Pastor Richard Waialeale
August 11, 2013 - W1332

Jason Brookins tried out for the NFL’s Green Bay Packers. And after one day’s work out with the team, as the evening wore on, a knock fell upon his door and the voice of the assistant coach rang out, “Brookins, coach wants to see you, bring your playbook.” Now as many players know, during tryouts this warning usually meant that someone was to be cut from the team and that warning might have been it for Brookins. So Brookins festered over this and he was disillusioned and his mind just started going crazy. Instead of doing as he was told to do and go to see the coach with his playbook, he packed up his things, left his playbook, turned off his cell phone, and left for the long, discouraging, drive home. He couldn’t face the rejection. However, as it turned out, the coach simply wanted to update some information in his playbook for the next day’s practice. But without gathering enough courage to face the possible consequences and now without his playbook, he was also without a job.

To an NFL Player, the playbook is the most important part of his life. This book contains a set of codes for each play, so that they know exactly what to do, what their position will be and if executed just right - make a successful play. It is their guide, it is their life. Without a playbook, they are without a job.

Tonight we are going to talk about Psalm 73; I feel that Psalm 73 is the playbook of our Christian life. Asaph is the author of this Psalm. Asaph wrote 12 Psalms in the Book of Psalms, He wrote Psalm 50 and 73-80. But in Psalm 73 Asaph gave us a playbook and when we say “Red 73” like a code in a playbook we will know exactly what we need to do. As we read Psalm 73 we will discover that it gives us purpose, confidence, direction and we know who we are and exactly what we need to do.

I am going to use football as a way to explain Psalm 73. You see, when Asaph writes the first verse, he seems to have it all together, but from verse 2 and for the next 15 verses, he seems to lose his focus. It is as if he is now looking at the other team and begins to lose his confidence. He becomes distracted. We are like that too, because when we look at the opposing team, they are breathing down our necks and everything is going the wrong way, their team is winning and their defense is stronger and bigger, we too lose our focus. But then our Quarterback pulls us together and He gathers us up and He calls out “Red 73!” And we all know what “Red 73” is and all of a sudden it gives us purpose and confidence and we all begin to think the same way. We become focused as a unit and realize we are going to fake the pants off these guys. Tonight I want to share with you that when the world just seems like the wicked are prevailing and things are just seemingly so difficult, we are going to look at Psalm 73 and fake the pants off the enemy by using the playbook of our life.

PSALM 73 (NASB)

1 Surely God is good to Israel, To those who are pure I heart!

2 But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped.

3 For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 For there are no pains in their death, and their body is fat.

5 They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like mankind,

6 Therefore pride is their necklace; the garment of violence covers them.

7 Their eyes bulges from fatness; the imaginations of their heart run riot.

8 They mock and wickedly speak of oppression; they speak from on high.

9 They have set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue parades through the earth.

10 Therefore His people return to this place, and waters of abundance are drunk by them.

11 They say, “How does God know? And is there knowledge with the Most High?”

12 Behold, these are the wicked; and always at ease, they have increased in wealth

13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence;

14 For I have been stricken all day long and chastened every morning.

15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,” Behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.

16 When I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight

17 Until I came into the sanctuary of God; Then I perceived their end.

18 Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction.

19 How they are destroyed in a moment! They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors!

20 Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when aroused, You will despise their form.

21 When my heart was embittered and I was pierced within

22 Then I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You.

23 Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand,

24 With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth

26 My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portions forever.

27 For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.

28 But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.

Today I want to talk to you about what happens when we are faced with insurmountable odds and it seems the wicked are prospering. What do we do? Because we don’t want the same thing that happened to Jason Brookins happen to us. When he lost his playbook, he lost his job. So let us now discuss Psalm 73. I am going to give you three things that a playbook does for us and here it is.

1) The Playbook gives me IDENTITY. A playbook tells us we are on the team. It lets us know what is happening. It tells us we are a player, and it gives us our position. In the first verse Asaph is all good, but when Asaph writes the next 16 verses, we see Asaph become intimidated, distracted as he sees everything now through the eyes of the other side - the other team.

As we read in verses 3 & 4“For I was envious of the arrogant, and as I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there are no pains in their death and their body is fat” (NASB), then in verses 7-9 it says “their eye bulges from fatness and the imaginations of their heart run riot. They mock and speak of oppression and they speak from on high and set their mouths against heaven and parades themselves on earth.”(NASB) Then he gathers himself together and in verse 17 he writes “until I entered the sanctuary of God then I understood their final destiny.”(NIV)

Then he remembered who he was. Point number one, would we remember who we are? Isn’t it true how we get distracted by those bills that are piling up or worried about what others are saying about us? Just simply don’t forget who we are. Don’t concentrate on who THEY are, like Asaph did in the first 16 verses which is all about who they are, about how fat their eyes are or how long their tongues are or how prideful they are. Remember it is not about them.  How long have we dwelt on what people think about us, or how long have we worried about those bills? The more we think about these other things, the fatter their eyes get. But remember that one of the things that a playbook does is it helps us remember who WE are, do we know who our King is, who our “Quarterback” is? So when our Quarterback calls “Red 73” then we know we can do this, and we can fake the opponents out of their pants.

Now we read in the Bible, in First Samuel about the war between the Israelites and the Philistines. We read about Jesse and all his sons, one of which is David. Now all his older sons are on the front lines in war against the Philistines and Jesse sends David to the front lines to bring food for his brothers. And David is surprised because everyone on the front lines are intimidated and in fear because the Philistines are taunting them with the giant Goliath.

However, David is not dismayed, but, he is shocked at the troops. He boldly steps out in front, and faces Goliath who is taunting him and David tells him, “you come against me with sword and spear and javelin but I come against you in the name of the Lord God Almighty.”(1 Samuel 17:45 NIV) David remembered who he was.

The playbook reminds us that we are a child of God; that we are chosen and we are loved and redeemed by God Almighty. And in the end we win. We are the child of the King. We are created in His image and we have the Fathers eyes and we have the promise of His kingdom. This Bible is our playbook. We are children of God.

2) The playbook gives me PURPOSE. In verse 23 & 24 it says, “Yet I am always with You, You hold me with your right hand and guide me with your counsel and afterward you will take me into glory” (NIV).

 A playbook give us direction, it gives us purpose. Henry Blackaby the author of Experiencing God writes “The most important factor in each biblical situation is not what the individual wanted to do for God but what God is about to do”. God reveals His purpose so that we know what He plans to do. Like when God came to Noah, He didn’t ask Noah what Noah wanted to do for Him. No, instead He gave Noah specific instruction in what He was about to do and how to prepare for it.

There is a story of a young boy who wanted to be the most famous manufacturer of Cheese. So every day he and his horse Penny would travel the city, trying to market and sell his cheese. But he was not successful at that, so one day as he was stroking his pony Penny he told her that they must be doing something wrong. It was then that he decided that instead of doing things his way he would turn everything around and put God first in every endeavor. So years later, as a grown man, he served as a leader at the North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago. And this man said he would rather serve as a layman in the church rather than as an executive of a huge corporation. When we open any package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, sip a cup of Maxwell House, mix up a quart of Kool-Aid, eat a slice of DiGiorno Pizza, lick the cream center of an Oreo Cookie or stir up a batch of J-E-L-L-O, or open a box of stove tip stuffing, we are opening up a product of this young man, J L Kraft of the Kraft foods corporation. A playbook gives us identity and a playbook gives us purpose.

3) A playbook gives me CONFIDENCE. Let’s read verses 25 and 26. Now Asaph’s paradigm is shifting. In the first verse he is good, and the next 15 verses he is distracted by the enemy but now he is shifting. He sees his purpose and now he has confidence. “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 portion forever.”(NIV)

So what happened? There is such a shift here and in the eyes of an NFL player, we can see this. First of all he knows his identity, and then he found his purpose and now he knows the play “Red 73” works and he is confident he will succeed.

As I was growing up in Palolo, I remember that in the 4^th grade I had told my dad I wanted to play baseball. So my dad would always tell me, “I will help you make it”. So everyday after work he would come home no matter how late while there is still light and pitch me some balls. Preparing me. Then, as I got better he would simply continue to encourage me. Each time I changed sports, he would always say “I will help you make it”. Then as I got older and I didn’t need him as much to work out with me, he would say to me, “you’re going to make it”. Even if I said “but dad they are bigger or better than me”, he would just continue to say, “you’re going to make it”. What was it that my dad always gave me? It was the gift that he believed in me whether I failed or didn’t live up to things, he believed in me. He was quite an encourager. God our Father has the same confidence in us. Because that is what it says in our Bibles, our total playbooks. God has a confidence in us that we are going to make it, so no matter how many bills are staring us in our faces or no matter how intense the challenges that lie ahead of us are, there is a confidence that when we hear “Red 73” we know who we are, because we have an identity, and we know what to do because we have a purpose, and we know that the play works because we have the confidence in the playbook of our life: God’s word, the Bible. That is our complete playbook in life.

In Hebrews 10:35 it says “So do not throw away our confidence; it will be richly rewarded”.

In other words he is saying that we will be rewarded if we remain faithful. Whatever our challenges are in life, like that bill or that situation, look at the confidence in the playbook and we will win every time and we will receive our reward if we remain faithful. We will move as a unit in confidence.

This last story is of a man who lived during the time of the Great Depression. He arrives home one evening to find a note from his wife that says she has left him and has taken the children. There’s nothing left in the house and his whole world is crashing down around him. The only thing that he has to hold onto is his faith in God. So he took a walk and he came upon a construction site. He watches a man chipping away at a piece of stone, so he asks him what he is doing. The worker says that he is chipping away and shaping the stone down here so it will fit up there and he points to the steeple which is under construction. Then the man took that to heart as he heard God telling him that’s exactly what God is doing to him. He is shaping him down here so that he will fit up there! We are going to make it, right??? You bet we will. We have Identity, we have Purpose and we have Confidence in our playbook of life.

1) How do you feel when someone unjustly gets ahead of you, for example, your job or in any situation?

2) What are some of the challenges facing you?

3) As a Christian now, who in the Bible can you identify with and use as a mentor to get you through the difficult times?

4) What purpose can you find for yourself to faithfully walk the path God has set before you?

5) What verse can you find in Psalm 73 to give you the confidence to reap the reward God has prepared for you?