversal, an unexpected, unfavorable diagnosis, or any number of other unwanted disappointments that bring us crashing back to earth.

And we wake up afraid, confused, hurt, and yes, even angry.

And, no matter what we try, we can’t seem to regain our relationship with God like we used to have it.

NEED

Well if this describes your position today, let me say that I sympathize with your pain and I can even understand your disillusionment, but I am also concerned for your well being.

For you see, it is in these crash and burn times of life when we are at our lowest point, that the tempter, our arch enemy, Satan whispers lies like: If God really loved you, how could He let this happen; or if Christianity is really legitimate and if God’s power is real, how could such a spiritual person in whom you had so much confidence have fallen; or if God owns everything why are you suffering need when those who don’t really love God seem to have everything they want?

And we may find ourselves tempted to a very corrosive and destructive emotion: Bitterness.

It is that stuffed down resentment that corrodes the soul and robs life of its joy.

Honestly, of all the negative emotions we have discussed, I really think that bitterness and disappointment may be one of the toughest to overcome.

That’s why I am so glad that God’s word is honest when it comes to talking about our feelings.

You cannot read the Psalms without encountering the deepest of emotions, expressed honestly and without fear.

In we see a person, Asaph, who has obviously encountered one of these deep disappointments.

If the caption of this Psalm is correct, this is Asaph, the worship leader who is writing.

He was an important musician and worshiper of God.

But in this psalm, he’s lost his song.

He opens up with refreshing honesty and allows us to look into his heart.

There is no attempt to hide his bitterness or to sugar coat his pain with spiritual cliches.

And more than anything the story of Asaph has something to offer you if you are in the valley of bitterness today: Asaph offers your HOPE!

Read this text with me:  Read

This psalm points out a great truth about bitterness and how you can overcome it: The truth is, bitterness is a result of your perspective on life.

How you see your life and your situation will greatly determine how you feel about it.

So how can you keep the kind of perspective that steels your heart against bitterness no matter your circumstances?

Well, there are some truths about the importance of perspective that you have to understand.

In the first place:

D1:

WRONG PERSPECTIVE CREATES BITTERNESS

EXP

Whatever you might say about this worshiper, Asaph, you have to say that he seems to have developed a decidedly bitter heart.

Now we don’t know what caused Asaph’s great disillusionment, but it does seem that something traumatic had happened to him.

In verse 2 He says: “My feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.”

Asaph says that on the slick slope of great disappointment his spiritual feet had almost slipped.

In other words he was saying “I was like a drowning man going down for the third time.

I was tired of serving God when it didn’t seem to pay.

I was tired of going to church when no one else seemed to think it was important.

I was tired of giving my tithe when others kept theirs and could afford to build bigger homes and drive fancier cars and send their kids to college.

I had had enough!”

What was wrong with this guy?

Wasn’t he the psalmist?

Hadn’t he wrote many words of praise and adoration to God/ how could such a man of god come to this place in his life?

Look at verse3: Hey, what’s wrong Asaph?

Why have you become so disillusioned?

Why are you bitter?

He says,

“I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”

Uh, oh! Asaph is looking around him and, when he does, his perspective gets redirected and he becomes focused on the wrong things.

And he demonstrates this truth:

When you have the wrong perspective, you will reach the wrong conclusion.

Now Asaph had the wrong perspective.

Does that ever happen to you?

Say, does that ever bother you?

Does it bother you to see millionaires that live in open sin day after day after day and just get wealthier and wealthier?

Does it bother you to see senators in congress peddle their influence for money and then lie or buy their way to freedom when they are called on the carpet?

Does it bother you when businessmen, by hook or crook, find a way to avoid paying thousands of dollars in taxes when the IRS hassles you for making an honest $50 mistake?

Well old Asaph was having a problem with the rich and the famous.

He had suffered a great disappointment which had led to disillusionment and now the very core of all he believed was on the verge of collapse.

His faith was faltering and as you read on in this Psalm, you see why.

Verse 4: He says of the wicked:

You see, Asaph’s wrong perspective was the result of his misguided sight.

Whatever he had experienced had caused him to take his eyes off of the Lord and begin to look at those around him and Asaph didn’t like what he saw!

It always happens!

When you take your eyes off of god, and you no longer view your world through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, your vision becomes cloudy.

You are blind to the goodness of God and blinded by the injustice of this world.

You can tell that Asaph was having eye trouble in verses 4-11.

Listen to what he says of the wicked: In verse 4 he says that they have no struggles; in verse 5 he says they are free from the burdens common to man; in verse 6 he calls them proud and violent; in verse 9 he indicates that they seem to respect or answer to no one in heaven or in earth.

They are totally free, totally happy, totally healthy, totally lawless, totally unaccountable.

It’s as if they are living their lives as they please and God can’t do one thing about it.

Now I ask you, was Asaph right?

No! Absolutely Not!

There are plenty of millionaires who die of cancer.

There are plenty of rich playboys who are lonely.

And there are plenty of work-a-holics on Wall Street who will one day wake up and wish to God that they would have made more time for their children instead of making money for their retirement accounts.

Certainly the wicked suffer just like you do.

They will die one day just like you, but when we are blinded by disillusionment and we lose sight of God we begin to see things that aren’t there and the wrong perspective leads us to the wrong conclusion.

It happened to Asaph.

His situation led him to take his eyes off of God.

His misguided sight has now led him to incorrectly conclude in

13: “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.

You see Asaph has begun to doubt the value of godliness.

In essence he was saying, “Why should I do right?

The righteous life is one big joke.