There was a meme by a comedic Christian Facebook page I follow called, The Unappreciated Pastor. And it has a lot of pastoral and congregational jokes. On Friday, it said, “Happy Earth Day, don’t forget to recycle an old sermon this Sunday!”
Well, I didn’t intend to, but…I’m recycling an old sermon today.
Like a lot of weeks lately, I hadn’t heard or felt or gotten a nudge from the Lord on anything. And I’m like, God, what am I supposed to preach on? And I felt led to sit down at the computer and start searching through some old sermons. And as I was doing so, I had a Steven Curtis Chapman song list I put together playing on iTunes, and the song, “My Redeemer is Faithful and True” came on. And it hit me. Those lyrics really hit me, so, I decided to type in Faithfulness in the search bar, and I had a few sermons on this topic and thought I’d reshare this one with you today.
So please turn with me to Psalm 37 and we’ll read the first 9 verses. I had considered reading the whole Psalm, as I did before, but because this is rather long–40 verses in all––I decided not to this time. But I think it’s such a good Psalm that I would recommend reading all of it later on today or this week and meditating and praying for those promises in your life.
While he was tending sheep, King David was being prepared to not only be a warrior king by fighting off prey but also as a psalmist, who would have played his harp and sung while tending sheep. Isn’t it amazing how God produces our personality and talents for future use in ways that we don’t even realize? Sometimes in the mundane, routine, everyday sort of things? Or maybe through our greatest stresses and challenges?
I don’t think David ever realized how the challenge of fighting off prey would impact the way in which he would someday be king; and that his playing the harp and singing in the fields would prepare him for writing songs that we would read and glean from thousands of years later. And I just want to say that as an encouragement, that we don’t know what we do now or where we have been can become an intentional stepping stone in God’s grand scheme of things as a preparation for a future that God may have for us, no matter what our age.
So, hopefully, that is an encouraging thought for you this morning.
Scripture: Psalm 37:1-9
1 Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pastures.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
7 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.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For those who are evil will be destroyed,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.
Like some psalms, there’s a lot of bitter and sweet mixed in there. And I think that’s because, like many psalms and proverbs, there is a distinction between righteous and unrighteous people. And this psalm is an encouragement for righteous people living in a world where it seems “The Unrighteous” are getting an unfair advantage over the Righteous. And that should not be so. I mean, haven’t you seen any cowboy movies? It’s not supposed to be like that.
My dad taught me that these three things are almost always the formula for a good cowboy movie. In fact, George Lucas borrowed these ideas for Star Wars:
- The good guy always wears white. The bad guy always wears black.
- The good guy always gets the girl.
- The good guy wins and rides off into the sunset.
I mean, it’s so simple. Why can’t the world be simple like that?
But simplicity is really the way for us to live and it’s really the way for us to win. A lot of real-life cowboys have a lot of their own proverbs. Here’s one from cowboyway.com “Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.”
I think, in a nutshell, that’s what this whole passage is trying to tell us. The world is full of The Unrighteous. The world is an unfair place. But the Lord is asking us to keep our nose to the grindstone; deep on living righteously; get up in the morning, do what we can: live our lives, go to work, love our families, love our neighbor, even love the unrighteous. But when it comes to things that are out of our control, like the plots and schemes of the unrighteous or the unfairness of life, let God take care of that. As for us, like I said, live as we can, do good as we can. And the Lord will take care of us, too.
It’s been a decade now since the Sandy Hook school shooting. And soon after that tragedy, Rev. Vaughan Smith preached on this psalm. He called his sermon, “Trusting God in Troubled Times.” He opened his sermon by saying this:
“The righteous relate rightly to God by seeking to know God and to obey God. But the wicked reject God and God’s ways. The wicked reject God because the wicked want to be their own gods. And the wicked reject God’s ways because the wicked want to do things their own way.”
He also said:
“Among other things, Psalm 37 recognizes the frustrating reality that the wicked often prosper, and the righteous often suffer. This seems unfair. The righteous try to live God’s way. The wicked reject God and live their own way. And yet… the wicked often seem to have it better than the righteous.”
But what David is saying in this psalm is to wait and be patient. It’s hard to do, we feel like we’ve waited our whole lives. Maybe we have. Maybe we’ve waited half our lives. And it’s like, God, when are you going to come through for us? When are my prayers going to be answered? Why do the unrighteous seem to be getting away with their wicked schemes while I’m waiting here not doing anything? Why do the wicked seem to be prospering?
The prophet Jeremiah grappled with this issue when he asked the Lord: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts” (Jeremiah 12:1–2). Job struggled similarly: “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” (Job 21:7). And the psalmist expressed envy when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, wondering if living righteously was worth the trouble not only in Psalm 37, but also––if we invert the numbers––in Psalm 73. How does a holy God of love allow His people to suffer while the wicked thrive?
I think we can reference a passage in the New Testament that might answer that. In speaking about the second coming of Christ, Peter tells his audience that God’s coming is not a delay. It’s not slow. God is not behind. He is waiting patiently to gather his family together. And he is waiting patiently for the unrighteous to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
What Peter is saying and what David is saying is actually, essentially the same. God works in His timing. His timing is perfect. The righteous are waiting for their reward. Sometimes it comes while we’re alive, but our full and complete redemption won’t be until our lives on this earth are over, and the wicked’s time is over as well. God is waiting for the wicked to come to repentance. Can you imagine if God ended everything 2000 years ago at the time the apostles were waiting for Christ’s return? Or at the time of David? Or at the time of Noah? Could you imagine if God just said, “Forget it. I’m done with people.” And never let Noah and his family start the population over?
Imagine all of mankind since then that would have never had the opportunity at life.
And what if our lives were cut short before we had the opportunity to repent? Can you imagine the millions of people who have been saved because of God’s patience? Because of his patience, He did not cut their lives short.
The time of judgment for the unrighteous will come, but not until there has been ample time for them to repent, first.
C.S. Lewis said: “God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating.”
He goes on to say: “Of course, God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk.”
So what about the meantime? Well, it’s stated right off the bat. The very first phrase, David said, repeats throughout this psalm: “Don’t fret.”
Warren Weirsbe said, “The word “fret” means “to burn, to get heated up.” David’s message was, “Cool down and keep cool!””
In these immediate first seven verses, David gives us four positive instructions: trust in the Lord (v. 3), delight in the Lord (v. 4), commit yourself to the Lord (vv. 5-6), and rest in the Lord (v. 7).
I could go on a whole other sermon just breaking those four things down, and maybe someday I will, but today I won’t. I’ll continue by saying, as we do those four things we can be assured of these next three things: that God understands our situation; that God blesses his people in spite of what goes on around us; and eventually the Lord righteously and perfectly judges everyone.
What God is calling us today is to trust in Him. He’s calling us to rest in Him. He’s calling us to continue, as I’ve stated in sermons before, to remain in Him, who is, ‘the Vine.’ He’s calling us to remain sheltered in His arms. And as Keith Green once sang, “He’ll take care of the rest.”
I know we didn’t read this, but if we skipped down and looked at verse 25, we catch a glimpse of an observation David made about living the righteous life. I had someone send me a video yesterday about all of the pop songs that are turning 40 this year, and boy, I felt old. But here’s what David said:
“I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread.”
Now, this isn’t a promise for every believer throughout every situation. We know that the Church has been, and still is, greatly persecuted throughout the world. One in 12 Christians around the world are being persecuted today. And if you follow the equator around the globe, that’s where the most severe persecution is being done. And sometimes disasters happen that we can’t explain. Tornadoes and earthquakes and I’m sure many Christians lost everything they had during the recent California fires.
But the point is, that God’s people are not left without any hope at all. In many cases, when you look closer at the lives of the unrighteous, they don’t have what you think they have. They may have wealth, but we have joy in the midst of sorrow. Notice I said ‘in the midst of sorrow.’ We still have sorrow, but we have peace that passes understanding in the midst of our sorrow.
I remember hearing my dad say that there is a striking contrast between doing a funeral for a Christian family and doing a funeral for someone who wasn’t a Christian. The Christian funeral is a bit more hopeful, isn’t it?
For us, in Watkins Glen, we have faith that God will provide for us whatever we need. Regardless of what the wicked have. How many times have we balance our checkbook and found that we have more money in there than we should have?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had that happen. I’ve heard testimonies from others who have had the same situation. How did that happen? The only answer was that it was God’s provision.
We may still have little in that checkbook. We may still live from week to week. But God provides. How many times have we seen it with this church building? I’ve said this before, but the older I get, the more grateful I am to have heat, a roof over my head, running water–even though it’s well water that has impurities in it, I’m still more grateful for that than I ever was years ago when we had pure water. Why am I more grateful? Because I know what it’s like to go without water or heat for a few days.
Maybe God brings hardships to us to wake us up to his simple blessings. Maybe God brings those hardships to us so that we can be humble, compassionate and understanding toward those who suffer. Can you imagine how worthless God’s people would be if we didn’t suffer? Can you imagine how prone we would be to pretentiousness if we didn’t suffer? How could we care for those less fortunate if we haven’t gone through some of the same things? How many ministries were born out of sorrow?
My nephew is 24 years old. He started a ministry to combat bullying. Why? Because he’s been bullied. He would have never started that ministry if he had never gone through what he went through. He was on the verge of suicide, but now he has a testimony to share with others.
God brings hardships to us to wake us up to his faithfulness, and to give us a testimony of God’s unfailing love for those who need to hear it.
I’m going to conclude by reading a couple of more verses that we didn’t read up front:
39 The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
40 The Lord helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.
So when you read or watch the news, or listen to talk radio like I do, and your blood begins to boil because you know those scheisters in Washington D.C. or Albany or some other state are up to no good, or when you want to throw your shoe at someone on TV for their anti-God agenda, I want to say this: God is on your side. It may not always seem like it. Sometimes it seems like God has forgotten us. Sometimes it seems like we’re not even on God’s radar. Sometimes it seems like the bad guys are winning. Sometimes it feels like God is not all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect, kind, loving, fair.
But we have the testimony of the Saints–from the time that these scriptures were written to today–of God’s faithfulness. We have the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” which is a testimony set to music that has lasted nearly a century to the point where it’s still being recorded in today’s style of music and broadcast all over the airwaves.
Just a year ago, we had “Great is Thy Faithfulness” on our church sign for quite a while. It’s taken from a passage in Lamentations. It goes well with our verses today in Psalms. That passage says this:
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
As we close today, I would like to sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” page 86 in our hymnals. And as we turn there, I want to encourage you today. Don’t give up praying, don’t give up believing. Wait patiently on the Lord. Keep living Godly lives. Keep doing the work of the Lord. Keep your eyes and your mind on the Lord, not on the evildoers or the wicked, or on your situation. But on the Lord. And we will see the salvation of the Lord, we will see our prayers answered in God’s timing and we will experience the peace and joy of the Lord in the midst of it all.
Prayer: Lord, I pray that you would be with each and every one of us today. May your Holy Spirit encourage us with a greater sense of faith. May you speak to us, and may you reassure us that no matter what we go through, if we have you, everything will be alright. That you hold each and every one of us in the palm of your hand. Lord, we lift up to you the needs that are on our prayer list and the additional prayers that were mentioned this morning.
Lord, Christmas is coming and some of us don’t know how we’re going to even provide a Christmas for our family. I pray for provision. I pray for the Andrews family. May you show them your love and faithfulness, especially during this Christmas season. May you pour out your compassion as they grieve.
Lord, we give these things to you and ask that you would show us your faithfulness. Show us your love, show us your kindness. We do this by faith remembering the many times you have been faithful to us in the past. We thank you and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Lolame from Pixabay
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