Grace in Your Trials- A Roadmap for Suffering

Now this morning, what I'd like to do is have you turn to Psalm 73, where we will be, and we're going to look at, you can see the title of the sermon is, A Roadmap for Suffering. A Roadmap for Suffering. And this is about how the psalmist gets grace in the midst of his trials. Now as we go through Psalm 73, I'm going to read this, and then we're going to pray. But the first thing I want you to notice as we're going through this psalm, see the transitions that are made first as we look at evil. Now, we will all do that in our lives, will we not? We'll be faced with people who do evil to us, and we'll experience suffering. There's something else that happens in the psalm, and this is exactly where we are helped this morning. The psalmist makes a shift.

away from his trials, and he turns to God. So that's what I want to encourage you this morning to be seeing in the text and to be turning to God. So Psalm 73, verse 1, this is a psalm of Asaph, or as Calvin says, probably David, and maybe performed by Asaph. Verse 1, 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, for I was envious of the arrogance when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are, and they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness, and their hearts overflow with follies.

You can see he's cataloging what the wicked are like. They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily they threaten oppression, and they set their mouths against the heavens. Their tongue struts throughout the earth. Therefore his people turn back to them, and they find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know? Is their knowledge in the Most High? For behold, these are the wicked, always at ease. They increase in riches. Now listen what he says. This is where he went in the midst of his despair and bitterness. And I wonder if you've ever been there. Maybe you're there this morning. He says, all in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and I have been rebuked every morning. He thought it was vain. Then he says this, verse 15.

If I had said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. And now the turning point. Verse 16. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went in to the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. how they are destroyed in a moment, and they are swept away utterly by terrors. Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Now here comes the sweetness of the gospel promises.

I want you to hear this spoken for your soul this morning. God says to you, as the psalmist prays, nevertheless, I am continually with you. Do you hear that? You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel. And afterward, you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Yes, my... flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, for me, it is good to be near God, for I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell all of your works. Amen. Let's bow our heads and pray as we embark upon the preaching.

of God's word. Father, we thank you that you love your people. We thank you that you have purchased this people through the blood of Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you that you never leave us. And so because of that promise, you are here with us this morning and your word is proclaimed. God, come by the power of your spirit and comfort your people. Father, in the same way as we have need, God, I pray that you would help us. to see our sin and to confess and to repent. Father, truly we are in need of repentance and confession. We ask that you would help us. Father, be present with each and every heart this morning. You know how to deal with the weary. You know how to rebuke us. You know how to comfort us. So again, Lord, come and be with us this morning. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, it's interesting. I was thinking back on the centuries. We have so many examples of high literature. And in the past, many people have made their points through essays and sonnets. You think of the old and the good Bill Shakespeare, right? But now we have higher literary forms. Consider, for example, the meme. Now, many of you will know what this is, but it's a picture, generally from a movie. or from a popular television show, and then it's got words on it, right? Higher literary forms. But memes are effective. You see them especially on social media because they usually have a dose of humor which disarms us, but they also get at the realities of human life. One of my favorite memes features the great philosopher Michael Scott.

from the office. Many of you, I heard some laughter. There's a few sinners in here. That's right, you've watched it. I know, I've seen it. But Michael Scott, he says this when asked in the office. He says, how is it that I deal with all the drama and all the trials that happen in the workplace? And with sort of a deadpan look on his face, you've probably seen this one, he says, I'm dead inside, right? Now, how many of us have felt exactly If you've worked in corporate America, you know the feeling. Yes, and amen to that. I've worked in corporate America, and you understand what happens. But then, what if you inserted yourself into this meme in a different way? It's not just corporate America, but what about the household? My wife and I joke about this. I say, honey, how are you doing today? How are the children? And she says, they're great, and I'm dead inside.

That's what a day of disciplining your children will do to you. But it's interesting, we can laugh about this, and we do and we should. That's how we make it through the difficulties of life. But as the psalmist will show us, suffering can also take us to places that have the potential to destroy us. And so I want us to recognize that this morning. You think about the dull ache of life. How this can happen, it's residual and it builds up. And slowly over time, and we'll see this in the text, your heart toward the Lord can be deadened. Your relationship with others here can be deadened. And you can do damage to yourself and to others. And so that's one of the main points I want you to take away from the text. This morning we'll look into it as we progress here. But it's essentially this, that suffering can destroy you.

I was reminded of this recently, just a few weeks ago. We were gathered because of my cousin. And we sat in a church, not unlike this one. And we sat in the front, my wife and I. And I watched as my cousin, his wife to the right with their two daughters, and he was on the podium in a box full of ashes. He had spent years, no one knew, except those very close to him, He had spent years suffering, nursing his bitterness at life, and it ended tragically with his own taking his own life. It was a sobering moment for me, and I hope it is for each one of us, of what will happen if we don't take our suffering seriously and if we don't find God's grace in the midst of our trials. As the psalmist again says, there is hope for us. It doesn't have to end that way.

It doesn't have to end with you destroying relationships because you are bitter. So the first point this morning that I want to look at is how we face evil. And we'll do this as we look at verses 1 through essentially verse 12. Now it's interesting, and most of you will identify with this, one of the biggest tendencies that we have as Christians and as people is that when we suffer, we tend to want to escape our trials, don't we? You think of the ways that we deal with difficult circumstances in our lives. Maybe it's with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Some of us have the waistlines to show that, right? That's how I've been dealing with my suffering. Maybe it's other things in the kitchen. Maybe it's alcohol. I'm from Colorado, so maybe it's marijuana, which you can purchase legally. That's a way to numb the pain. But maybe it's different ways that are easier.

And maybe look less bad when you're at church. Maybe you binge watch The Office on Netflix. Right? We do a number of things to avoid dealing with God and with the pain of life. But I want you to notice immediately that there's two realities in the psalm in verse 1 and 3. Number one, look at verse 1 with me. There's this confession from the psalmist that truly God is good to Israel. To those who are pure. in heart. Not perfect, but pure in heart. They're not hypocrites. They've confessed their sins, and by the blood of Jesus Christ, they're clean. So that's one confession. That's one reality. But notice the other reality in verse 3. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw, and here's the reality, the prosperity of the wicked. Now I want to ask each one of you, have you seen this? Have you seen the prosperity of the wicked in your life?

And notice verse 2, as these two truths come together and as they collide in the text, he says personally, it almost destroyed me. I want to ask you that question. As you look at the evil and the suffering in your life, how are you doing with that? How are you doing? Do you have settled bitterness in your heart, which the psalmist will unpack for us in just a moment? These two truths are colliding not only in the text, not only in a theology classroom, but in each one of our lives. We all have difficulties that we deal with. Maybe one of our loved ones is sick. Maybe we're sick and tired of our boss or the people working for us. Maybe the slow grind of motherhood is undoing us.

Notice where the psalmist starts with these two realities in his life. He says and he confesses, I almost fell. I almost tripped. I was going down the narrow path of salvation and I was almost destroyed. This is what will happen if all we do is look at the evil in our lives. We have to assess it. We have to be honest about the evil in our lives. But we also have to progress toward God and toward his grace. Now one thing I want to point out here in the text, what is the psalmist doing with evil? Look at verses 4 and 5. He's actually naming what evil is like. So he is going to spend time talking about the character of evil people. Maybe you think that's kind of odd for the psalmist to be doing. Maybe you think it's odd for a Christian or any one of us to be doing.

How many of us just kind of bury our heads in the sand, right? We don't actually be honest about evil. I used to have friends who were of the Pentecostal charismatic bent, and they would always tell me, I'd say, how are you doing today? And they'd say, Eric, I am too blessed to be stressed. I hate that. Because here, I was in seminary, I'm studying God's word daily, and I said, that's not me at all. And notice the psalmist here as well. That's not him. That's not the Christian experience. And so he's going to name, and he's going to use the eyes that he has in his head to name evil for what it is. And so I want to encourage you. You need to do this in your life. What is evil like? What's the character of evil? Now, we won't go into all of this, but I do want to look at a few things. Verses 4 and 5. He says, until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. So many times, evil people and the ones who oppress us, they're doing really well in life, aren't they? That's why it's so difficult for us to deal with, right? They're getting wealthy and fat at the expense of other people. Now, I've thought this often as a Christian. Lord, why am I more like Lazarus in the story of the rich man? I just want to be the rich man.

We talked about that this morning in Sunday school. Why did you make me that way? And so it's the case that oftentimes wicked people are prosperous and we're not as Christians. So again, can you name that? Can you say that's the way that it is? And notice in verse 5 what he also says. They're not stricken like the rest of mankind. These are the pretty people. They don't seem to get sick. And from a temporal perspective, again, they seem to be without adversity. Even the frustration of everyday experience, they seem to be without. It's interesting where the psalmist says this leads. Look at verse 7 and 8. He says, Now you picture a heart covered in fat.

That's not very appealing. It's like a Krispy Kreme donut heart. I used to work next to a Krispy Kreme, so I understand what that's like. They can't feel. They have no relationship with God. So yes, their bodies may be sleek and fat, but they are numb. That's what we were getting at with the Michael Scott meme. There's a numbness that comes upon the wicked. And I think where the psalmist is driving is, don't you dare envy the wicked. Look at verse 3. This is the word that's used that he says really in confession. He says, I was envious of the arrogant. Notice how this is a confession from the psalmist. Notice where it leads us when we just keep staring at the evil in our lives. You come to a place of envy.

Right? It's this deep-seated wanting what other people have. Not one time, but that becomes the disposition of your life. Think about social media. Think about Instagram. Right? I am convinced the whole reason Instagram exists is to convince other people that our lives are better than they actually are. Right? You remember the church sign. Many of you have seen this. Church signs are the best, by the way. You need one with cheesy sayings right out front. But the church sign that says, may your life be as blessed as you pretend it is on Facebook. I love that. Right? It gets to the heart of the issue. So many of us, even here this morning, are living with envy in our hearts. Lord, why am I poor? Why this cancer? Why this sickness? Why the affliction? Everywhere I go, there is affliction.

I don't know about you, friends, but my journey has not been easy. Let's say, Lord, why? Can you become envious of people who have more or just have different sufferings? See, what the psalmist is helping us do this morning is gauge our hearts. I asked the question earlier, how is suffering affecting you? And so now's the time when you get to take inventory of your own heart. Is there envy? You look at your neighbor and you think, I wish I had that. I wish I was suffering. I always say this. I wish I was suffering, but with a little bit more luxury. I could suffer, Lord, if I just had a few finer bourbons on my shelf. This gets into the lust, again, we talked about this morning in Sunday school. But look at verse 21. Something has gone even deeper than I think envy for the psalmist. He says, my soul was embittered and I was pricked in heart. To the point, he says, I was brutish and I was ignorant.

toward you. I was like a beast toward the Lord. Now, this is a scary place to be. I think it takes a lot of courage for the psalmist to confess this. I wonder if we would have the same courage. Maybe your trials have pushed you to this point of bitterness. Again, a settled disposition of anger. Anger at the Lord. Why have you done this? You know, my wife and I, we were talking about this on the way out. There are things that we have prayed for for years. Change our situation. And the Lord said, no, I'm not going to do that. And I can confess this to you. I've been bitter. There have been times where I wake up in the morning and I open my Bible and I read my Bible and then I slam it shut. I said, Lord, I don't want to hear your word this morning. Right? That's the confession.

of the psalmist. He says, I was like a beast toward the Lord. What are beasts like? Well, we have a lot of wild beasts out west. They're not friendly. You come upon a grizzly bear and, you know, you see the Chinese tourists and they get eaten because they think it's, you know, yogi. It's not, I promise. Wild beasts are unfriendly. And the point is, he's speaking about his relationship with the Lord. It's not good. So I want to ask you this morning, how is your relationship with the Lord? Do you find yourself in this position where you say, I don't want to go to worship this morning. I don't want to be in prayer before the Lord. I don't enjoy it. There's a calcification that can happen. And if that's true for you, I pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal it to you. And that you would do the self-inventory and the work of self-examination this morning.

Look at verse 13. This is another symptom and a result of what happens when you continually stare at the evil in your life. Verse 13 and 14, he says, All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. How many times have you felt that way? Going to church seems pointless. God doesn't seem to be listening to me. All the religion that we do, it seems worthless, vain. And by the way, again, I just love this, how the psalmist will just confess this. He's not too proud at this point. He says, this is me. And I think it's encouragement for each one of us to do the same thing and be bold in confession. Look at verse 15. He goes on and he says, Now, one of the things I love about the psalmist is he's not just concerned with himself, is he?

No, he's concerned with the body of Christ. He knows that if he maintains an attitude and a posture of bitterness in himself, he will destroy the body of Christ. So I wonder if you understand how that's true for you as well. Your actions and your heart have ramifications for the body. And I know as a pastor, I've dealt with these situations continually. There's a suffering in someone's life. It calcifies. They don't deal. well with it, and sooner or later, you know what happens? They're destroying relationships in the church, right? They don't even care. They don't feel it. You can't understand how you're there. So again, I want to ask you, are you doing those things? Take stock of your life. What is God concerned with in our sufferings? There's four times in the psalm where this key issue of the heart is brought up. Look at verse one with me.

Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. There's your term, pure in heart. You understand what God wants in your sufferings is to refine your heart. James 4, we talked about that. God cares about the desires of your heart. That's what he's here to deal with this morning. Proverbs 4.23 says this, guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs. In other words, whatever's in your heart, that's going to flow out in your words and in your actions. So as you take stock of your own heart this morning, is your heart pure? As if without hypocrisy, are you worshiping this morning saying, listen, I've confessed. When we knelt and confessed, I confessed truly. And I am working eagerly and repentantly to put sin out of my life. Is that you?

For some of us, that is true. Or verse 7, we looked at this. Maybe your heart is calcified in wickedness. Do we think that there are not people here like that? And don't look outward, look inward. Look at yourself and say, is that happening? Is that progress of calcification happening in me? Verse 22, am I getting to a place in my heart, in my heart of bitterness? And we haven't looked at this one yet, but look at verse 26. My flesh and my heart may fail. My flesh and my heart may fail. You know, some of us this morning, our hearts are just failing. And what we need is a friend. We need someone to notice that. And maybe it's a hug. Some of you aren't huggers. You're not touchers. Maybe it's a word, right? Maybe it's a word of encouragement. But I would just encourage each one of you to be coming alongside one another.

Is your heart failing in strength? Maybe you just need to tell a friend that. Somebody here, a pastor. I'm not making it. I'm not doing well. So we've been talking about all the ways in which we stare at evil and it can lead us into bad places. But now I want to turn to really the hope of the passage and what happens with the psalmist in verse 16 and 17. So you can look at those two verses with me now. Verse 16, he says, when I thought how to understand this. He's looking for understanding. How many times do we come to the Lord and we're just looking? God, help me. I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know what the answer is in the midst of my suffering. Where do you go to gain understanding? Well, it's very simple. He says in verse 17, I went into the sanctuary of God. You understand the importance of this. He ran to God.

Maybe it was after a prodigal-like experience. Maybe it was after he was in the pigsties of life. But here he is running to God. And I want you to notice how this really differentiates the Christian versus the pagan response. The pagan experience. This was my cousin. This was him in his long road to suicide. There was no turning to God. everything through verse 15 without Christ and without hope. But now the psalmist says, I run into the presence of the Lord. So many of us think that we will be mature when we cease to have problems. I will be mature when I'm no longer struggling with a bad temper. And to some extent that's true, but maturity is recognizing those problems and running into the presence of the Lord and saying, Lord, I need help. I need you to help me.

in the midst of these trials. So there's really two things that the psalmist is after. One is grace, and one is understanding. We've looked at understanding, but I want you to look at verse 23 with me. What is it that the psalmist ultimately finds that comforts his heart? Does God come to him and say, listen, well, the reason that you got cheated out of your salary by your employer is this. All these things downstream, X, Y, and Z, this is why it happened. For anyone who's suffered, you don't get those answers. But this is the grace of the gospel. This is what God says to each one of us who are trusting in him. He says, nevertheless, I am continually with you. You may not be delivered out of your poverty. You may not be delivered out of the immediacy of the difficulty with your children or a personal relationship.

But what you have is far better, and that is the presence of Christ with you. God promises, I will be with you. And if you look at the promises of the gospel, these are central. Think of Psalm 23. If you look at that psalm, what is the center of that promise? You walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you. I will be with you. So again, I want to ask you, are you leaning in to the presence of Christ? Are you experiencing the grace of his presence in the midst of your sufferings? I love what Paul says in Philippians chapter 3. Paul, who's in prison, he's awaiting his own death. You remember this? And he says in chapter 3, it's not that I thought my situation was going to improve.

It's that I understood in the midst of my trials, I am going to know Christ more deeply. And his spirit is going to rest on me. When I suffer in faith, I have fellowship with Jesus. That is the hope of the gospel. So are you experiencing that hope? Now here's the other thing, as well as going into the sanctuary. We've talked about this, but it's the importance of confession. You notice in verse 1 that the keynote is having a pure heart. The psalmist is doing the work of having a pure heart in the psalm. And so again, I would just encourage you this week, this morning, do that hard work. Assess your heart. Look for areas of bitterness. And as you address them, confess them. Not to overcomplicate the Christian faith.

Or do you see sin, confess of it, and then repent of that sin? You see the psalmist doing that, right? Some of you need to repent of the ways in which you have destroyed this body, right? We all do this. But I want you to take personal ownership of it. What are the things in the last couple weeks, months, things you've said to other people that are wantonly destructive, careless? Are you able to confess them, go to that person, do the hard work, and then make amends with them? Reconcile. Now back to verse 23 and 24. I want to start the closing with this. By the way, I learned this from Tim Bailey. If you know Tim, your time doesn't run out until you start the timer. So you can start your timer at any point during the sermon, and then you just start from there. I'm kidding. I won't do that.

But verse 23 and 24. Notice we spoke of verse 23. God promises to us these things. And these become the meditation of the psalmist's heart. So this is ultimately what I want you to see and to be encouraged about this week. You can stare at the evil or you can turn to the gospel promises. So I want to look at them briefly. The chief one we said was, I am with you. Verse 23, I am with you. God says that to each one of us. And then at the end of the verse, you hold my right hand. A right hand in Scripture is a source of power and of strength. I name my son Benjamin because it means son of my right hand. That means being left-handed is not scripturally cool. Still paying attention. That's a joke. You can laugh at that.

Right? God is the place where we receive our strength for dealing with our trials. That's what he means. You hold my right hand. Think of a father walking through a difficult season with your son or your daughter, and you hold their right hand, and you're empowering. That's what God's doing for each one of us. And then verse 24, not only receiving strength, but being guided by the counsel of the Lord. Many of us don't experience this because we're not running into the sanctuary. But what God promises is that when you go to him, when you go to your pastor and your elders in the midst of difficulty, God promises his counsel. And so much, we miss this, but counsel isn't like a lawyer going to a lawyer here, but it's like being welcomed into the Father's inner circle. You remember Jesus with his disciples.

They're in the inner circle. And God said, that's what I do for you in the midst of your suffering. I welcome you on the inside. And there's an intimacy that we experience with Christ. And then at the end of verse 24, you receive me to glory. Where are all of our trials? Where are your trials taking you ultimately? Well, the answer is to glory, to the place where you are perfected with Christ. We don't need to wonder if this just ends with a disaster at work or a disastrous marriage or relationship. We know where it ends, and we do well to meditate on this continually. So I would also ask you this question. Are you experiencing these things? These are the gospel promises, God promising to be with you, strengthen you with his counsel and his guidance, but are you experiencing them?

Are you leaning into God in the midst of your difficulty? Are you doing that? Are you walking and in receiving God's grace? I'll close with this. This is what I'm calling the overflow of grace. What happens when we are meditating on the gospel promises? Yes, we have suffering and difficulty, but we're meditating upon God's grace. What does it look like when the grace is transforming us? Well, just a few points here. Verse 25, look at that with me. He says, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Now, everyone who has suffered has understood this truth, that God is reshaping your desires in the midst of suffering. Is he not? As you're being transformed by grace, as you're drawing near to Christ in the midst of your suffering, what is he doing?

He's forcing you to let go of the things you thought you wanted. Maybe you thought that you should live in a certain place. Maybe you thought that you should be at a certain job for 25 years, and then it implodes. God's reworking our desires, and he's weaning our hearts from the things that aren't him. Sometimes they're good things. Sometimes they're bad things. But I want you to know that God is reworking and refining and changing what you love until you can come to the place like the psalmist where you say, there's nothing on earth that I want besides Christ. That's what Paul was able to say in a prison cell. They can take everything from me, but they cannot take my relationship with Christ. They cannot take that from me. Now, verse 26, what else does the psalmist say?

Well, he says, my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. What did he learn? He learned the quiet strength of God's presence in the midst of his weakness. That's what God is teaching you as well. That was a lesson that Paul had learned in 2 Corinthians 12. You remember that. Paul says, when I am weak, then I am strong. So I will boast. in my weaknesses. Suffering takes us to a place where we can actually rejoice in being made weak. The difficulties that you face with your family, with your relationships, each and every one of these things, God is refining you, and he's also teaching you to depend on his strength, which he promises to supply to you. And then finally, verse 28. What did the psalmist learn, and what can we learn?

in our sufferings. He says this, but for me, it is good to be near God. There's the theme. Again, God's presence, that's the gift of the gospel. That's why we're justified, is so that we can be reconciled. We can experience communion and fellowship with Christ. For me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge. That's the point. As you go through sufferings, you would be able to say that exact same thing. I have made God my refuge. This is where I run to. This is the lesson that we gain through suffering. I stop running away from church. I stop avoiding my friends, the ones who will ask the tough questions. I stop avoiding the Lord. I stop neglecting to pick up my Bible and to read.

When things get tough, I run to the Lord. I want to share a story with you. It's kind of embarrassing, but I love it. My wife will tell you I have a perverse delight sometimes in being embarrassed. I don't know why that is. But I remember I was working in Peoria, Illinois, not so very far from here. And I was working for a media company. And my job was absolutely atrocious and had been for years. My boss, I'm convinced, was trying to destroy my life. And I said, why? Yeah, somebody's laughing. They understand. You know how that is. Abram gets it. But there I was. I was sitting under my desk in my home office, and I was weeping so uncontrollably that my wife's knocking on the door, and she says, what is wrong? Right? It was a moment of grief. It was a moment of weakness. It was humiliating. But it was also a freeing moment because for the first time in years, Instead of going to the bar with my buddies after work, instead of going on Facebook and mindlessly surfing for hours just to drone out the noise of my frustrations, I didn't do that. I went to the Lord, and I opened my Bible, and I began praying. And God, you could just sense through the Scripture and the Spirit of God in prayer the comfort of the Lord.

I was reading 2 Corinthians 1. We have a father of all mercy and comfort. This is where God takes us. You can seek refuge in him instead of running from him. I'm going to conclude with this. This is Hebrews 12, starting in verse 15. I want to encourage you as a church. It's been a pleasure. I've talked to David, I know, about many of your stories, I guess, and the church and where you've been as a church. I've been praying for you. So this is what I've been praying for you, that you would continue in this good work, which we're called to do in Hebrews chapter 12. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Are you making sure that your children are not failing to obtain the grace of God? Are you making sure that your wife is daily feeding on the grace of God? Don't sit there while she is getting bitter and do nothing.

You take her to prayer and to the Lord and you get grace for her and for yourself. Maybe it is not your spouse. Maybe it's a friend. Maybe it's someone here. You know, you can see the bitterness creeping in. Make sure that no one fails to obtain the grace of God so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble. And by it, many become defiled. When you leave it unchecked, it will destroy the church. So you have to deal with it. So that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He was rejected. For he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. So people of God, see to it that no one here fails to obtain.

the grace of the Lord. Amen. Amen. Let's bow our heads and pray together. Father, we thank you for the goodness of your grace in and through Jesus Christ. I pray this morning that you would strengthen your people. God, that you would fill us with your grace. We need not food, but we need grace. The unmerited kindness and favor of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have tasted it at conversion. We've experienced the new birth, but we want to go on living By the grace of the Lord. So Father, I pray that you would help us to do that. Help us to continue to meditate upon the truth of your word. May we taste and see that the Lord is good. Because you are good. Amen.