Sermon
The Heritage Of The Righteous Person -- Psalm 37
August 18, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

The way we study the Bible here is just verse after verse seeing what God wants to say to us from His word. Here we are now in Psalm 37. Let me read it for you:

Do not fret. What does fret mean? Don't get hot under the collar; don't get all heated up; don't all get bothered -- don't fret. "Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath; do not fret--it only causes harm.
For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more.
But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, to slay those who are of upright conduct. Their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.
The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish; and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away.
The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand.
I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lends; and his descendants are blessed.
Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell forevermore. For the Lord loves justice, and does not forsake His saints; They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell in it forever.
The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of justice. The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.
The wicked watches the righteous, and seeks to slay him.
And the Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.
Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.
I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a native green tree, yet he passed away, and behold, he was no more; indeed I sought him, but he could not be found.
Mark the blameless man, and observe the upright; for the future of that man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together; the future of the wicked shall be cut off.
But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them; He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him."

It's interesting when you study it in an overview, you'll notice it's a psalm of comparisons. He's comparing the life and the benefits of a righteous person versus the problems and the destiny of the wicked. You say what is a righteous person? In the Bible it's used to define a person who seeks to do what is right in the sight of God. That's his aspiration. We don't always accomplish that. We'll fail, but deep in our heart there is that driving desire to say, God, I want to live my life in every respect so that my words, my deeds, and everything I do I want to please You. That's a righteous man.

The wicked is one who absolutely has turned God out of his life and has no use for God. That is a wicked man. Now there's something else about this psalm. It's a psalm of mature wisdom. Notice verse 25: he said, I have been young, but now I am old. Now here's what David is saying -- I have had long years of life and I have made some observations, and as an old man, I want to give you some secrets to living. Just listen. He said I've learned a lot and I want to share these things with you.

I've always enjoyed older people. Even as a younger man I liked to sit and listen to them. During the '70s and '80s, as our church was developing and maturing, God blessed us with a great number of older men who had come to us from various ministries because we have started our own in-house Bible college training -- the training of ministers. There were a great number, I think I had 8 or 10 men, from the Bible college side. Each week we sat around the conference table for our time of prayer and our staff meetings.

One morning I said to our group as we assembled, I said, let's do something fun today. Let's add up all the years that are represented here in terms of each person's ministry. You tell me how many years you've preached and let's add them all up. So I remember Dr. Pickthorn said, well Pastor, I've been preaching for 65 years. We just had his funeral. He was 91 and he passed on to glory. This went on and on, and when we added it all up, it added up to 360 years of pastoral experience. And I turned to these gentlemen and said, you know, with 360 years of maturity and experience we can't make very many mistakes. And it was wonderful because as we would come to a difficult decision in the life of the church always from one of those men came an experience which they had gone through, and they were able to share their wisdom with us. And it was the wisdom of those great men that, I think, established such a consistent ministry here at the Church of the Highlands -- great men of God. The only sad thing is I've buried them all. They've gone on to glory.

I was reading about John Wesley. He was the founder of the Methodist church. And this was many, many years ago. John Wesley traveled 250,000 miles on horseback during his years of ministry to preach the gospel. He preached 40,000 sermons, and he wrote or produced 400 books. That's with pen and quill, folks, not a computer -- 400 books, and he knew and spoke fluently 10 languages. At 83 he was annoyed that he could not write more than 15 hours a day without hurting his eyes, and at 86 he was ashamed because he could not preach more than twice a day. And he complained in his diary that there was an ever increasing tendency to lie in bed until after 5:30 in the morning. Old age.

Dr. Arthur Judson Brown, a great Presbyterian Pastor, still serving, still preaching at 103 years of age. They had a birthday party for him and one of his parishioners asked, Doctor, could you give us the formula for a long life? And he said, yeah, don't die. (Pastor and congregation laugh)

You tell me I'm getting old, I tell you that is not so. The house I live in is worn out and that, of course, I know. It's been in use a long, long while. It's weathered many a gale. I'm really not surprised you think it's getting somewhat frail. The color's changing on the roof. The windows getting dim. The walls a bit transparent and looking rather thin. The foundation's not so steady as once it used to be. My house is getting shaky, but my house isn't me.

A few short years can't make me old. I feel I'm in my youth. Eternity lies ahead, a life of joy and truth. I'm going to live forever. There life will go on, it's grand. You tell me I'm getting old; you just don't understand. The dweller in my little house is young and bright and gay. Just starting on a life to last throughout eternal day. You only see the outside which is all most folks see. You tell me I'm getting old, you've mixed my house with me. Old age.

David said I'm an old man now and I've learned some things I want you to know -- secrets to living. Let's start -- verse 1. Do not fret. He realized that much of life is made up of worry, and fretting, and stewing, and getting hot under the collar, and getting mad. So the first thing he deals with is he says, listen, the first thing I've got to say as an old man, do not fret. And when you analyze it, fretting or worrying is usually caused as the result of making comparisons.

Look at what he says: because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. It's oft times that our worrying and our fretting, we're comparing ourselves with somebody else; either their status, or their resources, or their health, or their looks -- whatever it might be. Oft times those are the things that we fret and worry about. And notice he says in verse 8, don't do it because it just harms you. It really hurts you. They say that work never killed anybody, but worry has.

I have a man who's going through a very, very difficult divorce. He's carrying the tensions of that. Each time he comes he talks about the pain of standing in the court and watching the injustice of our justice system work its way out. He's very tense. Last night I was informed as a young man he's had a heart attack. Tension has its effect on us bodily, and what the old man says is, folks, don't wear yourself out early and don't kill yourself with fretting. Because he says the thing we often fret about will come to an end. You'll learn when you live life to look at some issues and just simply say, this too shall pass. And you'll look back in a few days, a few hours, a few months and realize it did pass, and all the frustrations, and all the fretting, and all the stewing didn't help a bit. So the old man says the first thing I want to tell you is don't waste your time worrying because you'll only do yourself harm. It's good practical advice, isn't it?

But you say, Pastor, how can you stop worrying? Is there a secret? Does he give us a formula as to how to stop worrying? Yes he does. Look at the next verse. He says, trust in the Lord, and do good. Now the word for trust is the word commit. It's the same commitment, nature of commitment, that we make to one another in the marriage vows. God has committed himself to us. He has so loved us that He sent His son to die for us, and what He wants of us is a commitment of ourselves totally to Him. So David says trust in the Lord; put your total confidence, make Him the very core of your being, the very purpose of your living. Live for God!

But then he adds, don't make it just theory, put some practicality to it. That's why he adds that next phrase. Do you see it? And do good. He says that a righteous man will learn that by trusting in God and doing good, that man will take care of the problem of fretting. And again there's tremendous practical advice. When we get all stirred up about things that disturb us, find somebody else who's worse off than we are. Go help them; do something for them. He is saying trust God, but fill your life with good works. Do things that bless others and bring honor to God. Don't make your religion just theoretical. I'm a Christian. He says if you're going to say you're Christian then act like one. Do good.

And then he says dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Now that's an interesting phrase. What does he mean by that? Well he means that when you come to those times when you think, now's the time to worry, now's the time to get all bothered and heated up, he said that's the time you back away from the situation and you feed on God's faithfulness. How do you do that? This is the way I do it. When I come to a problem, something in the church, and I realize this could really get me hot under the collar, this could really stir me up, this could really get my nerves on end, I go to my office and I sit down and say God, now I'm going to back up 10 years or maybe 20 years. I'm going to start counting, enumerating the many times that God stepped in onto the scene and His faithfulness has never failed -- never failed.

And what David says is when you have a tendency to start worrying, be smart enough to say all right, I'm going to leave that situation there, but I'm going to go back and count my blessings. We used to sing an old hymn, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the God has done. Count your blessings and weigh them ton by ton, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Old David says, listen, don't fret, but when you feel a proneness to fretting, and stewing, and worrying, just abandon yourself to God. He says remember His faithfulness. Then he says delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart. And the word in the Hebrew means have an exquisite enjoyment. In other words, he's saying, make God so wonderful in your life that when you're in His presence, when you have His word open, when you're on your knees in prayer, when you're in the sanctuary in worship may that be an exquisite moment with God. Something you really delight in.

We pray that in the worship services of our church that it gives you reason to lift your hearts and delight in God. We sang those great hymns today and it lifts our hearts. But he says, again, he gives us an insight, you delight in God and He'll give you the desires of your heart. Because what happens when you delight in somebody their desires become your desires.

Let me illustrate. I started dating my wife 50 years ago. But when I started dating her I found out that her delights were different than mine in terms of food. I'm not trying to be unfair, but I don't like Mexican food, or at least I didn't. But she delighted in Mexican food and because that was her delight, that became my delight. Do you see what I mean? And what he's saying is when you fall in love with God, He'll put His desires in your heart. Isn't that amazing?

Let's go on. Then he goes to verse 5 Commit your way to the Lord. Commit means just simply to abandon yourself to God. Total trust; no questions. God's in charge. I'm His child. He's my heavenly Father. He loves me and the Bible says that if I as a human father love my children, how much more He loves me, and I love my kids. And if He loves me more than I love my boys, my family, then He really loves me. And so he says just commit your way to a God who really does love you. Trust in Him.

Then we come to verse 7. Then you rest in the Lord and you wait patiently for Him. Remember, he's telling us how to quit worrying, how to quit fretting. So first of all he says trust, total commitment of your life to God. Fill your life with doing good things, then delight yourself, then abandon yourself to His purposes for you, and then rest.

Now that's the hardest part. And at 70 plus years, folks, I'm still trying to learn that. I'll tell you why. My natural tendency is if there's something that needs to be solved, I'm going to solve it. And oft times in my solution of solving it I mess it up worse and it takes God twice as long to fix it up. Right? In fact, I've been going through a situation where I've had an urge to do this and to do that, and all the time this verse keeps coming back -- just rest in the Lord.

That's not me. I'm going to do something! I'm going to bring this matter to a closure. Right? And sometimes when I do I've overstepped God's plan, and I didn't learn the lesson He wanted to teach me. When I should be waiting on Him. So the old man says if you're going to stop fretting, you've got to start resting and trusting God.

Look at verse 8. He says cease from anger. Why did he put that in there? Because he knows that our natural tendency is that if things aren't going right, who's the first one to get blamed for? God. I hear it every week. Why would God allow this to come into my life? Why would God do this? Why does God get blamed for everything? And oft times, that blaming turns to anger and that anger eats away and rots the soul into bitterness.

I have met many a person who've allowed a situation in life were they didn't feel that God was fair turn in anger, and as a result, that anger turned to bitterness and now they're a million miles from God. So David said don't ever get angry at God. Don't ever. Cease from anger because in anger you often end up doing things that are wrathful. You know that. You can't control your feelings and when you're angry only heaven knows what's going to happen. And he says don't fret, do yourself no harm, because it only causes harm.

Let's take our notes and go to page 5. Now David says, as an old man, I'm telling you don't waste your time worrying. Let's be honest today -- how many of you came in here worrying? All of you, almost. The old man has some good wisdom, doesn't he? Do you know why he's saying that? He's saying we live lives where we're taught to think in soundbites. You watch television and their soundbites are either 3 minutes long or 6 1/2 minutes long because they tell you that you can't keep a person's attention for any longer span of time, so they call them soundbites. And what happens, we've learned to live our lives in soundbites, and that's why every little issue become such a big issue. We see it only in the context of this little soundbite.

What David says as an old man, what you've got to learn is to take that issue, leave it there, and then back away from it far enough so that you get the overview of life, where you see it from the beginning to the end. And David is saying, listen, that wicked man may prosper and in that soundbite it may cause you to envy him, but just remember in the long-term he's going to be cut off and his destiny is sure, but the righteous man who does righteously in the big picture he's going to have a lot of benefits that are going to flood to him.

I'm learning that more and more as your pastor you've got to back away from a situation and just see it played out in a longer period of time. So David says if we'll look at life that way and remember the wicked, we know what is going to happen to them. Because in that psalm it's constantly the wicked are going to do this, the wicked that, they're going to be cut off.

Down at the bottom of page 5 there is a blessing, another blessing, that is enjoyed by the righteous person. They shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Do you see it there? The Bible says "There is no peace," says the Lord, "for the wicked." "The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind that is controlled by the Spirit is life and peace." "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." "The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace." "Thou will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trust in You." Peace I leave with you, said Jesus, My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ"

David said as an old man I want you to know that the wicked people have no peace. A righteous man has the peace of God that floods his heart. Our psalm gives us another benefit: The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever.

Top of page 6 -- For the righteous, the Lord sees their whole course of life; and His eyes are upon our ways. Nothing will be able to touch them that is not ordained by God. And when the earthly journey is finished according to His divine timetable, the eternal inheritance is assured. And Peter says, Praise be to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. It's kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by the power of God until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. As a righteous person we know that when life is finished we've got an inheritance in heaven.

Notice verse 19. The psalmist says another benefit that comes to the righteous, in the days of famine he shall be satisfied. Remember in the start David said I was young and then I'm old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread. Is David saying he's never seen a righteous person ever hungry? No, because David was hungry. Remember he took bread out of the temple because you was hungry. Paul said, I was often hungry. It's not that righteous people don't have their economic downturns, we all do, it's part of life, but he is saying that in the time when the economics are short God takes care of the righteous. That's a very practical benefit, isn't it?

You know, when you've lived long enough -- I've lived through the '70s. In 77 we sat in lines two and three hours waiting for gas. Do you remember that? An economic downturn. Then came 82, another economic downturn, 87. It kind of goes in cycles. Then we've got this one as the result of a great big bubble that popped and we've got another economic downturn. But I want to tell you something, as a pastor who's observed 50 years plus, I've learned this: that when the economic downturn comes for a godly person they may have their times of learning and their times of readjustment, but God always comes through, always, always.

And the mark of a righteous man is not selfishness. It says that a righteous man gives not only to God, but gives to others and God observes that, and when we have our shortfalls God is there to take care of us.

Now the last one at the bottom of page 6. Notice that our psalm concludes with one more benefit that the righteous person receives, and that is, the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. The wicked man has no God to turn to. The wicked man has no source of help and strength. All he's got is himself to turn to. The righteous person can turn to God. And you never see this more vividly played out than when you stand beside, in a hospital, the deathbed of somebody who has been a saint and somebody who has lived their life for God. You watch the family gather around and even though there are tears, there's a sense of strength and there's a sense of peace because our God is there to help us in that time of difficult trouble.

But I'll tell you there's nothing so desolate as to watch the death of someone and the surrounding family and friends to have no faith in God, nobody to turn to, only themselves. Old David says and the wicked have their eternal destiny they're cut off, forever banished from God's presence.

So the righteous man is the man who learns in life to trust in God, delight in God, and rest in Him. And when he does, the benefits will flow. He'll have that peace of God that passeth all understand. He'll have the provision of God that sees him through life's most difficult times. And he'll have the power of God available to help him when all the world crumbles around him. It's worth been a righteous person, isn't it? Those at the benefits. And David says as an old man it's true. Amen?

Father in heaven we turn to Your word because it's here that we find instructions for living. We've listened to an aged man advise us wisely today as David has told us that worry should be excluded from our living, and we put our trust in You. And I saw so many hands raised because there are many reasons, at least in our world around us, that create tension. God, I want You to surround these people now with Your peace, and with Your presence, and fill their hearts with Your joy. And thank you for all the benefits that we enjoy in living for You dear God. Thank you for the peace, for the promise of heaven, for the provisions of things in life, and for Your power and presence available in times of trouble. Thank you for being our God. And everybody said, amen. God bless you folks. God bless you.