A Psalm of Comparison

Transcription

1 A Psalm of Comparison Theodore Roosevelt said: What do you think about that statement? Does comparison rob you

2 of joy? Certainly we can relate the feeling of comparing ourselves to others and walking away feeling discouraged and depressed. Usually how this works is that we compare our insiders view of all our problems with everyone else's highlight reel. So, in that case, what we are saying is that unfair comparison will rob you of joy, which honestly is really no comparison at all. Does that mean that all comparison is bad? Is there such a thing as healthy comparison? I think so. Healthy comparison is the kind of comparison that allows you to make good choices. If you are at the supermarket and you are selecting apples, most people take the time to compare. Are there bruises? Are there worm holes? And by comparing, you are able to select the best apples. Comparison is a fabulous tool for helping you make good decisions. Let me illustrate this very principle by comparing different types of comparison. There is a difference between comparing apples at the store and comparing your hair thickness to another person's. You might say, wow that woman is beautiful because she has such thick hair. So you compare your hair thickness to this artificial standard and then conclude that joy is a function of hair thickness and since my hair can never be thick I can never be happy. That kind of thinking is a spiral into the drain of a toilet. It's both untrue and unhealthy. Why? When we compare apples, first of all we are in the position of making a choice and secondly there is an objective standard. When

3 we compare hair, first of all there is no choice and secondly there is not an objectively better version in God's eyes. Now what we come to today is a Psalm that objectively compares wickedness and righteousness. And it's such a helpful comparison because it's not like hair where we have no choice and no objective standard. When it comes to living decisions, every day we both have a choice and there is an objective standard as to what is best for us. There are choices we make that are like choosing soft, wormy apples and choices we make that are like choosing crisp, cold delicious apples. And this Psalm helps us by comparing the difference between choosing righteousness and choosing wickedness. And the goal would be that you look at your choices, compare them and choose what is best! So today we are going to read the Psalm all the way through and then pick out some observations.

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5 Characteristics of the Wicked So let's COMPARE the wicked to RIGHTEOUS by looking at the result of what happens when you choose each one. His love of wickedness removes his fear

6 This first point comes from verse 1 So here transgression is personified as a person that whispers in the ear of the wicked and appeals to him at the deep heart level. Now it's important to make the distinction here between the universal

7 human experience of battling evil and what this Psalm references. All people hear voices of wickedness. Evil ideas enter our minds all the time. It is an evidence of our fallen nature that we entertain thoughts that go against God's nature. However, what's going on here is deeper than that. The idea here is that at the deepest heart level, what resonates, most deeply and meaningfully to the wicked is sin. Beauty doesn't resonate. Self-sacrifice doesn't resonate. Goodness doesn't resonate. Truth doesn't resonate. What really resonates at the deepest heart level, the thing they are after, the thing they believe most deeply will satisfy is evil. Really what the Psalm is saying is that the wicked man loves evil. What defines a man ultimately is what he loves. The wicked are defined by their love of evil. And what I think is interesting is that this has a result. When a man chooses to love evil (and it is a choice), the string-to-hand result of this is that he looses his fear of God. Now we have all done mini-experiments of this. Every time you sin, how close does God feel? When you are engrossed in materialistic thoughts, or when you are consumed by jealousy (which by the way, speaking of comparison, jealousy is simply fear of comparison), or when you are buried idolatry of some kind, when you are consumed by lust of some kind? How close does God feel to you? He feels miles away. He feels make believe. He feels like the most light, insignificant, nonthreatening grasshopper. He's not weighty or compelling or substantial in your thinking. He's nothing. He's dust. People who are sinning will say things like, "I could care less what God thinks."

8 Well that is just objectively stupid. If you agree there is a God, well, then you'd better care what he thinks. You'd better care what he thinks above and beyond what anyone thinks. That's the only person that could possibly matter. You see, sin makes God feel like a mere trifle. Transgression removes the fear of God. And if you sin enough, you not only remove the fear of God, you remove God all together. Eventually, you will become the fool in Psalm 14 and 53 who says, "There is no God." His Self-Flattery Impairs His Self-Assessment So we see that this wicked man's love for evil has removed his fear of God. But there's another thing that happens. His Self-Flattery Impairs His Self-Assessment

9 Notice how he looses the ability to self-assess. He looses it by becoming prideful. The ability to self-assess is directly related with how humble or prideful a man is. Pride is a big deal in the Scriptures. God hates pride in the same way that a relative of an alcoholic hates alcohol. The family member can see how it destroys this person they love. They can see all its nasty effects. But it's invisible to the alcoholic. In the same exact way, pride is noxious, septic poison that destroys a person. Just like an alcoholic, everyone can see it's having this horrible effect, but he can't. He's blind to it. Why? Because he's got the wrong point of reference. If your compass is broken, if your point of reference is broken, you will always assume that you are traveling in the correct direction. You never think to even question it. The point of reference for a prideful person is himself. He's always

10 checking and evaluating the world through that point of reference. This is the light by which and through which he sees the world. I love Proverbs 21.4 in this regard. In the picture painted here, everyone in the world walks around with a lamp, a worldview that reveals reality to you. Well for the wicked, their pride is like their lamp. They see everything in the world by it and through it. What's good for them, what makes sense to them, what benefits them...that's the value structure by which they interpret reality. The bottom line is that self-flattery, pride, egotism, it makes a person blind. Notice how the text says that the flattery of self actually puts a person in a position where he cannot see the ugliness of his sin. "He flatters himself in his own eyes" and that flattering has a result - he cannot see his iniquity and hate it. He's blind to it.

11 Sure he sees what he's doing but he doesn't see it as sin. And he certainly doesn't hate it. You hear people say this all the time. What's the big deal? Why are you all worked up about these things? I think it's a genuine question. He can't see why it's a big deal. What's the big deal with dressing a little edgy? What's the big deal with spending money the way I do? What's the big deal with not forgiving that person? I think it's a genuine question. He can't see it. If he had clearer sight it would be obvious. Have you ever had this happen to yourself where your own pride prevented you from seeing just how ugly you were being? You couldn't even see it. Basically this happens every time you get into an argument where you forget about what's objectively true or false, you just care about winning. At some point the argument shifts from working something out to just plain being mean. That's just pride and in those moments you become immune to your own stink. Pride strips us from the very thing we need to see our own pride. I learned this week about something called the Dunning-Kruger effect, named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University. This describes the phenomena we have all experienced where someone who really knows nothing about a subject, but that doesn't prevent him from feeling he is an expert about a subject. And the researches emphasize that it's really BECAUSE he knows nothing that he feels he's an expert. You might assume that because someone knows nothing they would be very slow to claim any competency but the opposite is usually true. Their ignorance robs them of the very tool they need to accurately self-assess, which

12 invariably leads to a significant overestimation of themselves. Often times we think our cursory understanding of something makes us experts. That's where we get the idea of armchair quarterbacks. One of my favorite quotes of all time. In simple words it's "some people are too ignorant to know how ignorant they are". You've probably heard people say something like, "I've learned enough about chemistry to know how little I really know." or "The more I learn the more I realize what I don't know." That's a statement of humility. The Dunning-Kruger effect could also be called the Psalm 36 effect. This is exactly what verse two is saying. Pride puts us in a position where we feel the need to stop learning and stop listening. Elevating yourself, flattering yourself, telling yourself, I have nothing left to learn, robs you of the ability to learn and robs you of the ability to

13 self-assess. The Psalm says pride prevents sin from being found out and hated. Pride prevents us from seeing the ugliness of sin. If I look at myself and, assume there is nothing wrong, if the compass needle is pointing in the direction that Jason Wolin is perfect, if my point of reference is that there is nothing that needs to change about me but then I see this strange something that looks like there is something wrong with me, you have to find other explanations. I'm not the problem. That's a given. True north is right there - I'm perfect. So it must be other people. It must be my situation. It's the wrong assumptions that prevent you from seeing the real problem. Frankly this ought to scare us. Am I that guy? Am I walking around thinking that I'm all good when in reality everyone can see that I'm prideful. It's like the guy with mustard all over his beard. Whose going to tell him? Am I that guy? Here's how to tell. Be humble. Why don't you ask? Do I have mustard on my beard? Am I prideful? Do I think of myself before others? How do I do that? Do I tend to put myself in first position? In what ways [food example for me. Oxygen mask] Do I tend to dominate the conversation? or maybe it's opposite for you. Is my silence prideful? How does my speech reveal a prideful heart? Do I tend to focus on other's failures? Am I self-righteous in any way? Do I pout if I'm not recognized? Am I overconfident in areas I should not be? Am I defensive? Am I overly concerned about my image? Am I easily wounded?

14 Nancy DeMoss has a great little sheet here. It will be a link in our newsletter this week for this. So we see that the wicked man has no fear of God and cannot accurately self-assess. There is a third thing that happens. His Speech Corrupts His Behavior.

15 I think one of the very interesting things about how God made the human being is how inseparably connected our mouth and our hearts are. We are familiar with the proverb, "out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." But there is an eddy effect that flows the other direction as well. Out of the overflow of the mouth the heart believes. In other words, if we say something long enough, we end up believing it. The mouth has this reinforcing effect on our souls. For example, the longer you lie, the more you believe the lie is actually true. The longer you say that can't do something the more certain is that you won't be able to do it. Or in reverse, the longer you tell others that you are awesome, the more you will believe you are awesome. There is a connection between the mouth and the heart that is mysterious. And here the Psalmist points out that there will be a very negative effect on behavior on the guy who uses his mouth to speak

16 trouble and deceit, namely that he will cease to act wisely and do good. To state this in reverse, wisdom and good deeds are connected to a man who uses his mouth to speak truth. Every time we lie, every time we twist the truth, there will be a behavioral effect, namely, you will stop acting wisely and you will stop doing good. This could easily be an entire sermon series on the ways in which we use our mouth to the end of trouble and deceit. We have become masters at manipulative words, twisting of words, slanting language, shading the truth, omitting very key information, exaggerating the truth. Don't think that just because your deceit worked, and you got away with it that there will be no consequence. According to this text the consequence of deceitful words is the stopping off of doing good and the inability to act wisely. We give up the ability to be wise when we use our words to be deceptive. That's interesting and really important to grasp. Next time you are tempted to twist the truth, ask yourself, "Do I want to be like that wicked man who gives up the ability to act wisely? Do I want to be like that wicked guy who looses the desire to do good? There's a cost to deceit. Really this is just the principle of pride we talked about earlier applied to the tongue. His Conspiring Skews His Trajectory So we see that the choice to pursue wickedness removes a person's

17 fear of God, impairs his self assessment, and corrupts his behavior. We see one more thing. We are focusing on the phrase "sets himself in a way" that's the idea of trajectory.

18 It says that this by plotting and scheming he is set on a path that is not good. This verse paints in our head the picture of a man who is lying on his bed consumed with plotting and planning his next move. And the point of the verse is that the very act of plotting and scheming gets him started down a road that's not good, a road that will be very hard to turn away from, a road that will be hard to reject. Once the decision is made to be a plotter, to be a deceiver, to be a schemer, you can't easily change trajectories. That's why the verse says "he sets himself in a way that is not good." There are certain types of behavior that become very hard to reverse. For example, if you choose to get into a mortgage that is too expensive, or to get into credit card debt, that decision took a couple of seconds but to reverse the consequences of that decision might take years. The Psalmist here is pointing out the difficulty of reversing the course of the man whose mindset is conspiring and plotting. Let me show you this on a small level that we can all relate. Take for example just the simple example of your public image. This verse comes of the heels of the verse on deceit and I think there's a legitimate connection here. One of the biggest ways we plot and conspire to deceive others is by projecting images of ourselves. There's ten thousand ways we do this all the time. We have a Facebook profile that we consciously and even subconsciously shape according to our desires. We conspire in a certain direction. I don't want you to know who I really am, so I am going to pretend. I can't handle the truth of who I really am. I can't possibly bear the thought of you knowing who I really am so I am going to try to put an image of myself out there that I want you to believe about me. And of

19 course Facebook is an easy target, but it's all our interactions. Every time we open our mouth we have the temptation to do this. And these kinds of decisions set us on a path that's hard to turn back from. You've put it out there. And now you have to work and work to maintain it. Have you ever nursed a lie for years? The more people know about it the more difficult it is to turn back. Pretty soon it's impossible. This kind of image projecting is insanity. Not only is it an impossible amount of work. In the end, it really doesn't work. People see through it. The more you work to try and be cool the less cool you become. The more you try to manage your image the worse it gets. This is why sales people as a stereotype are generally not liked, because they pretend to be nice, but they really don't care. They just want your money. And so not only do you not get the image you are after, you started down a path so long ago, that to turn back feels impossible. How can I ever now admit the truth. I've been so long hiding, so long pretending, I'd look like the biggest fool. And so he does not reject the evil. He cannot. He's too invested. To deep in it. So we see that the choice to pursue wickedness removes a person's fear of God, impairs his self assessment, corrupts his behavior, and skews his trajectory. So, who here likes the idea of pursuing wickedness? Let's compare it to the righteous man. The Righteous

20 If pride characterized the wicked in verses 1-4 humility characterizes the righteous. This next section doesn't even begin with the righteous. It actually begins with a focus on God which is where humility begins. It begins by just looking and admiring and noticing this being that is totally amazing, that is life-giving, that is the center of everything. It begins by correcting the needle of the compass, by recalibrating ourself to true north. When we read the section on the wicked we get words like: trouble, deceit, no wisdom, plots trouble, no good, no rejection of evil, no fear of God. Now listen to the contrast, listen to this healthy comparison. The Psalmist admires the faithfulness of God, the righteousness, the love of God, the judgments of God. And I can't help but picturing the Psalmist just standing in awe singing a third day song here.

21 Steadfast love, faithfulness all the way to the clouds, righteousness like mountains, judgments like the deep. Life! Light! It's an amazing contrast. Notice if the pride of the wicked: 1. His love of wickedness removes his fear 2. His self-flattery impairs his self-assessment 3. His speech corrupts his behavior 4. His conspiring skews his trajectory All the opposite things are true of the righteous. The Righteous Fear God First you can see that instead of no fear, he has great fear of God. And he doesn't state this directly but the Psalm just oozes it. He says the righteousness of God is like a giant mountain. A

22 mountain is something you respect. It can crush you if even the smallest piece falls off. It takes great effort to scale it and if you fall off, you will be seriously injured or even die. That's what God's righteousness is like. In that single image you can hear the fear of the Lord. He says your judgments are like the great deep. Again, something you fear. It's beyond us. We don't dabble in those realms. The deep is a place that can kill you. If you dare to go into the deep you dive down and then quickly rush to the surface, to that more familiar place. So you respect it. The Righteous are Able to See Clearly Secondly if the wicked man was blind and unable to see, well the righteous can see clearly, not using his own light, not the light of pride, but God's light.

23 In your light do we see light. In other words, you hold out your lamp and I can see truth. The way it's worded is a little unexpected. I would normally expect, in your light I see truth or in your light, I can see the world clearly or something like that. In other words, I'm in darkness and when you give me light, behold I can see. But instead we read, in your light I see light. That's a little strange. We need light to be able to see light? There is some kind of double blindness that we are up against. We first need our blind eyes opened to see light and then we of course the first thing we notice when our eyes are opened is the giant light that we use to see reality. So the spiritual version of that is that we are blind so that we cannot even see the light. We look straight at Christ but our spiritual organ of sight doesn't see and we just right through him. But when our eyes are healed, well then we can appreciate Christ as the light, but he also interprets reality for us. In fact this phrase, seeing light is a Hebrew idiom for experiencing

24 life. That's why in the same breath he talks about this fountain of life. Our quality of life is very dependent on our vision isn't it. If you ever visit the city of Sweet ID, take some time to stop in city center and drink from the spring. Every time I do, I think of this verse. Our ability to see ourselves clearly and see God clearly is directly related to how deeply we drink from this fountain of life! The Righteous Depend. So we see that the righteous have fear of God, have spiritual sight, they also have not speech of trouble and deceit leading to ceasing of wisdom and doing good but instead he has worship that leads to dependence. Look at what is coming out of this guys mouth.

25 It's the opposite of the wicked. The wicked praises himself. The righteous praises God! He's not trying to create an image of himself. He's trying to magnify who God is. Our job is to magnify God. Magnification goes both ways doesn't it. There are telescopes and microscopes. And the Psalmist is doing both here. Your steadfast love extends to the heavens and the clouds. There's so much of it so far out there we will never even see the extent. It's just too big for us. Your judgments are deep. I can't comprehend how large you are. I can't comprehend the depths of who you are. So there is a macro level worship. But he also goes inward. How precious is your steadfast love O God. There's something going on inside as he feasts at the table of the Lord and as he drinks from the river of his delights. He's praising God out of a personal experience. I delight in the Lord. I marvel at how banqueted I feel. He's going inward and outward. So if the mouth of deceit and wickedness produces non-good and foolishness. What does worship produce. Answer: dependence! Look at this guy. He is just in the position of receiving from this source that cannot be exhausted. Try scooping up a mountain. Try drinking up all the water in a lake. You can't do it. It's inexhaustible. Probably my favorite image is the image of us as children taking refuge in the shadow of God's wings. Probably only a handful of us have ever raised chickens. That image would have been so obvious for them, but for us it's less so, I want to just give you a 30 second

26 clip of this. Hiding under the wings of a mother hen. How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light. 10 Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart! (Psa 36:7-10 ESV) The Righteous are On a Good Trajectory

27 Finally he ends with this beautiful trajectory. If the wicked set themselves on a bad trajectory through conspiring then the righteous set themselves on a good trajectory through prayers of need. Listen how the Psalmist cries out for help for the beast he knows lives inside of him and the beast he knows are outside of him.

28 He closes by saying, "Protect me from arrogance. I can see the danger now, but I'm not immune. Protect me from it. I don't want it. Why because when I COMPARE, look what I see. You see over there. That's the outcome. See all those corpses. See all those miserable people. That's what happens. These evildoers lie fallen. They cannot rise. I don't want to be like that. I know when I choose pride that's where I will end up. But it would be prideful to trust myself. So protect me Lord from myself. Protect me from arrogance. Humble me.