Psalm 37: Fret Not
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
I turned my mic off before walking up here, which means it was on forever. So if the music sounded particularly good, you're welcome. Singing along. Go to Psalm 37. We're starting a series. During the summer, we're going to walk through some of the Psalms together.
So we're going to be about eight weeks in the Psalms over the course of the summer. The Psalms is the Bible's songbook. It's the Bible's hymnal where God gave us, through the psalmist, ways to pray and to praise. He gave us songs of worship and songs of lament. There are poems and wisdom in the Psalms. And so they are helpful for us to periodically take some time to just spend some time here to grow in prayer, to grow in worship, and to grow in understanding how to deal with a lot of what's going on inside of us in relation to God.
Because that's what the Psalms deal with quite often, is how we feel, and then turning over to what's theologically true in worship and what's true about God. So the Psalm we're looking at today is Psalm 37. It's a poem written by King David. And he wrote it when he was older. The way we know that is in this Psalm he says, I'm old. And so that helped us.
That was the clue. Tipped us off. And so we see that he wrote this when he's older. And what he's doing is he's looking at the world. And it's as if he's surveying everything. And he's going, okay, I see evil.
I see wickedness. And so often it seems like evil works. Wickedness helps you prosper. It's kind of what he's seeing in the world. That being violent, being aggressive, being greedy. So often seems like it helped them.
That they've prospered. That that was the way to go. To be aggressive, to be violent, to be harmful to the poor and the needy. Somehow helps people win. That's kind of what he's looking at. And you can see, you almost feel him as he's looking at this going, and that tension of, is this how this is always going to be?
Is this how this always works? And so he gives this encouragement in the midst of surveying this. That Psalm 37 is an encouragement to us. And here's what he says. Let's look at verse one.
Fret not. Fret not. That's the theme of this Psalm. Fret not. To fret is to be anxious. To be worried.
To wring our hands. To have something roll in our mind over and over again. It's this feeling of turmoil and fearfulness. It's this feeling of frustration and anxiety. And if you've lived recently, you'll know that we live in an anxious time. We live in a tumultuous, frustrated time.
And that we're told to be anxious and frustrated. That much of the message today is, aren't you mad about this? Aren't you upset by this? Don't you see what they're doing? And it really doesn't matter which side of any of these arguments or these issues that you fall on. Don't you know they're coming for you?
Don't you know they're coming for your children? Or don't you know that the children are coming for you? Don't you know they're coming for your guns? Or they have guns and they're coming? That these, whatever, which way ever it is. And all these things.
There's this general fearfulness. Anxiety and fretting. Because of the wickedness that's out there. The oppression that's out there. And how troublesome it is. And so, David says, The most helpful thing that I would just encourage you to use this in any kind of discussion you get into when someone's upset.
Calm down. That's what David says. Shh. Try that next time you get in an argument. It's nice. Works well.
I found that that works really effectively with babies. But not so much with my wife. But that's what he's saying. Fret not. And immediately your response is, Sounds great. Would love to do that.
How? I'm so glad you asked. Because that's what David's going to spend this whole Psalm explaining to us. That he proves his point. That you can fret not. So let's pray.
And let's walk through this together. Lord, if we're honest, we have so much to fret over. We have so much that if you just talk to us for a little while, if we just remain undistracted for a little while, we're afraid. Lord, we're anxious. We look into the future so often and we feel vulnerable. And so, Lord, we take a Psalm like this and we look at it and we're told to fret not.
And we pray that by the empowerment of your spirit and by the goodness of your word, that you would help us to see how that can be true practically and fundamentally in our hearts. We ask that you would apply this to us today. Help us to learn. Help us to grow. And help us to walk this out by the power of your spirit. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. So what we're going to do is we're going to walk very slowly through the first 11 verses. If you peek ahead, you'll see this is a long Psalm. And so after a few minutes, as we've walked through the first few verses, you're going to think, oh, we're going to be here for four and a half hours. And as much as I would enjoy that, we're not going to do that. We're going to go very slowly for the first 11 verses because in the first 11 verses we're given about 12 commands.
So in some ways, at the very beginning of this Psalm, David's taking us and grabbing us by the ears and looking us in the eye and he's talking directly to us. But at about verse 12, he releases our ears and he turns us and he says, see? So he's going to give us these commands and then he's going to go, look, I'm going to show you how this plays out. And then when we hit verse 12, we're going to move at a bigger, more landscape kind of pace. We're going to move a little faster to try to see how we can take what he told us in the first 11 verses and how he can press it in a little more in the back part.
So I'll tell you when we're making the turn. But at first, we're going to move a little bit slowly. OK. Fret. Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of wrongdoers.
First thing I want you to notice is that the evildoers and the wrongdoers exist. He's not saying it's not as bad as you think it is. He said, no, no, no, they're out there. And I know that evildoers sounds like who Batman fights at night. Ne'er do well. But what he's saying is people who do evil, that there are wicked people.
There are people who actively seek to lie and oppress and use their power to harm. There are people who go out of their way to to take and to defend their position. They don't care about others. There are people who lie, that steal, that cheat, that murder. And he says, yes, we acknowledge that. But then he's going to tell us to fret not and be not envious.
And it feels like those are often the two paths that we kind of have when we're looking at evildoers and wrongdoers. Fretting is this general sense of anxiety, this, oh, my goodness, how is this going to work out? Oh, they're winning. It's working out for them. They're coming for us. That general feel.
And we just roll it over in our head over and over and over again. It's almost like we're churning butter. You take something that exists, take some milk, and you just keep messing with it. You keep churning it. And eventually it turns into cream and then it turns into heavy cream and then it turns into butter. And you take something that's real and you make it worse and thicker and more problematic.
That's what fretting does. Take something that's real and you just keep rolling it over and over and over again. So it's the only thing that exists. It's the only thing that you can think of. That's one of the options for us. The other one is to be envious.
And we take that route sometimes. Which is if that's how they're going to act, that's how I'm going to act. If that's how they're going to do politics, that's how we'll do politics. If that's how they're going to talk, that's how we'll talk. And it can be real simple things. Like I used to work sales.
And there's a thing I learned. Is that you sell things if you lie. I worked with a salesman. He was a great salesman. And he was a liar. People would ask him questions.
And he would just... I knew he didn't know the answer and he would just answer. And at first I was like, is that real? And he was like, I don't know. So then I just learned.
He's just making stuff up. I learned after a while that I knew more than he did. But he just would give better answers than I could. Because his were fictional. Sometimes it was just he made up an answer so that he could keep the sale going. Sometimes you asked him a question and he actually had a bad answer.
And he would just go, oh no, no, that's not these. That's those. And it's like, no, it's those too. Those also have that problem. They know their stuff. They're just...
And so you can be envious. You can go, you know what? I think I'm just going to have to lie. I think I'm just going to have to join that. I've worked with people in our... As I've been being pastor.
And trying to help them get out of situations. And they're fighting. And they're working. And they're laboring. And I've had the conversations with them. And they go, this isn't worth it.
I'm going to go back to selling weed. Because I can make so much more money so much quicker. I know it's wrong. But I'm just going to do that. Because the guys around me that are doing that, everything works out easier for them. And so there's this fretfulness or this being envious.
And he says, don't do that. And that's what he says. Don't. Stop. Stop. And I'll tell you, that's how I...
If you ever get to do counseling with me, that's how I do it. I ask you what you're doing. And I say, stop it. And then I say, let's pray. Okay. So it's not super helpful, but the meetings are short.
So you can get back on your merry way. That's what he says. He just says, stop. But he's going to tell us why. He's going to give us some reasons. We're going to move on.
So he says, for. That's how he starts this next sentence. So when he says, for, that means, here's why. Here's why not to fret. For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. He says, the reason you don't have to fret, the reason you shouldn't be envious of them is it will not work out for them ultimately.
Watch them for a little while. It doesn't work. They'll fade like the green grass. They'll wither like the green herb. They'll look about like your front yard looks right now. Unless you've been running your water constantly.
Spring came. The grass was like, ah, the sunshine. Okay, that's enough. Okay, all right. Too much. Too much.
Stop. Please stop. It's just been cooked. That's what he says. It's going to look like that. It's going to wither.
It's going to fade. It's going to fail. I don't get green herbs a lot, but I do sometimes buy bananas. If you have children, they'll have a week where they each eat three bananas a day. And you're like, oh, we eat bananas here. And then you buy a bunch of bananas.
And they're like, I don't like bananas. I don't get that away from me. And so then you watch like seven bananas that you bought just so you could murder on your counter. And you watch them wither. That's what he's saying is that if you watch it for a little while, it's going to fail. It's going to fade.
And I love how this is written because he says they. Now, he's referring to the evildoers and the wrongdoers. But I love that he says they because isn't that who's after us? They. You ever have someone go, you hear what they're doing? Do you hear what they just did?
It's never anything good. They is not out to help us. It's never like, you know what I heard they're doing? They take our military and they train them so that if something bad happens, they can show up and help. Can you believe that? I heard they're taking our teachers and they're teaching them so that later they can teach our children how to read.
Can you believe that? It's never what they're doing. They're coming for you. They're coming for your wallet. They're coming for your children. They're coming for your house.
They're killing all your cattle. They're invading all these things. They did covid so they could put the batteries back in the birds. All the crazy things they are doing. They are never up to anything good. And it just depends on who you're talking to as to what they are doing.
And I will encourage you every once in a while, go to the other side of the Internet so you can hear that your team wins, too. They're scared of you also. But they are never up to anything good. And so I think what you can do is say, you know what I heard? I heard they will soon wither like the grass. And fade like the herb.
We're going to be OK. They won't win. The wickedness that they're up to, the evil that they're up to, they won't win. That's the promise. That's why you don't have to fear is because they. Will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
So he keeps going. Trust in the Lord and do good. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. What he's not saying is don't do anything. He says do good.
Do what's in front of you to do. When he defines this later, he's going to talk a good bit about generosity. He brings that up a couple of times. You do good. You do what's in front of you to do. But you do that out of a position of trust, not fear.
We do that out of a position of faithfulness, not fretfulness. We do that out of a position of understanding who he is and how good he is and that we're supposed to follow him. Not if we don't do this, everything will fall apart and they'll get us. We get to trust and do. But you got to be in the position of trust that ultimately.
We have a Lord. That's what he says. We don't have to be fearful. We have a Lord. He's king. He's in charge.
He rules with a scepter. He's the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He's overseeing this. Trust him and then do. And I love the back half of that verse where he says, dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. I stared at that for a long time.
I was just trying to wrap my head around what does dwell in the land mean? And I think in this context, what he's getting at is. Live a life. Trust the Lord enough to live a life. To plant, to harvest, to build. To live.
Don't always have your bags packed. Don't always have one foot out the door. Don't live in such a way that you can't ever think that anything good will happen in the future so that you're terrified. Dwell in the land. And then he says, befriend faithfulness. Make faithfulness your friend.
That's your new friend. I appreciate that. Because so often we've befriended anxiety. Fearfulness is our best friend. You're about to go to bed at night. And anxiety just busts up in the door.
Opens your refrigerator. Sits down on the couch next to you. It was like, hey. I was thinking. What if first we'll just start running through some memories from middle school for the heck of it. Then I'm going to tell you how all your friends currently think about you.
I can read their thoughts. And guess what? It's not looking too good for you. Then I'm going to tell you how the future is going to go. Awful. Spoiler alert.
And then after we've done this for a couple of hours. So it's like, I don't know, one or two in the morning. Then we're just going to talk about how you haven't fallen asleep yet. And tomorrow is going to be awful. And we'll just discuss how you should fall asleep. But because I won't shut up.
You're not going to. That's our friend. Faithfulness. Fearfulness. Anger. He says, no, no, no.
I mean, did I say faithfulness? Yeah. He's not our friend yet. But we should have him as our friend. Y'all got it. Pay attention.
All right. Faithfulness is who your friend needs to be. That you're trusting in the Lord. You're walking steadily in faithfulness. And so often we've made anxiety, anger, and fear. That's who we dwell with.
And he says, no, no, no. Trust in the Lord. He's good. You have a Lord who oversees all of this. Let's keep going.
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. If we can learn to find what is good and fulfilling from the Lord. That if our hope is in him, two things happen. First, if your delight is in the Lord and then someone comes and says, don't you know they're going to take everything from you? Not my delight.
They can't take him. They can take everything. But where my hope is, where my fulfillment is, they can't take. See, if our delight is in the Lord, then everything else gets to be everything else. That if he's really where our joy is, if he's really where our foundation is, then guess what? Money gets to just be money.
It's nice. It's helpful. It can be a gift. But it's not our hope. It's not our future. If our delight is in the Lord, then our kids just get to be our kids.
Little sinners that live in our house. They don't get to be what makes us okay. They don't get to be what saves us. They don't have to be our hope and our future. If our delight is in the Lord, then our relationships, our romance just gets to be that. A gift.
It's nice. But it doesn't have to fix our souls or save us or make us lovable. And then, as our delight is in the Lord, he says, he'll give you the desires of your heart. Now, this isn't like a wink your delight is in the Lord and then you get whatever you want. Like, okay, how do I make him think my delight is there so that then I can have what I really like? That's not how that works.
What he's saying is if you genuinely have your heart set in the Lord where your joy comes from him, then he blesses and works in a way that you get what your delight is. You get him and you get the other stuff, but the other stuff just falls in its right spot. And it doesn't have to be there for you to be okay. That's what Jesus says when he says to seek first the kingdom of God and the rest of this will be added to you. That if you've got this in place, everything else falls into place. And if it doesn't fall into place the way you want it to, you're still okay because your delight's in him.
Verse 5. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. So this is the same thing he's been saying to us the whole time. He's telling us, trust him. Commit your way to him.
What's just a saying? Don't be envious of wrongdoers. Just say, Lord, I'm going to do the thing that you tell me to do. I'm going to walk the path that you lay out for me. And we trust him and he Acts. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day.
That justice and righteousness are carried out by him. That he Acts on our behalf so that we can trust him knowing that he's going to accomplish these things. Verse 8. Oh, verse 7. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices.
I want you to see what it doesn't say is that evil never works. What it's saying is that evil never ultimately works. That you watch them and they prosper in their way. That it's a good way to get ahead. And he just says, yeah, but it's temporary. They're carrying out evil devices.
They're winning. Have you noticed how much culture, your social media, your radio, your YouTube videos, and your friends who are on social media, listen to their radio or watch YouTube videos, are telling you they're winning. We're losing. They're prospering. And if you said, yes, I've got a plan. I'm going to be still and wait.
What? When something happens, people will post, you know, our thoughts and prayers. And people have started just saying, we don't need your thoughts and prayers. We need your action. We don't need being still and waiting. We need you to move and do.
I will say, the world actually doesn't need our prayers. It doesn't need us to post on Facebook that we're praying. Just throwing that out there. It does need our prayers. But there's this general sense of you're going to wait.
You're going to be still. That's crazy. You've got stuff to do. Aren't you enraged? Aren't you frustrated? Aren't you scared?
Don't you see what's going on? Verse 8. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It tends only to evil. I've said this before, but one of my favorite types of movie is the you've ticked off the wrong guy movie.
I love that movie. Like, he was minding his own business. You started it. Now you and all your friends are going to die. It's one of my favorite westerns is that. Look at this farmer.
Uh-oh. Now he's going to have to kill everyone. But what verse 8 says is that Denzel Washington is lying to you. That this tends towards evil. And that we're to forsake wrath. We're to refrain from anger.
There's some amount of, I should be mad. I should be angry. And this is going to fuel my work. This is going to fuel what we're going to do. I'm going to use this anger as a furnace. I'm going to fret.
I'm going to wrap my head around this. And we're going to be able to accomplish this. And he says, yeah, that actually just leads to more evil. Calm down. Fret not. Verse 9.
For, again, he's telling us why. He's reminding us over and over again why. For the evildoers shall be cut off. But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. Who cut the evildoers off? The Lord.
And those who waited. Inherit the land. That God goes to work. That's what he's saying. Take a deep breath. Calm down.
God works. Now there are times where God works through people. And that's where it's trust in the Lord and do good. There are things to do. But to be done from a position of faithfulness and trust.
Not from fearfulness. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land. And delight themselves in abundant peace. This is where, that the meek shall inherit the land is what Jesus is saying when he says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
This is a direct quote of this. So here's what we've been told so far. Trust. Trust. Be still. Wait.
Wait. Wait. Refrain. Forsake. Fret not. Fret not.
Can you hear David's tone? Come have a seat. Look at me. It's going to be okay. Wait. Be still for a second.
Well, I've got to, I've got to, we've got to. Be still for a second. Wait. Trust. Trust. Don't worry.
Don't worry. See, our culture looks at us. And if we say, that's what we're doing. I'm trusting. Don't you care? Yeah, I care.
But I'm trusting. Aren't you going to do something? Yeah, I'm going to wait. I'm going to be still for a moment. I'm going to wait on the Lord. Our culture tells us, oh, you're just putting your head in the sand.
You're just looking down. And David says, no, no, no, we're not looking down. We're looking up. I cast my eyes to the hills. That's where my help comes from. It's not up to me.
I'm not the hero of this story. But there is a hero. There is a Lord. And I'm going to sit and watch. Because he's coming. And he's going to sort this out.
And he's going to help us. And I'm going to trust that his timing is good. Because I trust that he is good. Okay. We've made it to verse 12. Now David's going to turn with us.
He's just going to start telling us how things work. We're going to move a little faster. You're going to have to do a little more work to pay attention. But I believe in you. It says, The wicked plots against the righteous. And gnashes his teeth at him.
But the Lord laughs at the wicked. For he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword. And bend their bows. To bring down the poor and needy. To slay those whose way is upright.
Their sword shall enter their own heart. And their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has. Than the abundance 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 blameless. And their heritage will remain forever. They are not put to shame in evil times. You ever feel like we're in evil times? They are not put to shame in evil times. In the days of famine they have abundance.
But the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures. They vanish like smoke. They vanish away. Why can we sit and wait and trust on the Lord? Because he watches the wicked and he knows their day is coming.
Because he breaks their bows. He breaks their arms. He takes their sword from them and sticks it back in their own heart. He breaks their bows. He breaks their arms. And he takes their sword and sticks it back in their own heart.
Now, that means we can wait. That means you can sit. That means you can be still. That means you can trust. Now our culture tells us this is backwards.
Our culture says, how dare God judge? Did you hear that? Who is he to sit and say what's right and what's wrong? Who is he to say this is good, this is bad? Who is he to... I can't believe in a God that would judge, that would have wrath.
I can't believe in a God that would send people to hell. And then, at the same time... Which the answer to who is he is. The answer is he's God. But at the same time, they'll say to us, aren't you mad?
Aren't you frustrated? Don't you see how wrong this is? Aren't you going to fight to fix this? Aren't you going to stand up for injustice? So they want us to be excellent Judges, but they don't think that God is.
And the Bible says, no, that's backwards. Humble yourself, trust in the Lord, and know that he's a good judge. There's an idea that the thing that makes us peaceful is that we believe that God is kind and peaceful. That if we believe in a God of anger and wrath, then we'll be angry, wrathful people. But if we believe a God who's loved, then we'll be loving.
But there's a theologian, he's a Yale theologian. His name is Miroslav Volf. He's a Croatian, and he saw all the violence in the Balkans. And in his work, The Exclusion and Embrace, he says this is the exact opposite. What he says is, my thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. What he says is, if you're going to be calm, if you're going to sit, if you're going to wait, you have to believe that there's a God who breaks bows, breaks arms, and kills the wicked.
That if you're going to be calm, if you're going to wait, you have to trust that there is a God who does not let evildoers escape. That's his thesis. And he says that this idea, he said, soon you will discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. So he's saying, if you believe, no, no, no, the only way we can be nonviolent is if he refuses to judge. He says, that takes the quiet of a suburban home. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die.
In his work, he says, when you, when you, your village has first been pillaged, then knocked to the ground, when your wives and sisters have been assaulted and your brothers and fathers have had their throats slit, you have to believe that there's a God who takes up the sword. Otherwise, you have to. And so, if we're going to not fret in the midst of evil, we have to believe in this God that Psalm 37 just told us about. that he breaks bows and he breaks arms and that evil doesn't win. And if that's true, then you can take a deep breath and trust his timing and his justice and his judgment. Otherwise, we have to fret.
Verse 21, the wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives. I want you to just look at that for a second because it's likely that you don't put money in the category of wickedness and righteousness, but the Bible does. The wicked borrows and does not pay back. Some of you might need to consider how you're operating in some low-level wickedness in your tool shed. You might need to consider how your bookshelf operates and operates in some low-level wickedness. The wicked borrows and doesn't pay back, but the righteous is generous and give.
Twice when he gives examples of what the righteous does, he talks about they're generous. For those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand. So those who delight in the Lord are walking around holding hands with him.
I don't know if you've had the opportunity to walk and hold hands with a child that wants to hold your hand. It is a blessed thing. Often I hold hands with unwilling participants. My four-year-old says, you're hurting my hand. And I say, well, quit trying to snatch it out of my hand and I won't hold it so tight. But we're in a parking lot, homie.
You're this tall and you don't have any sense. People can't see you and you're dumb. That's a recipe for disaster. But there are times when he willingly chooses to hold my hand and it's wonderful. And I don't know if you can think back to the times that you got to hold onto a hand that was much bigger than yours and that was keeping you safe and that ability to hold the hand helped you know you were going to be okay. And that's what he says that when we delight in the Lord we just get to walk along holding a hand.
It's so much bigger than ours. And when we fall, because we will, we aren't cast headlong. We trip. We fall. But our head doesn't smash into something because he's holding our hand.
You might say, well, I've fallen. It's like, yeah. He's got you. And he picks you back up. And we get to keep going. That's the promise there.
I have been young and now am old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously and his children become a blessing. Turn away from evil and do good. So shall you dwell forever for the Lord loves justice.
He will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever. Some of you need to wrap your soul up in that. In the midst of your sin, in the midst of your doubt, he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever. The children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart. His steps do not slip. The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.
Now wait for the Lord and keep his way and he will exalt you to inherit the land and you will look on when the wicked are cut off. I have seen a wicked, ruthless man spreading himself like a green laurel tree. But he passed away and behold, he was no more. Though I sought him, he could not be found. You see, death is the end of the wicked but the righteous are held forever. Mark the blameless and behold the upright for there is a future for the man of peace but transgressors shall be altogether destroyed.
The future of the wicked shall be cut off. We're going to finish where he finishes which is verse 39 and 40. We're going to look at this for just a moment. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them.
He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. Fret not. How? Fret not. Calm down. Don't be anxious.
How? The answer is theological and outside of you. He says, trust the Lord. Look at who he is. Look at what he does. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord.
He is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. The only thing that you do is run to him to take refuge. He does everything else. Fretting not is anti-work.
It's not something you accomplish. It's something you run to him and then he does everything else. It's trusting. It's placing faith in him. And he does everything else. My little boy that I was just talking about came back from preschool and he had gotten to go to the library.
And the preschool library has a lot of just books that people have turned over. Kind of a lot of used books. Their teacher teaches them in the library that you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. Which is fun to then quote at them now. It's like, you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. He brought home a book that was Batman's secret code book and he was pumped.
And so it was this Batman's secret code book and you open it up and it's got little pictures of Batman and it's got these huge giant blobs of red. And on the front of the book it says, use your secret decoder glasses. Well the person who generously gave this to the school didn't seem to give those or they stayed at the first house they went home with or whatever. But we didn't have Batman's secret code book. We had Batman's giant red blobby mess. So he was excited and I was like, yeah we'll read that later.
And I got on Amazon and I ordered some old school 3D glasses with the blue side and the red side. And so when that came in we had secret decoder one-eyed things that you could look through. And so then, I hate bragging up here. But I know all Batman's secrets. I know a lot of things about Batman that y'all don't know. Because we decoded Batman's secret decoder book.
Often, when we're looking at the Old Testament, what we get to do as Christians is see the whole picture. When they were promised that they could trust in the Lord, they didn't know how far the Lord would go to prove His trustworthiness. When they promised life for the righteous that was eternal, they didn't know how God was going to accomplish that. But we do. That we get to look at this through the cross, through the resurrection, through, when we talk about the Lord, we know of a risen king who's one day going to return and set everything right. And we get to look at this and know that if He wouldn't withhold Himself from us, that if God wouldn't withhold His Son from us, how can we not trust Him in all things?
If He's for us, who can be against us? This is Psalm 37 parallels so well with Romans chapter 8 where it says all of this is going on but we have hope in something bigger and better and we have an assurance in Christ that's been accomplished for us forever so that we can trust knowing that He rules, that He reigns, that He's good and that He's trustworthy. The band's going to come back up and we're going to try to be people who fret not. The next time someone comes to you and tells you what they are doing, I want you to say yes, but they will wither and my King will not. They will fall but the Word of the Lord lasts forever and though they take everything from me, I'll still have what I delight in which is my King and the righteous are preserved forever and I am not made righteous through my own works but I'm made righteous through Christ and I get to walk in faithfulness not fear.
That's our hope that we can be people who are not wrapped up in anxiety and frustration because we have a King in whom we trust. Let's pray. Lord, may we be people who have joy and delight because we have you and may we be people who can be still, who can forsake wrath, who can trust because you are trustworthy. We praise you that you save sinners and that you judge righteously and that our hope is in you both to rescue us from our sin and to rescue us from evil. we leave it up to you in your wisdom and your timing and your grace. Amen.