Ordered Steps and Opened Hearts (Psalm 37:16-26)

Will you turn your Bibles, please, to Psalm 37, and let's bow and ask the Lord's blessing on our time before we get started.

Our Father, it is our desire to be fed from Your Word this morning, to understand the implications, the meaning of this

Psalm, which You have put here in Your Word. We pray that You would use Your Word to remind us again of Your good provision,

Your acceptable provision, Your abundant provision for Your people. Teach us that we are dependent upon You for every good thing that comes from Heaven, every good thing we enjoy, a blessing from Your good hand.

And teach us, we pray, to depend upon You for that provision, and then to see that provision in a way that is biblical, in a way that is true, as the means not only by which

You provide for our needs, but the way in which You provide for others. And so we ask that You would teach us today from Your Word, for Your sake, for Your glory's sake, for our sanctifying effect in our lives, and we pray this for the glory of Christ.

Amen. Scripture offers a number of examples of God taking very little things and using them in significant and powerful ways.

In fact, that's how Scripture begins, actually. Scripture begins with God speaking everything out of nothing.

For six days, He does this. So that's not taking something little and using it to make something big.

That is taking nothing and making everything out of nothing. But then the rest of Scripture is full of examples of God doing something similar, where He takes small and insignificant things and uses them for the blessing and advantage of many, and takes those small and insignificant things and makes them quite big and quite significant.

For instance, God made an entire nation from one man, Abraham. It wasn't just one nation, was it?

When you consider the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants that came from the other children of Abraham, it was a number of nations.

God used one man, Joseph, to save two nations during a famine in Egypt. Gideon's army of 300 defeated the

Midianites and delivered his nation. Jesus took the lunch of a small boy and multiplied it to feed a multitude.

He did that on two different occasions. 120 faithful disciples in the upper room took the gospel to the corners of the earth and a widow's jar of oil and a meager supply of flour ended up providing for a prophet and the woman and her household through an entire famine.

And Scripture could multiply examples like that in the Word of God. It is almost as if God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong and the base things of the world, the despised things, in order to nullify the things that are so that no man can boast before God.

And if that sounds familiar, it's because it comes from 1 Corinthians 1. The Lord takes the meager things, the small things, and turns them into great and glorious things.

We see this over and over in Scripture. And if you have walked with the Lord for any period of time at all, you've seen it happen in your own life.

In fact, God does this in the provision that he gives for his people where he takes little things, sometimes meager provision, and uses that meager provision not just to provide for the family, but also for other people who are around that person that he provides for.

This is the main idea of Psalm 37, 16 through 26. The overarching theme of that section that describes

God's provision is in verse 16. Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.

Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked. And we have seen that God takes the little of the righteous and he makes it better and he makes it more than the abundance that is enjoyed by many wicked.

And this is our third week in this section of the Psalm, verses 16 through 26. The overarching principle is in verse 16.

And then if you've been with us the last two weeks, you remember that what we're doing is we notice that there is a division in the

Psalm between the first five verses and the second five verses of that section. So verse 17 through 26.

And we noticed how there is a verse in the first part that corresponds to a verse in the second part.

And so we've just been pairing those up as we followed different themes and noticed five different ways that Yahweh makes the provision for his righteous to be better than that enjoyed by the wicked.

We saw, first of all, that the Lord sustains the righteous materially and spiritually. We saw that the first week, verses 17 and 24.

Then in verses 18 and 22, we observed that the Lord blesses the righteous eternally.

That's the land promise. You see that in verse 18. And in eternal inheritance, verse 22, the righteous, those blessed by the

Lord, inherit the land and the wicked are cut off. And then we saw in verses 19 and 25 that the Lord provides for the righteous in lean times.

The righteous are not ashamed in the time of famine. They have an abundance. And David says in verse 25 that he's young and now he had been young and now he is old.

He's never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. That was last week. And now this week, we're looking at the last of these two ways that the

Lord makes the little of the righteous to be better than the much of many wicked. In verses 20 and 23, we see that the

Lord establishes the steps of the righteous. And then in verses 21 and 26, the

Lord uses the righteous as a blessing. Look at verses 20 and 23. This is the Lord establishes the steps of the righteous.

Verse 20, But the wicked will perish and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures. They vanish like smoke.

They vanish away. Similarly, verse 23, The steps of a man are established by the

Lord and the delights in his way. There's a contrast there between the wicked, which vanish away like smoke or like mist or like chaff.

They're blown away. And the wicked whose steps and whose path and whose legacy is established by the

Lord. There's a contrast there. How does the Lord make the little of the righteous to be better and greater than the abundance of many wicked by establishing the path of the righteous so that he in fact in his way and his posterity endures forever?

That's the promise there. And then the Lord uses the righteous as a blessing. Look at verse 21. The wicked borrows and does not pay back, but the righteous is gracious and gives.

Verse 26, All day long he is gracious and lends and his descendants are a blessing. In verse 26 there describes the righteous.

So let's look first of all at the Lord, establishing the steps of the righteous in verse 20 and 23, and we will get to both of these points here this morning and it won't take us as long as you might expect since it is a potluck

Sunday and you can either listen to me and smell the food or not listen to me as long and enjoy the food.

Those are our options and you know which one I'm going to take. So verse 20, But the wicked will perish and the enemies of the

Lord will be like the glory of the pastors. They vanish like smoke. They vanish away. Now there might be here in verse 19 a connection to the reference, or sorry, in verse 20, a connection to the reference to a famine in verse 19.

Look at verse 19. They will not be ashamed in the time of evil. That is the righteous and in the days of famine, they will have an abundance.

Verse 20, But the wicked will perish. Notice the contrast between verse 19 and 20. The righteous will have an abundance during the time of famine.

They will be provided for, but the wicked they will perish. The righteous are provided for in lean times, but the wicked during that same famine, they vanish away or they perish.

The famine would strike the wicked while the righteous would enjoy God's provision. God's protection and his sustenance through the time of famine is what is described in verse 19.

God withdrawing his provision for the wicked during the time of famine seems to be what is described in verse 20.

In fact, that phrase, the glory of the pastors in verse 20, the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastors.

That word glory can be translated as precious or weighty or rare or valuable.

And it seems to suggest that what is meant here is the precious things of the pasture. What are the precious things of the pasture?

The wicked will be like the precious things of the pasture. The precious things of the pasture would be animals, which would be a source of food and would be the herbs or the vegetables or the food that is grown in the pastures, which men could eat.

If those things vanish away in a time of famine, then that is obviously intensifies the famine.

And the promise of verses 19 and 20 is that during the time of famine, the righteous would be provided for, they would have an abundance to meet their needs and the wicked, they would perish just like the good things of the pastures would perish during a time of famine.

That seems to be the contrast there in verses 19 and 20. During the time of want, the wicked will perish along with the food that is in the pasture.

And we've seen something like this described back in Psalm 1, when we studied Psalm 1, where the righteous are pictured as a tree that is firmly planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season.

Its leaf does not wither and whatever he does, he prospers. That's Psalm 1, 3. And then contrary to that, the wicked are not so, but they are like the chaff, which the wind drives away.

So the wind is known to drive away two things. The chaff, that it is gone, it disappears, it is useless and temporary passing and fleeting.

And the smoke, which comes up off of a fire, the wind just drives it away. The chaff and the wind themselves, they are temporary, they do not last.

And this is how scripture describes the enemies of the Lord. These men that are described here in verse, in Psalm 37, the wicked, they are the enemies of the

Lord because they have made themselves God's enemies by their constant rebellion and rejection of the truth.

So these are not people whom the Lord himself has handpicked to be against them for no good reason.

They are, in fact, those who are rebellious against God and aligned against his truth.

In the words of Psalm 2, they are the ones who are roaring in the nations, who are constantly saying against the

Lord and against his anointed, we will tear off their fetters, we will cast their cords from us. They are the rebellious ones.

And so they have made themselves God's enemies. And because they have done that, they are destined to perish along with the chaff and just like the smoke, to be blown away.

That is what their destiny is because that is indeed what they deserve. That is not necessarily what will happen to them if they repent.

In fact, if they repent, that will not happen to them at all. By repentance and faith, they could be counted among the righteous, who are blessed and who are established, whose steps are established.

This idea of being cut off or blown away, Psalm 1, verse 6, The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

It will be gone, cutting off, perishing, like verse 20 describes the perishing of the wicked.

They vanish away. They vanish like the smoke. The wicked will perish. Psalm 2, verse 12, We've seen this notion of vanishing and vanishing totally and completely already in Psalm 37, verse 2.

Remember verse 2? They will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb. That seems to be an allusion to the glory of the pastures, the beauty, the weighty things, the value of the pastures, the green herb and the grass, and yet it will, the wicked, will vanish, just like the green grass vanishes in a time of drought.

Verse 10 of Psalm 37, Yet a little while, and the wicked man will be no more, and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there.

Look down at verse 36 of this Psalm. Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more.

I sought him, for he could not be found. He will not be there. He will perish in the way. He will be no more.

He will vanish. That's the language that's described of the wicked in Psalm 37, or used to describe the wicked in Psalm 37.

Now, like with the analogy of the glory of the pastures, you look at the pasture one moment, and it is full of green grass and lush herbs and fruitfulness and abundance, and even animals out there.

That's the glory, the valuable, the weighty things of the pasture. But then what happens when times get tough?

Famine comes or drought comes. What happens to the pasture? They wither up and it vanishes away, and you're just left with bare dirt during a long drought or a long famine.

So it is with the wicked. Today, they look as if they are established. They are entrenched. They are powerful.

They're well -fed. They are, in the language of Psalm 73, fat and dumb and easy and happy and abundant, and they're plump, and everything is good with them.

But that is not how it is always going to be with the wicked. In fact, there will come a time when the wicked will perish and be no more, and the promise of Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 and Psalm 37, which we've looked at in this series in the

Psalms, the promises of those Psalms is that eventually their way will perish. The way in which they have walked will be no more.

Their place will disappear. It will be gone, and they will be remembered no more. Like smoke, they will vanish.

Like chaff, they will be blown away. So that nothing remains of them. But the righteous are not so.

Contrast with the righteous, verse 23. The steps of a man are established by the

Lord. He's describing here the righteous. The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in His way.

This is describing the righteous man. God establishes the steps of the righteous man. There is a reference here, a hint here of sovereignty, because the text could literally be read,

From Yahweh are the steps of a man. From God are a man's steps.

So that the righteous have the confidence that in the sovereignty of God, He is the one who makes our steps to last.

He establishes our way. So that the path in which we walk is fruitful. It is abundant.

The way in which we walk is prosperous, as God would grant prosperity to the righteous. It is established, and it lasts forever.

And such is the gift of God. Such is the gift of Yahweh to those in whom He delights.

Whether our steps are ordered through good times or bad, it is God who orders our steps.

In times of plenty and in times of not so plenty, God orders our steps.

In joyful times, in grief times, in gain and in loss, in ease and in affliction,

From Yahweh are the steps of a man. See, the righteous can have that confidence that no matter what it is that befalls the righteous, what our

God ordains is right. Always right. When a man delights in Yahweh's way and walks in it, and when

God delights in the path of the righteous, whatever it is that is the fruit of that, whether ease or affliction, whether want or plenty, we can have the confidence that it is from Yahweh that our steps are established.

That God is the one who ordains that. For, Psalm 1 verse 6 says, the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Psalm 37 verse 18, the Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their inheritance will be forever.

Our every step is from the Lord, and He makes our every step to prosper. Which is why Psalm 1, 1, which is why the

Psalms begin with, Blessed is the man who does not walk in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scoffer, nor walk in the ways of the wicked.

I should just read it. Walk in the counsel of the wicked, walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers.

If that is the way that a man takes, that is the way of righteousness, the Lord will make him like a tree planted by the rivers of water, so that in everything he does he prospers, his leaf never withers, he never dries up, because from Yahweh a man's steps are established.

That is His promise. The righteous have a way in which they walk, and God makes it to prosper, and it is eternal.

They will inherit the land, and they will delight themselves in abundant prosperity forever. Now there's something vague about the second half of verse 23.

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in His way. There is a question amongst interpreters and commentators on this

Psalm. Who is doing the delighting, and what is the way in which is being delighted in?

There's two different ways of understanding that phrase in verse 23, and He, who is the

He who delights in His way, and whose way is it? In other words, it could be that God establishes the steps when the way of a man delights the

Lord. In other words, the Lord looks at the man and observes his way, and when that man's way delights

God, then God establishes or blesses their steps. So it's the way of the man that is being described, and God Himself delighting in that way that is being described.

In fact, that's how the NIV translates that verse, verse 23 in the

NIV reads this, this way. If the Lord delights in a man's way, He makes His steps firm.

If the Lord delights in a man's way, He makes His steps firm. And that's kind of hinted at in this section of our

Psalm, verse 24, when it describes the secure nature of the way in which a man walks when he's walking with the

Lord. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the one who upholds His hand. So the Lord observes a man, holds

His hand, and as the man walks in that way, as the Lord delights in that man, He makes His steps to be firm and established.

That's one way of understanding it. It can also be understood to refer to God Himself establishing steps when

Yahweh delights in the man's way. Sorry, sorry, when the man delights in Yahweh's way.

I said that wrong. That the Lord establishes the man's steps when the man who is walking delights

Himself in Yahweh's way. In other words, I delight in God's way, and then

God will establish my steps. So it's two different ways of kind of arriving at the same thing. And you might ask which one of those is the best way of understanding it.

I would suggest to you that it is possibly intentionally vague, because this Psalm actually describes both aspects of this.

Psalm 37, verse four, delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. In other words, here's the way in which

I should walk. Delight yourself in that and in the Lord, and remember the word delight there means to pamper.

Pamper yourself in the Lord's way, and the Lord will establish your steps. So the order then would be this.

I delight myself in Yahweh, and according to verse four of the Psalm, He then gives me the proper desires that my heart should desire.

And when my heart desires the right thing, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to walk in His way.

And then when I walk in His way, He delights in that very thing that I'm doing, which

He Himself has caused me to do, and then He establishes my steps in His way.

So it's not my way that I walk in, and God delights in that and makes it firm. Rather, it is

I delight myself in Yahweh, and delight myself in the Lord, then He gives me the proper desires.

I walk in His paths, and He establishes my feet. So how does the Lord make the little of the righteous to be more than the better of many wicked?

He establishes the steps of the righteous so that their efforts, their work, the way in which they walk are ordained by Him and thus bear lasting fruit for eternity.

Whereas the much of the wicked perishes. All that they do, all that they possess, all that they are, and everything they have done will be forgotten for all of eternity, perishing under divine wrath.

That's the difference between the righteous and the wicked. Now the fifth and final contrast here, the fifth and final way that the

Lord makes the little of the righteous to be better than the abundance of many wicked is that the

Lord uses the righteous as a blessing in the lives of others, verses 21 and 26. Let's read those back to back.

The wicked borrows, verse 21, and does not pay back, but the righteous is gracious and gives.

Verse 26, all day long, he is gracious and lends, and his descendants are a blessing. Now there's a contrast here between the righteous and the wicked.

Verse 26 just describes the righteous. Verse 21 actually contrasts the righteous and the wicked.

The wicked is a man or a woman who takes, whereas the righteous gives. The wicked is selfish.

The righteous are generous and gracious. The wicked is stingy. The righteous gives or lends without interest.

That's the contrast between those two. The wicked is a man who borrows to get ahead, stealing the work and the prosperity and the effort and the possession of others.

He borrows and he does not pay back. He doesn't keep his word, so he's not honest. He is not trustworthy.

He takes from others, presuming upon their generosity and graciousness. The wicked uses the possessions of others to advance himself.

He does harm to others, and he is not at all concerned about what that does to them, because the wicked is not at all concerned about what

God is going to do to him for his theft. So here's the contrast between the righteous and the wicked.

The wicked thinks of how he can use the possessions of others for his own sake, and the righteous thinks about how he can use his own possession for others' sake.

It is the complete opposite. The wicked borrows something, giving his word that he will return it.

The expectation is that the person who lends this or gives this to him is going to get it in return, but the wicked is unconcerned about anybody else.

And in his selfishness and his narcissism, he sees the possessions of others to be used only for his own sake.

And if he never returns it, or he returns it so much later that it is of no use to the righteous after that, that doesn't concern the wicked man at all.

He's only concerned that he can take those possessions and somehow use it, leverage it for himself and his own gain.

Whereas the righteous sees his provision, however meager it might be, as an opportunity to help others as well.

He sees his provision as something given to him by God for not only to meet his own needs, but also how those needs might be met in other people's lives as well.

However meager that provision is, the righteous sees it as something God has given to him to be used for that sake, for the sake of others.

Whereas the wicked are concerned only about themselves, the righteous are gracious, giving and lending.

Twice in those two verses, the righteous is described as gracious. Once in verse 21, once in verse 26.

Verse 21 says he gives, verse 26 says he lends. And in this way, the righteous is a blessing to others.

And the understanding is that his descendants will follow suit. And before I move on to the descendants, by the way, this reference to lending, under the

Old Testament law, you weren't allowed to collect interest from your kinsmen. So to lend to somebody was to take your own possessions and turn them over to somebody else to help that other person with the understanding that you would get them back, but you would get them back and no return on that.

So you're not investing anything. You're giving it away so that it cannot be used by you in any way during that period of time, but is used by somebody else.

And that somebody else is going to use those possessions, give them back to you without any return on that investment.

You didn't charge interest to your countrymen. So it's almost like giving, but you're lending it to them.

The righteous sees the opportunity to take their possessions and use them for the benefit of somebody else, either giving them away or lending them at no interest so that somebody else might be helped in that.

And the descendants follow suit. Verse 26 says the righteous descendants are a blessing. All day long, the righteous is gracious and he lends and his descendants are a blessing.

The righteous, we should understand, would instruct their children in the proper use of finances and money and possessions and have the right view of possessions, would pass this on to their kids so that their kids would understand the same thing that the righteous parents have understood.

And then the children would follow suit in using their material possessions that way and thus be a blessing to other people.

And contrast that with the descendants of the wicked. Verse 28, the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his godly ones.

They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The descendants of the righteous become a blessing forever.

The descendants of the wicked are cut off. Now, of course, the assumption of the psalm, the assumption of the passage, is that the descendants of the wicked will follow in the paths of the wicked and the descendants of the righteous will follow in the paths of the righteous.

This is not suggesting for a moment that if I'm righteous and my children are wicked, that my children will be blessed forever and be a blessing to others.

That's not what the promise is talking about. Nor is it saying that if my parents are wicked and I am righteous, that I'm never going to be a blessing to anybody.

I'm going to be cut off. The assumption of the passage is that children will follow in the paths that their parents walk for the sake of that illustration.

So Psalm 37, verse 16, better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.

Because even the little of the righteous is turned to be a blessing to other people. And thus it is greater than the abundance of the wicked.

2 Corinthians 8, verses one to five. Listen to how Paul describes the gracious nature of the churches of Macedonia.

Paul says, now brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God, which has been given to the churches of Macedonia, that, listen to this, in great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.

In their affliction and in their deep poverty, God's provision overflowed in the abundance of their liberality.

So that the Macedonian Christians, even out of their poverty, were giving away their things and blessing other people.

This is the mark of the righteous. Paul goes on to say, for I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints.

And this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God.

So these poor Christians of Macedonia, out of much affliction, persecuted, just like early church

Christians were, persecuted and without anything, Paul says, they gave according to their ability and even beyond their ability.

And Paul says, they begged us to have the opportunity to give away to others.

All day long, the righteous is gracious and lends. All day long, the righteous is giving and generous, but the wicked are not so.

Like the smoke, they vanish away because their steps are not established and God does not use the wicked in that way.

It is better to have little and have God use that little for the blessing and benefit of others than to have much and to be a curse and a blight upon the lives of others.

Catch that. It is better to have little and have God use that little to bless others than to have much and to have your life be a blight and a curse upon the lives of others.

So how does the Lord take the little of the righteous and make it more than the abundance of many wicked?

Five ways. He sustains the righteous materially and spiritually. He blesses the righteous eternally.

He provides for the righteous in lean times. And then our two from today, he establishes the steps of the righteous and uses the righteous as a blessing.

Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we are grateful for your merciful and good provision.

We have been given not only every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, but you have lavished us, your people, with benefits and blessings in this world that we could barely number.

We are overflowing with your abundant graces and gifts. And even the most meager provision in this life is a blessing more than we deserve.

And we thank you for that grace. And we pray that we would be mindful of your great gifts. To the righteous, you have given not only peace and an eternal promise of a land inheritance, but also the protection that you give to us and this grand provision in this life.

So teach us, we pray, and remind us, we pray, to use whatever we have for the glory of Christ, for the good of his people, and for the advancement of your kingdom.