1432 - Psalm 37.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1432. Today we're in Psalm 37. Psalm 37 is another one of those psalms that you have to rank up toward the top. And all I'm going to be able to do because of the depth of this Psalm is to just cover a few verses. So let's get right to it. 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 yourself 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, wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret it only causes harm. Now what an admonition to all of us. Do not fret. Fretting is the Old Testament translation of the word that has a counterpart in the New Testament. The New Testament word Maremna is the word which is a picture word. You know those words. They are in themselves just pictures of what the meaning of the word is. Remember, there are two ways that we find meanings to word. Many times all we hear is etymology, that is the root studies, and what did it mean in its origin and its root? Well, that's important. And it is helpful and it gives us shades and nuances and helps us to understand. But that's not the only way that we understand meaning. No, we also understand it by usage, because a usage in one generation doesn't mean that it's used that same way in another generation. It might be used something of the same way, but not exactly. And so we have to study the culture and the time period and the customs of the day to understand how words are really used. And so usage is the other component to understanding what a word means. And so the word in the New Testament for worry or fretting is a word picture, which means to take your right hand and place it on the right side of your head, and then you take your left hand and place it on the left side of your head. And if you have hair, you would picture grabbing a clump of it with your right hand, a clump of it with your left hand, and then pulling to the right and pulling to the left, and we would have the proverbial meaning of pulling your hair out. Many people say to me, Pastor, I know the Bible says I don't need to worry, but I just have a caution. Well, a caution and a concern are needed, and we need to be cautious in our thinking. And we need to be discerning in our thinking, and we need to be concerning in our thinking. But we don't need to fret and worry. And you know when you have gone from just concern to fretting or to worry, it's when you're pulling your hair out, when it's constantly on your mind, where you cannot be at rest, you cannot be at peace. This is not God's will for your life. The Bible clearly says as a command, as an imperative, that speaks to the will, not to the emotions, not to your feeling, not how you emote, but to the volition to the will when he says, Don't worry about anything. Now he means anything. Don't worry about anything because fretting and worry will never solve the problem. It will only rob you of the strength. And research after research study has been done that shows that as high as 98 to 99% of what we worry about in the future never comes to pass. And many times we worry about things that have happened, actions that we have done, that's like water under the bridge. It's not going to help us to fret over it whatsoever because we can't do anything about it. We cannot put the water back in the pipe. We cannot bring the feathers back when we have thrown them to the wind. This is the idea. My dad used to have a saying when I would say, Now, Dad, I would like to do this or I wish I'd done it. He would say, Well, the barn door is already open, the horses already run away. That's the idea. In other words, it's too late, so we can't do very much about that. And many times we cannot control the future. We worry about so many things and fret about so many things, pull our hair out about so many things that we cannot control. Let's deal with the things we can control and trust God that He is watching over us and that He will protect us and guard us and take care of us. And so the Bible specifically says, don't start looking at other people, especially those who are wicked and those who are not doing the right thing, and when you see them blessed, begin to think that's unfair, and that somehow God is cheating you, and that they are being blessed because of their evil ways and because of their cold heartedness or because of their vileness. That's absolutely a lie from the devil himself. No, sometimes God blesses us in spite of what we do, not because of what we do. The same thing is true. God's merciful to people that are lost, people that are saved, because God's nature is to be merciful. But then the Bible says that the remedy to all of this, and I believe the secret to knowing God's best for our lives and following God is to heed the admonition of verses three, four, five, six, seven, because it's very plain. Now let's get this settled in verse eight. Cease from anger, forsake wrath, do not fret. Now, why are those three together? Because anger and wrath go right along with fretting. Because they are always triplets. They always come together. If you're angry, you're upset, you are full of wrath, you're going to be fretting. And the Bible says, look what it says, it only causes harm. It only does harm. It never helps, it only does harm. It robs you of joy, it robs you of peace, it robs you of rest. We just need to stop it. And God will help us. How do you do that? Well, you trust in the Lord and do good. That means you do what you know to do and trust God with the rest. You dwell in the land where God puts you. Quit being restless and trying to always go somewhere else. When things get rough, don't try to jump and run. No, face whatever it is and let God do his work in your life. Leo Edelman used to say to me, Mr. Crisp, he always called me Mr. Crisp. I don't know why I was a third his age. And he would say, Mr. Crisp, lay down in the road of life and let it run over you and just squeeze all the bad out of you. Well, I know what he means now a lot more than I did then. Dwell in the land. Stick it out. Stick to it is a trait and a character quality that we've almost lost in the modern day arena. He says feed on God's faithfulness. Where? In the land where you're dwelling. You need to bloom where you're planted and quit trying to always be transplanted somewhere else. Let God do his perfect work. Delight yourself in the Lord. Delight yourself. Be thrilled. Just delight yourself in the Lord. Now look at this. Delight yourself in the Lord. Not in what he can do for you, but delight yourself in the Lord. Not what God can give to you, but delight yourself in the Lord. Not what he does for you, not what he gives you, not when he heals you or when he doesn't heal you, when he grants your request, when he doesn't grant your request. Continue to be trusting in the Lord and delighting yourself in him and not what he can give you. And so I want you to understand the picture that's being painted here. If you want God's best, you need to trust in the Lord, do good, do what you know to do until he shows you something else. Dwell in the place where God puts you. Feed on God's faithfulness, not yours, because I assure you you and I are not faithful. And he will give you the desires of your heart. When? When you delight yourself in the Lord. When you feed on his faithfulness. Now that doesn't mean he will give you whatever your hearts desire. That means he will give you what to desire. He will put in your heart when you're wanting his will, when you're delighting in him, when you're walking with him, God will supernaturally put his thoughts, his heart in yours. And your heart will become like his. And it will be conformed to his. You see, prayer is not getting God to do things your way or to come your way or to convince God of something. Prayer is communication when we hear God's voice, we read God's word, and we conform our wants to his wants, and then God puts in us the desires that he wants us to have. And then he says, if you want to follow through on that, then commit your way to the Lord. What way? The way that he has put on your heart. And when you commit yourself, the word commit there is another word picture. It's the idea of an ancient pilgrim getting a camel down on its knees, taking the load off of the person's back, kneeling down and rolling it over onto the camel and let the camel bear it. This is exactly what God is saying. He said to Peter, Cast all of your cares upon him. That means cast all of your cares off your back and cast it behind you. Put it on God, because He's the only one that can bear it. You're not able to. And He will care for you. Cast all your cares upon Him. Why? For He cares for you. It's almost like we are walking down the road and we've got a load on our back, and someone in a pickup truck comes by and you're bearing this burden. He says, Hey, jump in the back of the truck here and take a load off. And you jump in the back of the truck, and he looks through his rear view mirror, and you're sitting in the back of his truck still with that burden on your back. So he would stop the truck, obviously, and say, What are you doing? You say, Well, I just want to ride. Well, take a load off and put that load down in the bed of that truck. Let the bed carry it. Let me carry it. You see how foolish that is? That's what we do. We say, God, uh no, thank you for salvation, but I'll carry all of this load. You're not able. You can't do it. And so he says, Commit your way to the Lord. Commit the way that he's laid out for you. Commit that to him. Trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass. What? Whatever it is that you've committed unto him on the way that he's led you. And he shall bring forth your righteousness. Remember, according to verse three, you're already doing the right thing. So he will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. And then he said, You can rest in the Lord when you wait patiently for him. Waiting patiently doesn't mean that you're sitting around in an apathetic mode. It means that you are actively waiting. Here again, you're doing what you know to do until God gives you more light. And so often, often when my children, especially my boys were younger, I would give them an assignment and they would come and they would say, Okay, Dad, I would be walking around seeing if they finished what they were doing, hold them accountable. And uh they'd say, Dad, what do you want me to do next? I'd say, You finish what I told you to do, then I'll tell you what I want you to do next. You know why? Because I knew that if I told them what was the next thing, that's what their mind and their heart would go to instead of finishing with all their heart what I'd just given them to do. See, this is the way God works. His word, which represents his will and where we get his will, is like a lamp under our feet and a light under our path. You can only see to take one step when you take that step. God will show you another step. He'll give you more light to take the next step. But until you walk in the light you have, you're not going to get any more light. And remember this as one last thing before I go. Don't doubt in darkness and in dimness, what God has shown you in bright light. If God has made his will clear, stick it out. And when things get dark and they always will, when things get dim as they always will, when the fog comes in and it always will, when the mist is there and it always is there, just remember, what did God say? Stick to the path, commit your way unto the Lord, and God will bring to pass what he put on your heart, because when you delight yourself in the Lord, he will put in your heart what to desire. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

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Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.