Sermon Response Guide
PRIMARY SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 73 ESV
1 Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
Key Points
- A wrong-sized comparison of ourselves to others can cause us to:
1) Exaggerate opinions
2) Diminish truth
- A right-sized comparison of ourselves to God can catapult us into:
1) Compassion toward others who know God and those who don’t
2) Confession before God and people
3) Praise for who God is and what God has done
4) Hope in God as rescue and refuge
Memory Verse
Ask God to write this word on your heart this week:
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”
-Psalm 73:25 ESV
Questions for Reflection
Take time to reflect and respond to these questions on your own in the presence of the Holy Spirit, or with trusted friends or family members:
1: Was there ever a time you got a right-sized view of God that catapulted you into compassion, confession, praise, and/or hope?
- What do you remember about that experience?
2: When we compare ourselves to people we envy, we have a way of exaggerating their success.
- How have you seen this happen in your own life?
3: When we compare ourselves to people we think are getting away with evil, we frequently exaggerate our own righteousness?
- When was the last time you did this?
4: When we compare God’s blessing in our lives with God’s blessing in the lives of others, we wind up diminishing God’s gifts to us along with the giver: God.
- When was a time you went through something like this?
5: When we compare ourselves as believers to those who are not yet believers, we often diminish their contributions to society.
- Why do you think we do this?
6: What is the primary truth God revealed to you today?
- How will you respond?
- Who do you know who you can encourage with the truth this week?
Pray
Lord, no one and nothing compares to you. And by your grace in Christ Jesus, we are no longer slaves to comparison. Though comparison continues to come calling with just about every breath we take, help us to hear and respond to you calling us to look to you instead. We cannot follow that which we are not watching closely. Fix our eyes and our thoughts on you, Jesus. It is for freedom you have set us free.
