Is God Enough? - Psalm 73

Intro

New series. Walk, communicate, multiply. This is walk. 2 Corinthians 5:7, “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 4:18 “as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

We, as men and women of God, walk by faith and not by sight.

Title: “Is God Enough?” This is, in some sense, the pinnacle question for the Christian, of all who choose to live by faith. Is He enough? Will I set my heart’s allegiance and devotion to Him over and above anyone and anything else? Depending on how you answer determines if you are someone of faith. It’s the pinnacle question.

But it’s also a provocative question, and somewhat confrontational. Immediately as I wrestle with that question, I’m confronted with my own inadequacies in answering it successfully for myself and my own hypocrisy in how I answer versus how I act in life.

Personal: I’ve been dealing recently with medical anxiety, it becoming so overwhelming to me at times that it’s been hard for me to even go to routine doctor’s appointments without becoming overcome by it. Fearing that the doctor might hand down to me at any moment some devastating health verdict, I’m confronted with this question, “Is God enough?” Even then, is He enough?

What about for you? What are the times or the moments in your life when you feel most confronted by this question? Maybe it’s having to face up to and deal with that person who has really hurt you, maybe it’s a recent breakup that’s just been overwhelming for you. Maybe there’s that nagging sense of failure in your life related to a specific sin or a bad decision you made that’s just had a big, negative effect on you. Maybe it’s a souring family or friend relationship. Student leader, maybe it’s a ministry effort you tried to start or lead out in, or a spiritual conversation you tried to step forward and have with a friend that just went poorly and you’ve been discouraged and second-guessing everything. All of us have those moments when we have to face up to a question like this.

With what we’ll look at this evening, I read in Psalm 73:25-26 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” And you think, has this person lived an ounce of time on earth? Like, what profound worship that it can sometimes be hard to relate to.

Like, yes, I want to sing this. And I do, genuinely, at times. “Is God enough for me?” Yes, sometimes. Maybe even most of the times I think I do answer “yes!” but I also still have to go to the doctor’s office. You still have to face up to that person who hurt you, or that failure, or whatever it might be.

Well as profound of worship as this is in verses 25-26, it doesn’t start there. This Psalmist has a starting place that’s a bit closer to where you and I might feel like we’re at...

Body.

Psalm 73:1-2, “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.”

Truly. God’s goodness to His people is a sure thing, right? But as for me, I was slipping in my confidence of His goodness. I was struggling to believe that He is good and worthy of my following.

Here’s this truth that he knows he is to believe, but when he brings it into his reality, into his current life and circumstances, he says, “God, I’m struggling.”

Men and women, how is your walk by faith? Are there things, likewise, that God is calling you to believe and hold to and do that you are slipping in confidence toward?

You know that God calls His people toward a specific sexual ethic, but you still recognize and feel lured toward same-sex attraction or wanting to sleep around with your girlfriend. You know that God calls His people to forgive and pray for their enemies but you’re struggling with bitterness and resentment. You know that you are commanded to be joyful in the Lord but can’t shake the depression and anxiety that often grips you.

“Truly God is good, but as for me, I don’t know. I’m struggling to believe that.” Why?

Psalm 73:3 “For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”

And then one-by-one, line-by-line, he lists off all the ways that those around him who aren’t walking by faith seem to be living perfectly content lives.

Psalm 73:4-11, “For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind… Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice; … They set their mouths against the heavens… And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?””

Talk about a hard truth to embrace: are you willing to acknowledge and be OK with the often hard reality that those who don’t know Jesus and live in honor to him might be doing just fine in life? “They’re fat and sleek, they’ve got food, they’ve got money, they have no suffering, they even mock God and keep going on living perfectly content lives.”

You look at this campus around you and you might begin to see and question the same thing. Like, there aren’t 18,000 RIT students showing up here on a Friday night. There aren’t 18,000 students trying to walk by faith and honor God and not sleep around with their boyfriend or girlfriend and who don’t wake up before their classes to read the Bible and spend time with God and live their lives in honor and integrity to Him.

And we just get confused when we try and package the gospel as, “all of your heart’s desires are met in Jesus!” and they say, “no thanks, I’m actually doing just fine.” “But no, you’ve got sadness in your life, you’ve got discontentment deep down, I know it!” “No, I’m actually pretty good, thanks!”

It can be confusing, can’t it? Does it lead you to say as Psalm 73:13, “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.”

What if the calling of God on your life, and His norms and ethics and ways, doesn’t actually translate to too much tangible good in this life. “Is God still enough?” What if God never actually did promise to take away the pains and the hurts and the anxieties and the heartaches. “Is God still enough?”

If you relate to this, as I’m sure we all do at times and seasons in our life, be thankful for the fact that the Bible is strikingly honest and candid.

“All in vain...” Doesn’t this seem like a far cry from the Psalmist of verses 25-26? “My portion forever is you, God!” What changed, in a matter of a few verses, that caused him to go from, “is this worth it?” to “He is enough.”

There is a pivot point in this Psalm, and in this Psalmist’s perspective. Psalm 73:16-17, “But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.”

Do you know what changed? His perspective on eternity. All along, he has had his eyes on everyone and everything except the Lord! “The sanctuary of God” is gazing upon God and His glory and His promises and His cross, all in His Word. And when he did, the Psalmist is saying the problems that I’m seeing begin to fade and some perspective began to enter in.

Men and women, how often do you acknowledge that there is a whole eternity to come after this life that we must account for? That there is, in this life, a thousand things vying for your attention and affection, vying for your gaze, but walking by faith is fueled only by turning your gaze from them to Him; from this life to the life to come.

Only then did things begin to make sense for him. Psalm 73:18-19, “Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!” Eternity caught them by surprise. But what about you? Will you be caught by surprise?

Do you know and believe that there is a whole eternity after this life, and the God who dwells in that eternity created you and will hold you accountable? But that same God, He loves you and wants to redeem you through the person and work of Jesus?

And that truth should color and shape every aspect of your life. This is what it means to walk by faith. Living your life in light of eternity should affect who you are friends with, what you spend your money on, what you do on a Sunday morning. It should affect your sexual ethics and your work ethic and your what “causes” you do and do not fight for in life. That’s a life lived in view of eternity. You cling to God and know it’s not in vain.

Psalm 73:23-24, “Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.” You hold me, you guide me, you receive me. If you are sitting here thinking I’ve botched it; I’ve messed up. I haven’t been walking by faith. My gaze hasn’t been on the Lord. My God hasn’t been enough for me. Don’t miss this: the Lord clings to you tighter than you cling to Him because faith isn’t ultimately about your strength but His.

So in the midst of all the pain and all the darkness and all the hurt and all the unmet longings of this life and all the taking-up-your-cross-daily, you can scrounge up the faith even of a mustard seed and say, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

This is the anthem of those of us who walk by faith because we know that truly God is good, and he clings to us, and he has shown his love for us most supremely at the cross, where though we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Closing.

Let me end with 2 encouragements from the last 2 verses:

Psalm 73:27, “For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.” If you are here and you are not yet a Christian, let me ask you: what’s to come for you? What are you expecting after this life is over? Have you measured your days according to eternity, knowing that there is a God who created you and to whom you will be held accountable?

What better time than now, here in college, to give your live to Him and begin walking by faith not in what is seen and temporary but what is unseen and eternal. What better time than now?

Psalm 73:28, “But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.” If you are a Christian, keep casting your eyes to Him, the founder and perfecter of your faith. Keep clinging, keep trusting, keep walking by faith seeking to be near Him, making Him your refuge, and keep believing that resoundingly, a thousand times over, God is enough.

Pray.