Songs of Summer: Psalm 37

Morning. It's great to be together today to lift up the praise of a high king. The king who is, though high and eternal, is present and personal to each and every one of us. What a great, great way to start the day, worship together and acknowledge him. We are in our series, the Songs of Summer.

Hopefully you've been here for part of it or most of it already, going through the psalms of the Old Testament, picking a different psalm each week, as always, the devotionals we've created for families and individual stuff. If you have not had a chance yet to pick one up or you're newer today, please feel free to grab one of those at the info desk on your way out today. You can join along, pursue it, read through it, question and kind of go over the message and kind of the psalm throughout the week and even in preparation for the weeks ahead as we continue the series through the remainder of this summer. It's it's so good to be here today. Great to have each of you here in the room.

Those who are watching online, A shout out to all those who are watching along with the Brown family online today as we continue through this series, I have the pleasure of diving into Psalm 37. Probably not a famous Psalm like the 23rd Psalm and some of the other ones, but it's got great, great content that I believe God wants to share and put on our hearts today to encourage us in what he's called us to be and to do in this life. So how do you respond? How do we respond when it seems that evil wins out over good, when it seems as though the ungodly are getting everything in life they want and yet the righteous, the godly people are suffering or kind of end up last? We're at the end of the line.

You know, seemingly there is so much evil in this world we don't have to look very far around. And we begin to see that all around us, in our examples of injustice around us, everywhere on the big ticket scale, on the larger scale, we begin to look and we see all sorts of depravity, if you would, school shootings, we see the refugee crisis, we see the wars that have raged around the world. Just so much injustice that is happening, sex trafficking, human trafficking, child abuse, food insecurity, and on and on they go. They're in this world that we live in and they're all around us. We see them daily and live with them all the time, where seemingly evil is prevailing and good is lacking.

And really the psalm today is so present and so real for us because it goes beyond those big ticket items, my friends, to each of us who have personal experiences with that arrogant neighbor or that co worker who brags all the time about cheating on their taxes and never getting caught. Their home is nice, nice, luxurious stuff. They show you all these pictures of all the beautiful cruises and places they've been, and yet here you are, never cheated on your taxes, trying to do what's right in life, trying to honor God, but yet it seems like you're barely getting by. It seems as though maybe you're even living paycheck to paycheck. So why is it that the ungodly seem to win in the world around us and that evil seems to prevail?

Or maybe your heart grows envious as you look out on social media. And the influencers of this world, of course, everything that they have you long for, their seemingly beautiful lifestyles, their good looks, their charismas, their families, their big break that got them to those 50 million friends and hits and everything on social media. And yet you're waiting. You're waiting. You're just longing, when will I have that big break?

When will my chance come?

And yet you're only hit with another emergency. A car repair appliance goes down. And all the while you're trying to figure out, why is this happening? Yet those influencers continue to worship themselves, to build their kingdoms, while you, on the other hand, are worshiping the Lord. And your life.

And the things you're doing show that exactly each and every day. Why is it that the ungodly seem to be losing in the righteous? Ungodly seem to be winning in the righteous suffer? First of all, we constantly need to be reminded that this life, winning isn't the first thing in this life. You know, finishing the race is what matters most.

It's not how you start, but it's finishing. The applause, the accolades, all of the different accomplishments are just for a fleeting moment in our lives. Going the distance with the eternal prize in mind is the greatest thing to do. It builds endurance, character, perseverance in our lives. It creates the righteous people that God desires for us to be.

It's not starting out strong. It's ending well. It's in life. It's a long game. I love the words of President Woodrow Wilson, who said this.

I would rather temporarily fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than temporary succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail. You see Psalm 37, David is stressing this exact point, that what is important is not a life as it begins, but it's the causes. It's a life that ends well, one that shows a God who has been faithful and lives out. It's a life in progress. Appearances, as you know, can be very fleeting.

And not everything is as it seems in the moment or may be projected to be, especially not in social media or on the Internet.

Some have said that we're living in a world that has gone mad or bad. And truly we understand that we do live in a world that clearly has walked away from God's wisdom and his plan. We see it every day. There's evidence all around us in all the things that are happening. And we as believers, as the righteous, are feeling it more and more.

As Paul suggested in the scriptures, we're becoming foreigners or aliens. We feel the pressure and the pushback. We're misunderstood and mocked for our stance or our beliefs in this world that we live. And yet Psalm 37 is filled with instruction for God's people, the righteous. Literally, it's God given counsel for us today.

But thank God, because I need some today. I need to hear what he has. This psalm was written by King David. And for those of you who know about his life, you understand that he had a long filled life of many observation. A man after God's own heart is what God called him himself.

But now he's in the latter years of his life. We'll read a verse later. He says, I was young and now I am old. And so that's the perspective that he's sharing from a wisdom, not only godly wisdom, but just of life and living out a godly life pursuing God. You may remember that David life was full of injustice toward him.

He saw seemingly the wicked winning all the time and evil prevailing even in his own personal life. In his 20s, he was pursued constantly to be killed by King Saul. And even though he had several times had the opportunity to take King Saul out, he chose not to sparing his life only to see King Saul go back to his comfortable palace. And David went back to his cold cave where he was hiding out. And then as time went, David continued again with some of the men and people he had around him to help others.

Nabal was another man that he went and helped and protected his flocks and shepherds from some bandits. Yet as he turned around in time to ask a favor from Nabal, Nabal basically said, forget it, drop dead, I'm not interested in helping you. So again he experienced that turn in his life and not to mention his kingship as David began and all the different skirmishes and all the different setbacks as the people were entering into the promised land for what they had conquered in the great victory of conquering the promised land, it was soon eclipsed by the sorrow of settling in by pushing back into enemy territory, by doing those things, a constant leadership. So Psalm 37 really is an acrostic psalm. It's one that each verse starts with a letter, successive letter, in the Hebrew language.

And so I don't tell you that this morning to tell you I'm going to teach you Hebrew anything, because God knows, I couldn't. I could. I barely got through Greek class as it was, which is what the New Testament's written in. But what I'm telling you is this isn't one neat, nice little logical argument that's presented, but rather it's an artistic presentation of wisdom. It's God's counsel to us, his people, the righteous.

It's a way for him to communicate how we can get through a world that seems to have gone mad that we're living in today. Practical conclusions of how to live faithfully for him and trust in him. And many times, the way that this is done through the wisdom psalms is this, that it's actually the wisdom is shown in a contrast between the righteous and the wicked or the ungodly. And so that's exactly what David does throughout this psalm. So as we begin to think about this psalm, I want us first to be all clear on one point.

As we look at the righteous or the godly and the ungodly or the wicked, I want us to understand who those two groups of people are. And I think we may think we know, but I just want to clarify it for all of us in the room today, exactly what we're talking about. So I want to skip to the very end of Psalm 37 to explain this. In verses 39 and 40, we read these words. The salvation of the righteous is.

Comes from the Lord. He is their stronghold in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them. Why?

Because they take refuge in him. You see, that is the answer. That is who the righteous are. They take refuge in God. And Yahweh is written here in the Hebrew.

And the God eternal, the one and only God. We take our refuge there. And we see this answer throughout the book of Psalms. It begins in Psalms 1 and 2, where we see that the righteous take refuge under the shelter of the tree or along the stream. Again, they take refuge in God, in the one who is there for them.

And we continue to see this throughout the Psalms and quite the opposite we see as well the righteous are those who take refuge God and the wicked are those who don't. In fact, the ungodly or wicked are those who refuse to take refuge in God, basically act as if God is not real. And in Psalm 14 they're addressed as practical atheists because that's what they are. And they're called foolish because they will not take God and trust in him. And again, the righteous are called such because they do trust in God and all that he has for them.

And it makes all the difference in the world, trusting in God. So you may not consider yourself righteous today, but you can. Every one of us can. And so let me just share this profound truth that David shares in this 37th Psalm, verses 30 and 31, he says this. The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom and their tongues speak what is just.

The law of their God is in their hearts. This is a profound promise that David is telling us. It's a promise of the new covenant of what is to come in believers lives, those who are righteous, those who take their refuge in God. And he's sharing that. Basically the law of God is written on our hearts when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, which basically happens when we place our faith in Jesus Christ.

So the law of God on our hearts is what it means to be righteous, to live for God, to take refuge in him. So to clarify, to be righteous is simply to put your faith in Jesus Christ. You become righteous when you take refuge in him. Here's a counsel for us today. I love that David begins this psalm.

He argues and repeatedly tells us the righteous do not fret, do not worry about what's going on in the world around you or the evadoers, because what eventually is going to happen to them is their demise. And he describes it in very vivid language. And I don't have time, and we don't have time to go through every example just in this psalm, but I just want to rattle off a few real quick for you. He says that they will fade like the grass. In verse two, they'll be cut off in 9, 22, 28, 34 and 36, while the while a wicked man will be no more.

In verse 10 the Lord laughs at them. In verse 13 their soul enter into their own heart and their bowels are broken. It's a pretty gross picture in the original language. In verse 15 their arms will be broken. In 17 they will perish.

They will be consumed away like fat. They will be destroyed, destroyed. Together forever. In verses 22 and 28. The picture of the wicked long term is not very good.

And so David begins a psalm in verse one, and he says these words to each one of us. Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong. Keep everything in perspective is what he's telling us. Keep it all in perspective. I love the Hebrew word here for fret.

The original word really means to be inflamed. It really is a word that we use even in English, from anger. To be influenced or really to be heated is the most correct. So what he's saying here in fret not, he's literally saying, don't get heated about the stuff that's going on. You know, back in my day, we used to say, chill or be cool however you want to say it.

It's the same thing. Don't get all bothered about the stuff, the evil stuff, presumingly, that is winning and going well around you, but instead focus on God. You see, the best way to stop getting worked up about the stuff of the world around us is to shift our focus to God. What he's working in us to try and see the things as he does, to think the things the way he does, to look for his will to be accomplished. The popular Christian band Newsboys is just getting ready to release another song.

Recent years they've been known for their songs that have gone along with the God not God's Not Dead series movie series. And so there's another one coming up September 12th to be released in theaters in God We Trust, the title track done by the Newsboys in an interview that they did with Michael Tate. And for a little of you music, contemporary Christian music artists in the room here, he was an original member of a group called DC Talk Back in the Day with Toby Mack and Kevin Max and Michael Tate. Here's what Michael said in an interview when asked about how do Christians living in a dark culture, what should they do? And Michael Tate said this.

He said, keep doing what you're doing. Don't fret, don't fear. That won't help you one bit. God's in control. We either believe it or we don't.

So how do we get there? How do we get to a place where we're not heated up, where we're not caught off guard by the stuff we hear and the things we see every day that we have to deal with? It's very simple. Well, it may not be simple, but the instructions are simple that David gives us here's four of them as we continue in the Psalms. The first one is trust in the Lord.

Verse 3 says, Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Put your confidence and your hope in the character and in the promises of God. That's what he's telling us here. Focus on God instead of ourselves.

Place understanding on his promises instead of on your problems or what you're dealing with around you each day. Trust in the Lord fully. Turn it over to him, relying on him for all that you are and all that you have. Secondly, he says, delight yourself in the lord. In verse 4 he says these words, take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Get to know Him. Create and cultivate an intimacy with God. That's what we've talked about throughout the Psalms and David, of course. As we even looked at the 23rd Psalm, we saw that being the shepherd that he was all that he learned and grew through and learned to cultivate and love and rely on God through the overcoming of the bear and the conquering of the lion and the protection of his sheep. And here he is writing in full confidence later in life, saying, you've got to delight yourself in the Lord.

Get to know Him. You'll be able to delight in Him. Because the beauty is that when you put you will get the desires of your heart because you'll be in alignment with the desires for God's for your life. When you are in alignment and you desire his desires, then you will receive his desires in your life. That's how it will work and that's how you're able to get the desires.

He will give you the desires of your heart because they're in alignment with Him. And thirdly, he says, commit your ways to the Lord. Commit your ways to the lord. In verse 5 he says, Commit your ways to the Lord. Trust also in him, and he will do this.

I love that phrase in different translations from the original. He will do this. He will make this come to pass. He will act. Be confident in what he will do.

So unreservedly we must take our plans, our desires, our dreams, our hopes, and we need to commit them to the Lord. Put them before him, trusting in him, and he will do it. Not what you and I can accomplish in our own strength and our own humanness, but trusting in him, and he will do it. You see, we either believe it or we don't. And fourthly, he says, be still and wait for the Lord.

Verse 7 He says, Be still before The Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. And in fact, David repeats this not once, twice, but three times in the Psalms. Do not fret. Do not get heated and worked up.

You know, some of the hardest things I think, for us to do as human beings is to be still and wait.

Just like almost that uncomfortable pause right there. Just to be still and wait is difficult. I mean, who has time to do that anyways, in our life? It's crazy, but that's what God calls us to, to learn to wait upon Him. And, you know, I find it interesting in our life because when we're waiting, what it means is we're out of control.

We're not in control of the moment when we're waiting on something or some someone else. Yet we do it all the time. You've done it, I've done it. We go to the doctor's office, we wait. Unfortunately, you got to go to the dentist office.

You wait at the airport, you wait.

These waiting rooms we subject ourselves to all the time, willingly. But yet when it comes to waiting upon God, many times we try to supersede and skip the process and jump on to what we want to do. Instead of waiting for God to bring the right thing at just the right time in our lives. We force ourselves into a bad situation many times because we couldn't trust in waiting on God. All because the fear of waiting are perhaps missing out.

But you see, waiting on God means that we're a perfect peace with his plan for our life. It enables him to do what he wants to do in and through us when he wants to do it. So David says, be still and wait upon the Lord. I'm reminded of Isaiah 40:31, where the prophet says these words, but those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Do not fret on what's going on around you. Trust, delight, commit, be still and wait on the Lord. And he will do it.

He will do it.

The overriding theme of this psalm, as we begin to see here, is having patience and confidence in God. It's receiving from God instead of being distracted by the things around us in the world. It's focusing on him and waiting upon him to do what he's going to do. I love the words of verse 23 as he continues with this concept when he said, the Lord makes first the steps of the one who delights in Him. Now, the word steps here in the Hebrew in the original language is really a plural.

It's suggesting that God's guidance is a process of steps, a series of steps that take us through our lives to the destination that he desires for us, the journey that he's called us on. And it's interesting that these steps are a series of steps. And yet many times we may ask the question, well, why the heck wouldn't God just tell us those steps right now? Well, you know as well as I do we could not handle that information. Plus, we'd miss out on what it means to depend and have faith in God as He takes us that next step and around and through that next perhaps painful situation in our lives and again to that next thing where we rise up and we see what he's done for us.

We continue to take steps after step after step because the Lord guides our steps. And we know as we depend upon him, that every event in our lives, both good and bad, work together to bring about God's plan for your life and my life. Of course, we're reminded of the verse in Romans 8:28, where we read that plainly. And we know that all things work together for the good. Not all things are good, but all things work together, the good and the bad, for the good of those who love God to them who are called according to his purpose.

And then he goes right on to verse 24, and speaking about the righteous. And David says these words, though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. My friends, I don't know if you've noticed yet or not, but we live in a very tempting world and it's very accessible. It's all around us. And it's possible for believers to fall.

It's possible we stumble along the way. Hello. We've all done it. Perhaps some of us are in it right now. We've stumbled through sins that we've committed or trials or or tribulations.

Our lives we haven't quite known how to navigate correctly. We've stumbled along the way, but because we are the righteous people who take refuge in him, he will not let us fall. I love one version says, utterly be cast down or overthrown with no hope of recovery. You will not be that. You and I will rise again because we have a king who has risen before us.

And we'll do it again and again in each one of us. We may stumble and fall, my friends, but we are not forsaken. God is there, sustaining us in the right in his right hand. No matter how it feels today, no matter how you're feeling the pain you're going through, you will see tomorrow. And you will see how God has brought you through it.

Because the righteous may stumble, but they will not fall.

Aligned with this promise is where I want to end with today. As we continue through the psalm is exactly what what David has seen, what he's experienced, and what he shares in life. Verse 25. I was young and now I am old, he says. Yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken.

I'm pretty old and I've seen the same thing. Are there children begging bread now? This doesn't mean that the righteous don't suffer. We understand that. We've read through the Psalms.

But what David is saying here is that there's nothing about the absence of suffering, but through the suffering, it doesn't have the final say in their lives. Affliction doesn't mean forsaken. Whatever the people of God are going through, they will endure. They will get through it because of God's right hand. And thus we must be content that the Lord will judge, and we must be able to be content that the Lord will also provide.

You know, many times injustices happen to hit us right where it hurts in the pocketbook. We feel it and it reminds us. But let us be reminded that the Lord will provide no matter what the situation. Now, spoiler for y'. All.

Your needs may be less than what you think they are. In verse 16. In fact, he says this, David says, better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked. God's promise of prosperity, excuse me, of provision, doesn't equate with the promise of prosperity. He promises to provide for you exactly what you need when you need it.

It's not a promise of prosperity that you'll have all these things and all these things will be gained.

He will give you exactly what you need. It will be enough for each one of us. What I found in my own life is when these earthly securities are stripped away, I find what matters most. It's a God who provides. It's a Lord who is always there.

No matter what I'm going through, no matter what I'm dealing, you know. Many years ago, a secretary of the British Missionary Society approached a Calcutta merchant for a simple donation to the Missionary Society. The man wrote a check for $250, which at that time was a very sizable amount. Just shortly after he had done that, he got an urgent cable grant which was brought in informing the merchant that one of his ships and all of his cargo had been lost at sea, the merchant explained and told the secretary, I need to write you another check. I'm sorry.

The secretary understood completely and returned the check for $250. The merchant wrote another check and handed it to him, and the secretary was amazed to see that the new check was for $1,000. Haven't you made a mistake? He asked.

No, the merchant said with his eyes filled with tears. They the cablegram was a message from my heavenly Father and it said, do not lay up your treasures here on this earth. You know, sometimes I'm afraid that our pursuit of being good financial stewards may overshadow our need to be generous financial givers. It's a sense where we allow stewardship to be a cover up, perhaps for selfishness. We claim wisdom, but really it's to prevent financial worry in our lives.

And as a result we may miss out on many opportunities to bless others. I encourage you to join us today to be a part of being more generous people. Every day in our lives, not only collectively here, but in our individual lives, we've seen great things. Many of you have been a part of the envelope series for our Next Gen. We had a great group go to CIY several weeks ago, middle schoolers, and they've come back and they're actually acting on some things that they were challenged with. And you might have read some of that in the Pulse this week.

This week we have another group going to high school week, over 40 of them. We want to pray for them and encourage them and bless them. Today we have another great opportunity of blessing children right here around us as they prepare for a successful year of school, which means they may need a new pair of shoes. Shoes for Souls is available. There's tables as you leave today.

I encourage you to help us love on these children. We'll have the next few weeks to do that through August 4th. You can return the shoes right here each Sunday or Life center throughout the week. If you want to volunteer online, feel free to get the details there. It's an opportunity that we all have and I thank you.

I thank you all. How you're already so generous in so many ways and I want to challenge you. If you are not a part of our giving community, if you're not generous in that way, there are simple ways that you can become involved in the screen behind me. But remember, do not fret, trust, delight, commit, be still and wait on the Lord. And he will do this.

He will show you exactly what he wants to do in and through you, in your life. I would love, as we come to a close today, if you would stand with me. I'd love to read these last two verses where we started today, verses 39 and 40 together, if you'd read them with me. The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord. He is their stronghold in times of trouble.

The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in Him. God not only gives us strength for today, but he promises restoration in our tomorrow for the righteous, those who take refuge in Him. Let's remember that this world is as good as it gets for the ungodly, but it's as bad as it gets for the righteous. If things are difficult today, remember that they'll be different tomorrow.

The righteous have never been forsaken. And my friends, you will not be the exception. Never. The good news is that God, that God has everything that we need. Bible says the righteous have never been forsaken.

Not only referring to the exterior, but an interior provision. He has given us the joy, the courage, the endurance, the patience to make it through this journey. He's called us on, on everything that we need. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and they'll be all added unto you. God, we thank you for that promise, that encouragement, that counsel today that we may leave here knowing who you are, the great provider of our lives.

No matter what's going on and what we're going through, you will provide in Jesus name. Amen.