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[0:00] Well, take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 73.! Their bodies are healthy and strong.

[0:33] They are free from the burdens common to man. They're not plagued by human ills. Therefore, pride is their necklace. They clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity.

[0:46] The evil conceits of their minds knows no limit. They scoff and speak with malice. In their arrogance, they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.

[1:00] Therefore, their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. They say, how can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge? This is what the wicked are like. Always carefree.

[1:12] They increase in wealth. Surely, in vain have I kept my heart pure. In vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued.

[1:23] I have been punished every morning. If I had said, I will speak thus, I would have betrayed your children. And when I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me.

[1:37] Till I entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their final destiny. Surely, you placed them on slippery ground. You cast them down to ruin.

[1:49] How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors, as a dream when one awakes. So when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. When my heart was grieved, my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant.

[2:05] I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel. And afterward, you will take me into glory.

[2:17] Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

[2:32] Those who are far from you will perish. You destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God.

[2:44] I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge. I will tell of all your deeds. Let's hear God's word preached. Well, spring has sprung, and before long our gardens and fields will be ready for planting.

[3:05] And good gardeners know that the condition of the soil is very important for the healthy plant life. As goes the soil, so goes the harvest.

[3:19] Want a good crop? Then mind the soil. Well, it's the same with our hearts. Our hearts are the soil. They're the soil out of which grows every attitude and behavior of life.

[3:33] And that's why, if we're wise, we're told that above all else, we're to guard the heart, that part that's underground, that inner being, because out of it are the issues of life.

[3:48] All of life grows out of the soil of the heart. Well, there are plants that thrive in certain types of soil.

[3:59] I'm speaking of the pH factor of the soil. Whether it's acidic or alkaline. Blueberries just love to grow in acidic soil.

[4:10] But there are also plants that just will not grow in other types of soil. If the soil is too acidic or too alkaline, these plants won't grow there. And that's a principle that reflects a principle of our hearts as well.

[4:27] that certain sins don't grow in certain types of soil. And I want you to put that principle to good use in your life.

[4:39] We're studying the last of the Ten Commandments that says, Do not covet. You shall not covet. And we've seen what a sin coveting is.

[4:51] That it itself is sin. Just that desire within is sinful. It's a mother sin that gives birth to other sins. It's a common sin of young and old, rich and poor.

[5:04] All sorts of people. And it's a serious sin. We saw last week that it will keep people out of heaven as surely as any other sin will. So I really want to know, how can I keep the nasty weed of covetousness from growing in the soil of my heart?

[5:22] Is there something I can do as a Christian to maintain a spiritual pH factor that will keep the seeds of covetousness from germinating, from sprouting, from rooting, and growing in my heart?

[5:41] Well, yes, there is. What I find in the Bible is that this weed of covetousness simply does not grow in the heart soil of contentment. Now, there's this undeniable connection between contentment and covetousness.

[5:59] That if the more I am content, the less I will covet, the more I'm content with what I have, the less I'll covet what I don't have.

[6:13] And in this state of contentment, I can even see others with things that I don't have and I can look at them without coveting them for my own. Why?

[6:26] Because of what I do have. Better and lasting possessions. Because of who I have. Jesus and all in Him is mine.

[6:38] That's the secret of contentment, to be treasuring Christ for the worth that He is. And then covetousness will not be able to thrive and grow in my heart.

[6:52] Covetousness withers in a heart that is content with Jesus. And when that soil is saturated and satisfied with Christ, the temptations and seeds to covetous desire simply don't find the nutrients in my heart to cause them to grow.

[7:11] Oh, but let my heart grow forgetful of Jesus, no longer treasuring Jesus, no longer content and happy in Jesus, and the spiritual pH factor of my heart soil changes.

[7:25] And now it's fertile ground for the seeds of covetousness to grow. So, what are we doing this morning then? Let's consider how to keep the heart soil content with God and therefore unfavorable to the growth of covetousness.

[7:43] And the whole thing this morning is just this. Never stop praising and thanking God for all you do have. Never stop praising and thanking God for what you have.

[7:58] Praise is eminently God-focused, isn't it? It's ever reminding us of what we have in God, who He is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what He does for us, what He's done for us, what He is doing for us, what He will do for us.

[8:16] Praise pulls our eyes away from what we don't have. And it focuses upon Him whom we do have, whom to know is to love and whom to love is to be content and satisfied in Him.

[8:36] So, how do we do this? How do we never stop praising and thanking God for what we have? I wonder if you are living with the book of Psalms as your steady companion.

[8:50] When did you last read a psalm? It's the believer's songbook for worship. That should send a clue to us.

[9:01] This is the stuff that makes believers sing. It's what they sing about. It sets before us the worth-ship of God. Have you noticed how full of praise and thanksgiving the Psalms are?

[9:16] To open the Psalter almost in any place is to immediately step into the atmosphere of praise. That phrase, praise the Lord, is found over 60 times.

[9:30] Praising the Lord. What does it do? It unlocks the treasures and the pleasures and the refreshing joys found in God Himself and His blessings. And that's one reason why David says in Psalm 92 and verse 1, it is good to praise the Lord.

[9:49] It's good. Now, it is glorifying to God to praise the Lord. But haven't we found that God in His grace has joined together what's glorifying to Him and what is really good for us?

[10:01] So that David can say, yes, sure, it's glorifying. It honors Him to praise Him. He says that in other Psalms. But in Psalm 92, he says it is good for us to praise Him.

[10:14] It's good for us to be found praising the Lord. One reason is that praise keeps the soil of our hearts happy and content with Him.

[10:28] What we have in God and again, it's that heart saturated with the goodness and glory of God that becomes soil unfit for the seeds of covetousness.

[10:40] Now, I want you to suppose just for a while that I'm a demon with an assignment from headquarters to get you to covet. Excuse me.

[10:54] That's my job. That's my goal then. My aim is to get you to covet to break the 10th commandment. Now, how am I going to go about this?

[11:05] How should I get you to covet? Well, I think I know what to do. I'll parade in front of you. Lots of people with lots of things that you don't have.

[11:19] And I'll just make you green with envy and covetousness when you see all these things that you don't have. But each time I bring something before your eyes, I find you praising the Lord.

[11:39] I find you counting your many blessings, naming them one by one, tracing them back to God the giver, praising him for his goodness and mercy to you.

[11:52] And no matter what I parade in front of your eyes, I find you living in this atmosphere of praise for what you do have in God. So I'm frustrated and I visit a senior demon who tells me, you idiot, you shouldn't have wasted your time like that.

[12:13] You don't have any idea of how to get someone to covet. You're going about it all wrong. You never will get her to covet while she's praising and thanking God. So you've got to throw some trials her way, something that is difficult, some suffering, something painful.

[12:33] get her to stop praising the Lord and then dangle before her all the things that she doesn't have and she'll start coveting them.

[12:44] So I pack my bags with pecks of problems and all kinds of troubles and trials, all of them passed by the Lord.

[12:55] Obviously, I can do nothing without his permission and I come at you and I just start shooting at you. All these troubles and trials. But every time I visit you with trials, I still find you praising the Lord, praising my Savior all the day long, singing to him your praises, counting his love as better than health and wealth and even better than life itself.

[13:26] And lo and behold, I find that the more trials I bring to you, rather than it, fulfilling my desire to get you to covet, it only sends you running to your God and to thank him and to praise him.

[13:43] When I take things from you, you simply go to him and thank him for the things that I can't take from you. And what's really getting my goat is that she's even thanking God for suffering because she knows that it produces perseverance, character, hope that doesn't disappoint, and on and on.

[14:08] I'm having troubles, you see, getting my temptations to find a landing ground in her heart. Seeds of discontented coveting just won't grow in a praising heart.

[14:21] And you know, that's exactly what Satan found when he first came at Job, wasn't it? He had his strategy too. All I need to do is to take Job's wealth and his children and he'll no longer be praising God, he'll be cursing God.

[14:40] But all of his efforts were thwarted, weren't they? Because when he takes from Job, what does he do? He falls down on his face and worships God.

[14:52] Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Praise be the name of the Lord.

[15:03] He's still praising God through his tears. And what I've taken has only made him thank God for what he gave them so long.

[15:17] He's praising. And so Satan goes back to God and says, well, of course, you haven't let me touch his body. You take his health and he'll curse you to his face.

[15:29] He'll curse you to your face. God says, okay, have at him. You can touch his body, but just don't kill him. And Satan afflicted Job with sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.

[15:46] Painful trials. And even has, puts his words into the mouth of his wife to curse God and die.

[15:59] And yet none of that was able to move his heart from praising God to cursing or complaining about God. He says to his wife, you're talking like a foolish woman.

[16:12] Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? Good from God and not trouble? In all this, Job did not sin and what he said.

[16:24] Do you hear the phrase good from God? He's talking about God's goodness. Even as his health is taken from him, we have received such goodness from God.

[16:36] Think of all the years we've had such health and our children and all this wealth. Should we not still praise him even when he sends trouble?

[16:51] You see, before I can get you to covet, I must first get you to stop praising and thanking God for what you have in him and from him. And if I could just bring some temporary amnesia upon you to just get you to forget for a moment what you have in your Lord and his goodness to you, then some of my seeds of discontent and covetousness might find root.

[17:19] it. So I trust we see from these things just how important it is that if we are to obey the tenth commandment to not covet, that we need to be resolved to be a people who live in the atmosphere of praise, who never stop praising and thanking our God.

[17:37] And that's why I commend you to the Psalms. We find the psalmist resolving, determined to praise the Lord every day, all day.

[17:51] These are the I wills of praise. 24 times we hear this determination in the psalmist. I will praise you.

[18:02] I will praise you. Psalm 145 to every day I will praise you and extol your name forever and ever.

[18:13] Now every day that that's that's your good days and it's also your bad days. It's your ordinary nothing unusual days as well as your exciting days.

[18:26] Every day I will praise you. Psalm 146 to I will praise the Lord all my life. I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

[18:38] So every day and how long as long as I live. Psalm 35 28. My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long.

[18:51] Not just today. Sometime today I want to praise him but I will praise him all day long. Psalm 34 1. I will extol the Lord at all times his praise will always be on my lips.

[19:05] So the psalmist wants every day of his life permeated saturated with praise to the Lord every day all day. Yes because God is worthy of it.

[19:17] It's his due. It is only right for me to give him praise but also because it's dangerous for me to live long without praising him. It makes me very susceptible to complaining and discontent and covetousness.

[19:35] so though we praise him every day all day all our lives and forever and ever we will never run out of fresh reasons to praise him.

[19:47] New mercies every day well they require new praises every day and so it will be through the endless ages and those old mercies like Jesus dying on the cross that that which happened 2000 years ago that's of such a mercy that it deserves new praise every day of my life.

[20:12] So if you're going to praise the Lord every day all day it means you'll praise him regardless of what's happening to you or how you feel inside right?

[20:24] If you're going to praise him every day all day it means you'll praise him regardless of what's happening or how you feel. Nowhere does the psalmist say I will praise the Lord if I have that warm feeling and feel like praising him.

[20:42] It just doesn't follow does it? We've read the psalms we know that his determination is just the opposite it's to praise him regardless of what's happening and regardless of how he feels.

[20:54] Nowhere does he say I will praise the Lord if when I wake up in the morning the sun is shining the birds are singing and I've got this wonderful feeling that something good is going to happen today.

[21:07] No, no it's just the opposite with the psalmist and the reality was he didn't always have that feeling that everything was going his way did he?

[21:17] he didn't always feel bubbling over in praise but we need to hear this that did not stop him from praising the Lord do you know what the devil will whisper in your ear?

[21:35] Well you don't want to be a hypocrite and put words on your mouth that you don't really mean in your heart so you might as well quit praising and that's the time brothers and sisters to say get behind me Satan get behind me Satan that is not the word of our Savior that is not what we see in the Psalms and Jesus praised the Lord like the man in the Psalms every day all day no you see it's better to do your duty imperfectly than to neglect your duty all together and when you don't feel like praising you still come to praise because this God is worthy of it and you come with your own confession God I I'm coming to bring you praise and it's simply not right that I am not more engaged on the emotional level with praising you but I'm going to praise you anyway because you deserve it and I need it it's glorifying to you and it's good for me and so what do we find with the psalmist he doesn't let his feelings stop him from praising the

[22:53] Lord it only moves him to stir himself up to praise him and so he just jumps in and he starts out praising regardless of his feelings and just expects his feelings to catch up with him and to fall in line we get to listen in on such a day in the life of the psalmist in Psalm 103 and he's doing some self-talk about this very thing of praise and he says to himself praise the Lord oh my soul that's where he's talking right now and all my inmost being you you you praise his holy name all that you are John praising all that he is praise the Lord oh my soul and forget not all his benefits and he simply launches into praise there's a whole list of benefits that follow he's counting his many blessings before the

[23:57] Lord and he's naming them one by one and we can't imagine that it was long before all of David's inmost being including his affections and feelings and emotions rose to the occasion because the very first on the list of benefits is who forgives all your sins all of them David soul all of them past sins present sins future sins who forgives all my sins and on he goes and heals all my diseases redeems my life from the pit he's numbering them one by one before long his heart is singing hallelujah praise the Lord my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to his cross and I bear it no more praise the Lord praise the Lord oh my soul and he's raising himself he's letting his feelings catch up with his praises

[25:03] Henry light puts psalm 103 to prose and I love the way he begins his hymn in talking to his own soul so you're fresh out of the world and all of its problems and you come in here and you sit down and pastor Jason says let's turn to song number 70 and let's sing the first things out of our mouths praise praise my soul the king of heaven to his feet thy tribute bring ransomed!

[25:36] healed! restored! forgiven! Who like me his praise should sing! You see that's that's Psalm 103 launching into praise!

[25:49] Why? And in the praises for the fact that he has ransomed me from the sins and Satan and hell that once held me and he has ransomed and healed me he's healed my waywardness and he's loved me freely restored he's brought me back into fellowship with God that which I was made for forgiven and all through the blood of Jesus who like me his praise should sing it's stirring through our minds our affection to rise to the occasion to praise the Lord so sing joyfully to the Lord you righteous it is fitting for the upright to praise him it's just fitting Psalm 33 1 in fact it would be unfitting not to open your mouth and praise him it'd be wrong we've been on the receiving end of so many mercies from him so praise

[26:49] God from whom all blessings flow there are Psalms when it's clear that the psalmist is starting out not feeling praise in his heart to God we have these Psalms on record for us note to self they're there for a reason so that when you wake up in the morning and don't feel like praising God you can learn from David in Psalm 13 how does he start out how long oh Lord will you forget me forever how long will you hide your face from me how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart this guy's got troubles and troubles and troubles pressing in on him and he feels forsaken he feels alone and he's crying how long but he is we get to verse five and he says but but I will praise you for your unfailing love

[27:55] I praise you for your unfailing love my heart rejoices in your salvation I will sing to the Lord for he has been good to me look what you've done for me he's singing now he started out how long oh Lord and the end singing the praises of his God and what he has in his God his unfailing love his salvation and his being so good to him he finds reasons for praise even when his mind is troubled so James 5 and 13 tells us is anyone happy let him sing songs of praise the psalmist tell us is anyone unhappy let him sing songs of praise until he is happy so whether we're happy or unhappy we are to be singing our praises in other words don't be ruled by your emotions don't let your feelings be that hook that just leads you around through life and determines when

[28:58] God will be praised and when he won't praise keep the fire on this altar burning all day long with the sacrifice of praise don't let it go out don't let it be silenced by your feelings your fears your trials your sufferings isn't that what we have in

[30:44] Romans 4 4 rejoice in the Lord not occasionally but always and I'll say it again rejoice in the Lord always that means especially when you don't feel like it and that's one of the reasons God calls us together on the Lord's day he wants us gathering to sing his praises and that's why you most need to be in church when you least feel like it because what happens when you don't feel like it and you come and you enter you step into the atmosphere of praise and you give him thanks and you praise and you hear others around you doing the same telling out what the Lord has done for them and is for them and the afflicted will hear and will be brought to rejoice in the

[31:44] Lord Psalm 34 and verse 2 oh yes even when we don't feel like it we need to be in the atmosphere where God is praised so first Thessalonians 5 18 give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus he knows we're dangerous when ceasing to praise and stopping our thanksgiving what happens then we start looking around and covet that which we don't have so start the day with praise in the morning continue the day praising God and end the day with praises for your God and king and you'll not give the devil a foothold to be planting seeds of covetousness in your heart now in Psalm 73 God gives us a case study of a coveting Christian coveting believer Asaph he shows us how a true believer even of the stature of

[32:48] Asaph how he could fall into the sin of coveting and then he shows us how he how he moved from coveting back to contentment and praise so we have this case study because Asaph was being dead honest with us it's one of the most strong evidence of humility in the man Asaph that even wrote this Psalm and it's incorporated into the praises of God's people so the Psalm starts out with him praising God for his goodness surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart but he wasn't always praising God for his goodness that's the conclusion he came to at the end of his trial but it's not how his heart was expressing itself in the midst of his trial no this note of praise was the missing element throughout his fall so how did the weed of covetousness grow up in the soil of

[33:52] Asaph's heart well he tells us flat out in verse 3 I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked I coveted what he had I wished that I could trade places with him and he would have what I had and I would get what he had notice this coveting happened when I saw we've already traced out the eye gate haven't we to covetousness we saw it in Eve in Achan in David when they saw and they fixed their eyes on that which wasn't theirs and soon their covetous desires were inflamed well he too tells us here it was when I saw now that was the first punch then of the enemy coming at him seeing the prosperity of the wicked he looked too long upon the health and the wealth and the prosperity of these wicked people he saw their wealth he couldn't help but see it perhaps they got all the money to buy whatever they want he'd seen their mansions the cars they drove the wives they had the investments and businesses that were thriving it seems like whatever they touched it turns to gold and the more he looked the more he coveted and wanted it for himself and he saw their health their places with their personal trainers and parading their perfect bodies on the covers of people magazine and he they never seem to be plagued with the diseases that that plague the rest of us and the sicknesses of the rest of mankind and so he he he over exaggerates in his mind their health and their wealth and he vainly imagines that they have no struggles like the rest of us they're free from all the burdens common to man and what really gets his goat is that all this success is theirs even though they are ungodly they're wicked men they're proud and arrogant boasters they're calloused and uncaring about others they threaten and violently push their agenda on other people they use any tactic they want and as they do it they think that

[36:07] God doesn't know God doesn't know they're always carefree and they're ever increasing in wealth this is what the wicked are like and he saw that and he coveted it for himself now just seeing the prosperity of the wicked is hard enough that's hard enough to deal with but it's a hundred times harder to deal with when you who are godly and working hard to keep your heart pure and your hands clean are suffering painful trials and this was the second follow up punch the first punch was look what they have the second punch is look what you have poverty and sickness and so the second punch is seeing and feeling his own troubles that all of his efforts at purity were worthless what has it got me at the end of the day this striving to keep my heart and hands pure well this is what it's got me all day long

[37:15] I've been plagued and every morning I wake up to the same punishment my broken health my empty bank account this pack of problems that just won't go away and that's what Asaph his own troubles only make their prosperity look all the more desirous his own troubles multiplies his covetous desires for what they had so it was this deadly combination it was this one two punch look what they have and look what you have and those two things together were inflaming covetousness but not and only because it knocked the wind right out of Asaph's praises to God did you notice what was missing from Asaph as he takes inventory of his own life what do you have

[38:17] Asaph I got all these problems you know what's missing God right you don't you don't read anything about what he's got in God all that he is to Asaph all he does for him there's no mention of that means there's no praises of God they're not anywhere to be found so somewhere along the line in this business of my troubles and their prosperity Asaph had quit counting his blessings and naming them one by one he he'd quit thanking and praising God he grew forgetful of how rich he was and the things that really count and he started counting his troubles and the blessings of the wicked and that's a formula for disaster when there's no praise for God and with that missing note of praise and Asaph's troubles his heart soil is now perfect condition for the sin of coveting and sure enough he grew discontented with his own lot in life and sure enough he secretly wants to trade places with the wicked who are prospering in fact he's honest enough to tell us that his feet had almost slipped into apostasy he's ready to give up the whole chase after holiness and after

[39:34] God just to have what the wicked have so let's learn from Asaph to stop praising is to start coveting and who knows where that will end if the praises of God are not filling our hearts some covetous desire will soon fill the vacuum of a forgotten God well that's how he fell into the sin of coveting he stopped praising God for what he had in God now how does he recover from coveting back to contentment how does he get back on track it's it's interesting that he stayed in this dangerous condition until I entered the sanctuary of God isn't it interesting that the non-praising Asaph goes into the sanctuary and there he's put right evidently he had learned the habitual practice of worship even when he didn't feel like it he doesn't have one good thing to say for God up to verse 17 and still he enters into the sanctuary of God and there he's sorted out and there his covetousness is cured he went in complaining and he comes out praising praising the

[40:52] Lord never underestimate the sanctifying power of corporate worship in your life God knows how much we need it do we do we understand that do we come even when we don't feel like it think what Asaph would have missed if he had not entered the sanctuary of God so what happened in there what was it that withered his covetousness and restored contentment and what is it that will retune your hearts from singing the blues to singing the praises of God well he went in complaining he came out praising now nothing has changed when he came out nothing has changed in his own circumstances or in the wicked's prosperity it's the same scene the wicked are still prospering Asaph is still up to his chin in troubles and yet in another sense everything has changed hasn't it nothing's the same nothing ever looks the same when we see God and that's what he saw in the sanctuary you see worship is preeminently

[42:05] God focused and the sanctuary is the place where the atmosphere is praise where God's praises are sung they're read they're preached they're prayed where his word his truth his excellencies are made known and where his spirit puts a new song in our hearts in our mouths even praise to our God and so he it's in the sanctuary that he got a different measurement for taking inventory of the wicked and himself it's the God factor God was not in all of his thoughts as he as he inventoried the wicked and inventoried himself but he simply came to see in the sanctuary that God is the greatest treasure and without him you're poor indeed don't care how much you've got and with him you're rich beyond telling whatever else is happening in your life notice how it affected his inventory taking he's looking now at the prosperous wicked in a whole new way whatever they have of this earth they don't have

[43:10] God and in the sanctuary he came to see once again their final destiny without God yeah they're living and hooting it up now but what will they do in the end oh I see now I see I've been into the place where God's truth reigns and where this God of justice rules and and I now see their end they are far from God and those who are far from God will perish verse 27 they will be suddenly destroyed despised by God swept away by terrors and every day of their short prosperous lives here are lived on slippery ground they're the ones on slippery ground because they're just a breath away from everlasting torments he came to see that in the sanctuary such people are not to be envied and coveted they're rather to be pitied and prayed for that's what he saw as he's using the

[44:11] God factor now to take inventory of the wicked who are prospering and now he turns the inventory in on himself his troubled self well he still lacks much of earthly wealth!

[44:22] health we don't hear about praises for what he does have in God himself it starts in verse 23 and it goes on to the end of the psalm and it's all the glad note of praise he simply comes to see how rich he really is with God just to have the Lord with him verse 23 yet I'm always with you he says I'm never alone in this life I'm never going it alone I'm always with you and not only that you hold me by my right hand you're that close yes you're with me and and and I have the security and intimate relationship with you such that you hold me by my right hand what a security to know that father's got me by my right hand and when my grip gets weak and his father grip on my right hand is firm what is that worth making your way through this life

[45:40] I'm always with you and you hold me by my right hand and you guide me with your counsel oh what's that worth here we are in this dark deceiving deceptive world trying to make our way through life to get to heaven I need a guide I need counsel and he guides me with his counsel all the way through life he's guiding me with his counsel and and and afterwards after this life ends he's the one receiving me into glory he's just talked about the end of the wicked but now he's talking about his end when this life is ended you will receive me into glory can I ask you who's going to receive you into the after world some some demon from hell or Jesus

[46:40] Christ your savior who's led you all the way with his counsel and holding you by your right hand and ever with you all through life and there now to receive you into glory come you who are blessed inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world oh what a God I have to receive me into glory and then yes I don't have good health here but I've got something better than health better than life he says my flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever you see yes yes I have sickness disease and this outward man is perishing but but the glory is is that there's strength on the inner man is that what

[47:42] Paul was praising God for that though the outward man is perishing yet inwardly we're being renewed day by day the Lord is our strength the strength of our hearts what a blessing to have his strength the strength that raised Jesus from the dead dwelling in me as the strength of my heart and my portion forever so when that heart beats for the last time then what well then I still have him he's still my portion forever and ever my portion is what I live on will yours run out when your heart stops beating my portion is forever and ever the psalmist says and then he's got a whole new definition of the good life doesn't he he had defined it by the wicked prospering that's the good life I wish I had it I trade with it now he's got a new definition of the good life as for me it is good to be near

[48:43] God you see I've come back to senses I I've come to my senses again and in the sanctuary I saw this God that was being praised and he is such a glorious and good and wonderful being that the good life is just being near to him that's it regardless of bank accounts regardless of the number of friends I have on this!

[49:11] regardless of my health the good life is being near him and he's once again praising and treasuring God to have the sovereign Lord as my refuge we sang about the sovereignty of God today what's it worth having him as your refuge he's the fort around me he's the moving fort and refuge wherever I go I'm in my sovereign Lord who's working out all things for my good he's now glorying in his God so he's able to say surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart what happened to all that covetous desire that we found him in where did that go it withered in the atmosphere of praise look at verse 25 whom have

[50:14] I in heaven but you and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you how did we meet him in verse three he's all desire isn't the unsatisfied desire craving what he sees in the wicked in the world and and now it's gone and he wants one thing that's his God his God he's come home he's come home to his treasure and covetousness it just can't find the nutrients it needs in a heart that's satisfied with its God so believers whatever else is or is not going on in your lives you're the ones to be envied because you have God you have God your savior your lord your guide your ever present provider and friend the one to welcome you into heaven at last the one who fills so a praise to focus our eyes with a laser beam upon our

[51:55] God live in the psalms pray through them put your own heart into the words as you pray them wherever you're reading in the scriptures add a psalm here's the additive to the soil that we all need add a half a psalm but get something of praise into your daily diet because the psalms will lead you to give thanks for mercies that you hadn't thought about lately they'll take you down paths of God's goodness and mercy that you didn't naturally think of you keep going down this little rut here and that's about .01% of all there is in God to praise and you turn to a psalm and you start praising God from the psalm and you find a whole world of wonders!

[52:44] caught up with the glory and the goodness of God to you start praising early set the tone of your day before its troubles assail you and dangers of fright meet with God praise him and then have your heart set for whatever comes your way it is good to praise the Lord it's good for us it's glorifying!

[53:10]  to God God