Psalm 37 (Responding To Evil)

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Shepherd Church podcast. My name is

Kendall, and I'm so thankful that I get to be bringing this message to you today from the book of Psalms. And I love the

Psalms because they describe all of life. Sometimes you're feeling blessed like that tree that we talked about in Psalm 1 that is planted beside the streams of living water, and then there's other times where it feels like your soul is in the throes of despair and you have to grab yourself and shake yourself and preach the truth of God to yourself, like we discovered last week in Psalm 42.

And of course, all of us have been there. We've been on the mountaintops with God, and then sometimes we've been in the valleys.

We've been in the gardens, and we've also been in the deserts. And I love the fact that Psalms really describes every situation that you and I can walk through as a

Christian in this life, which makes it an incredibly relevant book for you and I to be studying.

Now today, I want us to continue our study in this book by looking at Psalm 37, which is a really important Psalm, and it's a

Psalm that's grappling with the question, how do the godly respond to evil in the world?

How do we respond when this world perpetrates and perpetuates all kinds of evil?

And how do we think and how do we act when the wicked seem to be prospering, when evil thrives?

What are we supposed to do? And again, this is an incredibly relevant thing for us to be looking at, especially in light of the current events that have been happening in our nation.

You know, much like the world that we live in, David lived in a similar world, where the world around him seemed to be in open rebellion against God, where the wicked were seeming to prosper and to win, and where hatred was abounding, and where racism and sexism is burying people under an inescapable weight.

And David, along with us, are tempted to respond to the world in turn with hate and with malice, just like the world does to us.

We are tempted to fight fire with fire. We are tempted to fight hate with hate and evil for evil.

And we're honestly and shockingly getting to see this play out right before our very eyes this week in Minnesota and in various cities across the country.

Just this week, and I hope you've been following, but if you haven't, just this week, a law enforcement officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, used the full weight of his body to crush another human being, his name was

George Floyd, to death. And there's so much that we could say about that, but we can clearly call that evil.

There's no justification whatsoever for what this man did. It was awful to watch, and it's rightly angered an entire nation.

So how are we supposed to respond to that? How are we supposed to speak into that?

Well, I think Psalm 37 has something really powerful to say to us, because we've seen lots of responses.

Some have taken to the streets, and they've begun looting and stealing and burning down buildings and committing all manner of violence and retaliation for what has happened.

And some have used this opportunity as a moment for sin to do things that they've wanted to do, but they didn't have an opportunity to do.

So now in the wake of this awful tragedy, they're taking advantage of the situation. You can look on social media.

It is filled with all kinds of responses to this. But what do you think that the Lord would have us do?

Even beyond this situation, this is just what's most recent. We live in a world where Planned Parenthood and others are senselessly murdering babies and becoming rich off of it.

We live in a world where shady business practices are making people into millionaires. We live in a world where it feels like that the way to prosper and the way to win is to join the world and to embrace its evil and implement its strategies.

But what's God say? About that? What are we supposed to think?

How are we supposed to think biblically in this? How are we supposed to act in righteous ways?

And how are we supposed to respond to a world that is wicked and is evil and is perpetuating all sorts of violence around us?

How are we supposed to act in God honoring ways in that scenario? To get at that today,

I want us to look at Psalm 37, and I want us to see how

David deals with this question. Now, I'll admit the Psalm is longer than what we're used to.

This is 40 verses. And if you know me, that is a miracle that I would tackle anything larger than four verses.

But we're going to go with 40 today, and I want you to hang in there. There's going to be a lot of Bible in this passage, but I think we need it.

I am so broken over the way that the world is responding currently in the way that the world always responds to evil, and this passage deals beautifully with it.

So if you'll hang on with me through these 40 verses, I believe that you will see

God's ordained response to evil, and I believe that it will be a blessing to your life as you examine it with me.

So let's dive in with Psalm 37. Let's read it together, and then let's examine it in its parts.

David says, Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not be envious towards wrongdoers, for they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the

Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the

Lord. Trust also in him, and he will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as light and your judgment as the noonday.

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in the way of the wicked, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.

Don't worry about that. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret.

It only leads to evildoing, for evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the

Lord, they will inherit the land. 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.

But humble, the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.

The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him with his teeth, but yet the

Lord laughs at him, for he sees his day coming. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the to slay those who are upright in conduct.

But their sword will enter into their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.

Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of the wicked. For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the

Lord will sustain the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their inheritance will be forever.

They will not be ashamed in the time of evil, and in the days of famine they will have abundance.

But the wicked will perish, and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures, they will vanish, like smoke they vanish away.

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

For those blessed by him, by God, will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off.

The steps of the man are established by the Lord, and he delights in his way. When he fails, he won't be hurled headlong, because the

Lord is the one who is holding his hand. The psalmist says in verse 25,

I have been young, and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, or his descendants begging for bread.

All day long he is gracious and lends, and his descendants are a blessing. Depart from evil and do good, so that you will abide forever.

For the Lord loves justice, and he does not forsake his godly ones. They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.

The righteous will inherit the land and will dwell in 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 spies upon the righteous and seeks to kill him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand or let him be condemned when he is judged.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land.

When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. I have seen the wicked, violent man, spreading himself like a luxurious tree in its native soil.

Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more. I sought for him, but he could not be found.

Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright, for the man of peace will have a posterity.

But transgressors will be altogether destroyed. The posterity of the wicked will be cut off, but the salvation of the righteous is from the

Lord. He is their strength in time of trouble, and the

Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked, and he saves them because they take refuge in him.

Now again, I know you're probably thinking, how are we going to get through 40 verses?

I know you're thinking it, right? But I promise that my remarks on this passage are actually going to be quite brief, because I want the

Bible to speak here. I don't want this to be about Kendall. I don't want this to be about my thoughts. I just want the

Bible to speak here. I want the Bible to say what the Bible is going to say, and I want us to examine that. So in this passage, we have basically four things that the author is trying to do.

He's trying to introduce us to the concept that wicked and evil exist, and then he lays out for us three responses to the wicked that each and every single one of us should examine so that we have a proper view of how we, as Christians living in an evil world, can and must respond to it.

So first, he talks about the problem of the wicked. Psalm 37 teaches us that the wicked people really do exist in a fallen world, and that there's all kinds of people who provocate all kinds of wickedness and evil in human society.

And that's a fairly obvious point that I don't think we need to labor. We all know that evil exists. We all know that there's all kinds of wicked and evil people in the world.

When I worked in law enforcement for seven years, I met men and women charged with all kinds of egregious sins.

The very first man that I booked into jail was arrested for as a 50 -year -old was arrested for molesting his infant granddaughter.

I've put men and women behind bars who've butchered and hacked fellow human beings to death. I've met thieves, liars, rapists, and for seven and a half years,

I was surrounded by all different kinds of evil. And you don't have to work in a jail to know it exists.

You just turn on the news. Just look around you at the state of our society and the state of the world, and you know that evil exists.

But often what we think about is the kind of evil that's captured and the kind of evil that gets some semblance of human justice.

Like in a jail, these men and women were captured. They were behind bars. They were awaiting sentencing.

And we certainly know that that's evil. But what about the evil that is not caught?

What about the evil that's out there in the world continuing to prosper? What about the evil that doesn't seem like it's going to be dealt with and it doesn't seem like anyone is noticing it?

What about that kind of evil that the world turns a blind eye to and justice never seems like it's going to come?

That's the kind of evil I think David is talking about here, the kind of evil that looks like it's winning, that looks like it's prospering, that looks like it's thriving.

And David certainly doesn't give us an exhaustive list here, but he does give us a few examples.

For instance, he says in verse 12 that the wicked plot and scheme against the righteous and even gnash their teeth in anger against those who follow the

Lord, which is an ironic image if you think about it. I mean, the same kind of behavior that is present in men and women who are in hell, who are angry at God, eternally angry at God, so captivated by their own wrath and stuck in hell, in their own anger and their fury that they're clenching and gnashing their teeth without the ability to stop.

David's telling us here that the kind of hellish seeds of anger, eternal anger are already so present in the wicked because of their sin that they're not only angry against God, but they're also angry against God's people and they even plot and they even scheme and they even strategize against them.

Now, this may be a difficult thing to imagine here in America. Sometimes it doesn't feel like that the text of scripture is relevant to where we're at because it doesn't feel like that the wicked are scheming and plotting and manipulating and strategizing against God's people like it does in other countries where we see persecution so much more out in the open.

But I'll tell you the truth, this actually really and surely happens. And I'll give you a few examples, but the examples are actually legion.

I don't know if you were following along a few years ago in Colorado, but there was a baker who was persecuted by a group of homosexual people.

They were a couple and it was found out that they were purposely targeting this well -known and outspoken

Christian baker and they were seeking services for their wedding and they knew that this man was going to reject it.

They knew that this man was not going to bake that cake and when the openly Christian baker refused, which they knew that he was going to do, based on his religious convictions on marriage, they sued him and attempted to destroy his business.

And it gets even worse than that. This man eventually won a landmark decision in the

Supreme Court, which is thoroughly astounding that the case would have went that high. But he won.

And I'm assuming, thinking that the persecution was finally over, he went back to his business, but was sued a total of three different times from three different people who were targeting him because of his religious convictions.

The last time was when an attorney who knew about the previous cases came into his shop and tried to get him to bake a cake commemorating the anniversary of his gender transition.

Now that kind of plotting and scheming and tooth gnashing evil that would go after God's people in that way in order to destroy them is exactly what

David is talking about. We see an example of this recently. A Mississippi Pentecostal pastor was fighting for their church to be reopened during the coronavirus.

And listen, whether we believe that that was wise or not for this pastor to insist on in -person worship during a pandemic, whether we agree with his reasoning or not, here we have a pastor who is going through the proper channels of local government in order to fight for in -person worship.

And someone plotted, schemed, and with the same sort of tooth gnashing anger, burned their church to the ground, mocking them even with a misspelled curse that read,

I bet you stay home now, you hypocrites, spelling hypocrites with a K. That kind of thing is happening in America.

That kind of evil is bubbling under the surface of this free democratic country.

And whether we like it or not, it is only getting worse. The division in this country and the divide and the politics and the social issues and the anger and the unrest, all this bubbling, it feels like.

It feels like everyone in this country is divided along party lines and the anger and the response is just not helpful.

I would say these things are definitely happening in our country. Verse 14, another example, teaches us that it's the wicked who are the ones who oppress and subjugate the needy.

It is the wicked in verse 21 who borrow money with no intention to pay back the loan. It is the wicked, according to verse 32, that spy on the godly and seek to harm them and who are punishing them for their righteousness.

It's the wicked in verse 7 who are prospering and who are getting ahead because of their schemes.

No one has to be convinced that evil exists in this world, but what I think we're seeing here is more than just the existence of evil.

What I think we're seeing is a sort of ungodly hatred for the people of God, where men and women are spending all kinds of energy using a sort of demonically fueled aggression against God's people.

And to top it off, it feels like and it looks like and it seems like they're winning. That should make us zealous for God's justice.

That should break our hearts. We should long for justice.

And now the psalm is going to play out in a threefold way. How do we respond to the wicked?

How do we respond when it looks like evil is winning? How do we respond when it looks like that the righteous are losing?

Verse 1 is really the beginning of the first way that we respond.

Our response to the wicked, the Christian's response to the wicked. Verse 1 really begins that by starting quite simply and saying, don't fret because of evildoers.

Verse 7 continues that theme and it says, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of those who prosper in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.

What David is trying to get at here is not to let yourself be given over into worry.

Listen, as we're developing this doctrine, this doctrine of how do Christians respond to evil in the world, the very first thing is that we must not be afraid and we must not allow ourselves to be given over to worry.

We must let our hearts be at peace. We cannot be scared.

We cannot be panicked. We cannot be consumed by everything that is going on around us.

We must have courage. And I think it's fair to admit how difficult that is.

When we see evil, it's easy to be afraid. It's easy to be given over to fear.

It's easy to allow the news media clickbait fake news culture that will take things and spin them in order to inflate the disaster, in order to gaslight the disaster.

It's easy to look at that and allow that to make us to be afraid or to be nervous or anxious or frustrated.

But this text is going to teach us, and we'll look at this in just a moment, how we don't have to be afraid and we don't have to worry.

We'll see that again in a moment. But for right now, let us simply observe that the psalmist is making a command under the power and the authority of the

Holy Spirit that Christians are to respond to evil without fear.

That's the first thing. The second thing, the second way that Christians are supposed to respond to evil is to not be envious of it.

Verse one, again, is instructive as it finishes this way, says, be not envious towards wrongdoers.

Meaning, even though it seems like they're succeeding, don't allow your heart to become sour and to long for their sort of poisoned blessings because they're not from God.

Again, we're going to see why this is true in just a moment. But right now, the second thing that the psalmist is saying under the power and the guidance of the

Holy Spirit is for Christians to respond to evil, not with fear, not with envy.

The second or the third thing it tells us in verse eight is not to respond in anger. David says, cease from anger and forsake wrath.

Do not worry because it only leads to sin. And I think that this is incredibly instructive for you and I right now in this time that we're living in and in this world that we're living in because it seems like evil is winning and it seems like that we should be angry, that we should be living in our frustrations and fueled by the same sort of aggression that's causing the world to win.

But don't allow yourself to go that way. The psalmist is saying, biblically speaking, don't allow yourself to envy or worry or be fueled with sort of righteous wrath because these emotions don't produce the righteousness of God.

These responses do not overturn the wickedness that is being perpetrated in our society, but they sort of make us feel better because they give us this sort of vigilante justice that our hearts are longing for.

And they substitute real justice for our justice. And this passage is going to teach us how that is just not good.

God's justice is better. So don't allow your hearts to be filled with the sort of anger that is going to produce sin in you and produce unrighteousness in you.

It's okay to be angry and not sin. Bible does give us an example of that, but it's not okay to be angry and to be let down this path of sin and wickedness, which is what this passage is thoroughly speaking against.

Three negative commands right in a row. Don't worry. Don't be anxious. Do not be angry. Then it turns to some positive commands.

And I'm just going to read through these rather quickly. How do we as Christians respond to evil in the world?

Here's a few examples. Trust in the Lord and do good. Verse three, dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

So instead of giving yourself over to worry and envy and anger, trust in God.

Use your energy and your passion to do good in the world. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

Verse four, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Verse five, commit your way to the

Lord. Trust also in him and he will do it. Verse seven, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way. Verse 11, but the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.

Verse 16, better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of the wicked.

Verse 34, wait for the Lord and keep his way and he will exalt you. Now, this all might seem to you like a bunch of platitudes.

Like, you might even be wondering, does the Bible really mean that we're to simply just trust in God?

That we're to put our proverbial heads in the sand and that we're to try to fight evil by doing nothing?

That's what it might feel like to you. That we're not to raise up our arms. We're not to commit any violence.

We're not to worry. We're not to be fueled with anger. And that we're seriously just to humble ourselves and be quiet, do good and pursue righteousness, live meekly, delight in the

Lord, trust in him in everything we do and wait on him. Is that what it's saying? That's absolutely what it's saying.

That is exactly what this text is telling us to do. While evil exists in our world and while it's going to prod you and tempt you to get involved in an emotionally driven response and it's going to tempt you to be angry and to sin in your statements and in your action and your character, the

Bible says, trust, hope, seek, delight, rest and wait in God. And you might be asking yourself, why would

God tell us to live this way? Doesn't he want us to be part of the solution? Doesn't he want to fight against the evil that is happening in this world?

And it's here that I think we need to see the second response that is listed in the

Psalm. You know, first God tells us what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to trust, hope, seek, delight, rest and wait in God while not being angry, while not being envious and while not being afraid.

Those are the commands that this passage is teaching us to do. But that's not all it tells us.

It tells us how God responds and God responds in two ways. God responds first to the wicked and then

God responds to the righteous. And this is why, this is utterly why you and I do not have to sin.

We do not have to be angry. We do not have to be threatened. We don't have to worry and we don't have to be anxious and we don't have to be envious.

This is why, because of the way God responds first to the wicked.

And we'll look at that right now. Verse 13 begins this section and it tells us how

God first and foremost responds to the wicked. And it says that in verse 13, the

Lord laughs at them. The Lord laughs at them for he sees their day coming.

You see, while you and I are tempted to lose heart and to be angry and be scared or be envious of the wicked, God is laughing at them.

Because they attempt to amass an empire built upon grass that is totally going to wither.

Verse two demonstrates how temporal their success and how limited their kingdom truly is.

David says it like this, for they will wither quickly like grass and they will fade like the green herb.

You see, from God's perspective, these men are like ants. They're here today and then gone tomorrow.

They're building impressive little holes in the sand, but soon they're all going to be gone. Like grass, they're soon going to wither.

And even more than that, they're going to receive no inheritance. Verse nine and 10 is striking here.

It says, for the evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait on the Lord, they will inherit the land.

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

Think about what David is saying here. All that the wicked have, everything that they own is in this life.

They may live better than we do. They may have more than we have. They may go further than we go. They may amass tremendous wealth in this life, but they cannot take it with them into hell.

Think about it. Where is Nero Caesar in his palaces? After a single generation, he was gone and so was his wealth.

Where's Herod? King Herod and the beautiful houses that he built, or the Herodian temple that set atop the

Mount of Jerusalem, it's gone. After a single generation, God visited the wickedness in Jerusalem and leveled it to the ground through the

Roman armies. It's gone. The wicked like grass will quickly fade.

Think about a modern example, or at least a semi -modern example. Where's the Third Reich? Where's the

Reichstag? Where's the Nazi party? Yeah, you can argue that there's examples of this that are underground, but all of it, at least from a

German perspective, was totally pummeled to the ground in just a few years. They prophesied this thousand -year reign of the

Third Reich. And yet, in just a few short years, all of it was gone.

If you think about our day, our time, where is the wicked going to be in a hundred years from now? If the

Lord decides to tarry that long, they will be no more. Their kingdom will be in decay.

Moth and rust are going to level them, and they will be nothing but a footnote in a dusty history book that commemorates their ruin.

That's the glory of the wicked. For 70, 80, 90 years, they have what they wanted.

And for the rest of their existence, they have an eternity of agony. Because their heaven was in this life, and now their eternity is in hell.

But this is not so for the righteous. Our inheritance is eternal because of what

Jesus Christ has done in bringing us into his kingdom. We're never going to see decay.

While it seems like the wicked are prospering in this life, and they're having their heaven here on earth, the righteous are awaiting the day when we step into Christ's incorruptible kingdom forever.

The day when we meet the Lord Jesus face -to -face. The day when all pain is crushed, and when all the wicked become his eternal footstool, and you and I live forever with him in perfect peace and safety and wellness.

And look at, guess what? If the wicked have their heaven now, let them have it. If they have their blessings now, let them have it.

For what does it profit a man to gain the entire world, but yet to forfeit his own soul? What real gain is it for a man or a woman to have heaven here on earth, for the sum total of at maximum 120 years, and then to die and lose every single bit of it in the eternal flames of hell?

But not for the righteous. For while you and I may live the most wretched life here on this little floating blue rock, while we may endure all kinds of pain, while we may be accosted on every side, provoked and persecuted, hated and abused, while you and I could experience hell on earth,

I want you to remember something, dear child of God, that this life is nothing but a drop of water in comparison to a universe of oceans.

When in compared with eternity and what God is doing for you, this life is absolutely nothing in comparison to that.

You can have your hell on earth, and you can have it with hope, because God is working infinite into you.

Because of Jesus Christ, you and I will not be like the wicked who withers after a single generation of triumph.

You and I are going to be kept for eternal victory, while the wicked will die an eternal death of defeat.

And that, my brothers and sisters, is why you and I do not need to resort to violence.

That's why we don't need to riot. That's why we don't need to set fire to buildings. And that's why we do not need to despair.

That is why we do not need to be given over into fear. And that's why that you and I really can trust

God. We really can rest in his truth. And we really can wait for his justice to come and not take it into our own hands, because the wicked will not win.

Though they seem like they are triumphing right now, they will be thoroughly destroyed in an instant.

Look at what David says in verse 15 through 20, their sword will enter their own heart and their bows are going to be broken, which really is just pointing to the fact that every single weapon that they have used against us is going to soon be turned on them.

The bow that they aim at us is soon going to eternally point squarely at their chest as they are plunged into eternal ruin.

The sword that they use to harm the children of God will be used on them. The words that they use to weaponize against you are going to be spoken over them.

The fierce anger that fueled their oppression is going to be poured out on them. If you look at any evil that is currently thriving in this world, that evil is temporary.

It is limited and it will utterly be defeated.

This is why the psalmist can make such a bold statement in verse 16 where he says, better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.

This is why he can tell us in verse 17 that the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the

Lord is going to sustain the righteous. Even though the wicked seem like they're prospering right now, they are going to be broken.

Better is the little that you and I currently have than the abundance that is going to eternally crush the damned.

The psalmist tells us in verse 18, the Lord knows the days of the blameless.

Verse 13, he says, the Lord laughs at the wicked because he knows their day. He knows when they're going to be destroyed, but the

Lord knows our days and he says to us that our inheritance will be forever.

And I just want to point out here, the Lord knows how we suffer. He says the Lord knows our days.

The Lord knows how we live. The Lord knows how we think. The Lord knows what happens in our life.

The Lord knows how we suffer. The Lord knows how painful things are on this side of eternity.

And while David, the author, had no idea how all of this was going to work, under the authority of the

Holy Spirit, he wrote these words. But we see these words coming to their fullest completion when the

Lord Jesus Christ steps onto this planet. Jesus Christ came to this world as the only righteous one.

He's the only human being who could ever be called blameless by God. And in every human way imaginable, he experienced what you and I experienced.

He experienced hunger pains. He experienced rejection. He experienced abandonment. He experienced the lack and want of this life.

He experienced thirst. He experienced beatens. He experienced cursings and stabbings and betrayal.

He was murdered. His life was cut short at 33 years of age, all while the wicked cheered and seemed like they were winning and seemed like they were prospering.

But how few their days of triumph truly were.

For on the cross, Jesus sealed their eternal fate while also sealing our eternal reward.

Though we suffer in this life, he won for us an eternal inheritance. Far beyond what

David could have imagined as he surveyed the physical land of Israel and he said that the inheritance is going to be for the land.

Jesus Christ won us the new heavens and the new earth. He won us a new land, a global, physical, redeemed, restored planet filled with mercy, grace, and love and purged of all of its curse and all of its evil, where you and I are going to live forever in an eternal paradise with our

King, protected from any slithering satanic intruders for eternity.

David tells us in verse 19, they will not be ashamed in the time of evil and in the days of famine, they will have an abundance.

Again, all of this is true because of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, you and I are never going to be put to shame even for a moment that we're going to endure shame in this life.

Ultimately, we're never going to be put to shame. This psalm looks beyond David. This psalm looks further than David could possibly see.

It looks beyond what the natural man could grasp, and it looks to the one and only God who is working all of these things out for the good of those who love

Him and are called according to His purpose. And what's the purpose of God? The purpose of God is that you and I would abstain from evil in this life, that we would meet evil with good, that we would trust the

Lord and wait on His perfect justice to pour down the mountains like water, that we would rest in His goodness and His truth, and that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is going to be the one that's going to fight our battles.

He's going to be the one who puts down evil and squashes every rebellion in His good time.

Therefore, it's not about us taking matters into our own hands. It's about trusting the hands of God to execute justice.

Things like racism are going to be no more because God is going to put them down, even though right now it feels like these things will never end.

Sexism is going to be no more because God is going to put it down. Wars and rumors of wars are going to be no more because God is going to squash that.

Riots and burning, mob riots and lynchings, police brutality and systemic violence, all of these things are going to be put down by God in His good time.

And while I know that every fiber of our being wants to grab the pitchfork and the torches and run angrily with the mobs and pillage,

I'm asking us to consider Psalm 37 as the biblical approach, that this is what we're in fact called to do.

We are called to stand up for truth and righteousness, but we're called to do it by enduring persecution with patience and hope.

We're called to do it by resting in the truth that God loves us and He is going to be the one that defends us.

We are called to do it by not responding to violence with violence, but by responding with nonviolent resistance.

That we are called to make our voices heard, not by throwing blows, but by demonstrating hope.

We may turn our cheeks 70 times 7, not because we're gluttons for punishment, not because we're ignorant of the pain, and not because we're giving a pass to evil or somehow diminishing how wicked it really is.

None of that. We do this because God is a better judge than us.

He's a better fighter than us. He's a better defender than us. And His justice is better than ours.

Listen, we can lay down our need to respond to a situation because we know that God is going to respond better.

We can allow evil to slap us in the mouth. We can walk the extra mile even when we don't have to.

We can rejoice when we suffer. Why? Because the

Bible tells us that these things are a sign of our salvation and a sure sign of the wicked's condemnation.

Look at what Paul says in Philippians 1. He's talking to believers here. He says, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.

Amen. So that whether I come to see you or remain absent, I will hear that you're standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

Amen. But now look what he says. In no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you.

And that too is from God. For you, it has been granted for Jesus' sake, not only that you would believe in him, but also that you would suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me,

Paul, and you're now hearing about in me, Paul. Do you see what this is saying?

That we're to live our lives in a manner that is worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, not alarmed by the evil that's going on in the world, not responding to the evil that's going on in the world by taking it into our own hands, but understanding that their wickedness is a sign of their destruction.

And our patient endurance of that evil is a sure sign of our salvation.

Paul says that it's been granted to us for the sake of Christ, that we would not only believe in him, but that we'd also suffer for his sake.

What he is saying is that Jesus walked the road of suffering, not to infinitely free you and I from suffering in this life, but to call us to be like him, to take up our cross daily and to follow him.

And let's ask the question, if Jesus walked all the way to the cross and we're supposed to follow

Jesus in this life, that path, wouldn't it take us to the cross? Wouldn't it also lead us into the same kind of suffering that Christ Jesus endured?

Now, maybe we're not gonna be flogged and maybe we're not gonna be crucified. I hope to God that our country doesn't end up like that.

But should we reasonably expect that we would never deal with any kind of suffering of any kind? Should we adopt this sort of health and wealth madness that says that if we believe in Jesus, he's gonna make our life comfortable?

That's not what happened to Paul. That's not what happened to Jesus. That's not what happened to Peter, James, and John. And this is not an isolated verse.

And it's one of the most commonly avoided topics in the evangelical church, that for those who are in Jesus, we're gonna suffer.

No churches talk about this, barely. They're gonna tell you about this because it's not a happy message. And it's not gonna get you to give more money and it's not gonna get you to leave service with chest bumps and high fives and euphoric high.

It's not what the megachurch fuels their movement off of because they don't wanna tell you anything negative.

But it's most certainly biblical. Peter says in his first epistle in chapter five, resist him, that's the devil, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your brothers and sisters throughout the world.

And after you have suffered a little, meaning that you're going to suffer, the

God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore you, confirm you, strengthen you, and establish you.

And to him be dominion forever and ever, amen. Do you see what Peter is saying? That his dominion is coming into being through him overcoming our suffering.

We will suffer in this life. We will go through hardships. And the way that we respond is not by grabbing the pitchfork and the torches and the axes and the swords, but by trusting

Christ, by allowing him to restore us, by allowing him to confirm us, by allowing him to strengthen and establish us.

Not by us seeking to do those things on our own. Again, Paul reiterates this in Romans 5, three through five.

He says, rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that our suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has given to us.

Paul doesn't say fight fire with fire, fight evil with evil. He says that you need to endure it.

And through your endurance, you're gonna be, it's gonna produce character in you and that character is gonna produce hope.

What he's saying is that the Christian response to evil, which is enduring suffering and not fighting evil with evil is actually the way that we are gonna have hope.

James says this in his letter and right at the very outset of his letter, he says, count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet with trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect on you so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Paul tells this to Timothy. He says this, anyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

While evil people and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, but for you, continue in what you've learned and having firmly believed, knowing that from who you've learned it and from childhood, you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through Jesus Christ.

All scriptures breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, rebuke and correction, for training up in righteousness.

Why? So that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

Paul is telling Timothy is that you are going to suffer the noxious effects of evil if you live in this life.

If you wanna be godly, if you wanna follow Jesus Christ, you are going to experience evil and you are going to experience persecution because evil people exist and they're going from bad to worse.

But all of that is God's good and glorious way to complete you and to equip you and to make you ready for every good work.

Not to meet evil with evil, not to go out rioting and looting and causing mayhem and not to look at that and excuse it either.

The Lord is making us mature, complete, equipped and lacking and nothing through this suffering.

Let us not forget what Jesus said in John 16. And this is not the last verse. There's countless verses in the

New Testament that talk about this, for whatever reason, in our Christianity, we just haven't heard from the pulpit.

And that's a shame. But look at what Jesus says in John 16. He says,

I've said these things to you that in me, you may have peace. We like that. We really appreciate that part of the verse.

But then he goes on and he says, in this world, you're gonna have many troubles and tribulations and trials. But take heart because why

I have overcome the world. Do you see what

Jesus is saying when all the rest of the disciples and apostles are saying that the reason that you and I can trust

God, the reason that we don't have to fight our battles and the reason that we can lay down our arms and wait with hope and trust and not be angry or riotous and not be envious or fearful is fundamentally because Christ has, is and will overcome the world.

When we fight like the world, we forfeit the justice of God. But when we take a stand against evil like Christ, though the evil may be crushing us for a moment, and though it may actually end up being our end on this earth, you and I are ultimately not be thrown aside.

We will be restored. We won't be destroyed. You and I will not be left ashamed.

You and I will not be lost. You and I will not be forgotten like the wicked. And we know that because of the way that God speaks, not only to the wicked in this passage, we see how he spoke to them.

They will be punished. They will evaporate. They will vanish. They will not stand.

We see that. But let us conclude our time today by looking at how

God responds to us. We've seen the problem of evil in this passage.

We've seen how we are supposed to react to evil. We've seen how

God responds to the wicked. Now let's look at how God responds to us. And let's start in verse 23.

Says, the steps of a man are established by the Lord and he delights in his way.

I so love this verse because when you and I are contemplating how to respond to evil, we're not alone.

We're not by ourselves here. Even when we hurt and we're broken over the wickedness in our world, he is with us.

He is the one who's establishing our steps. He is the one who is delighted when we walk in his ways.

Did you see that? God is not only establishing our steps in this life, he's delighted when we walk in them.

So while you may feel like you're surrounded by pain at times and misery and brokenness, remember that you're not.

Remember that you're being guided by God who is thoroughly delighted when you follow him.

God is establishing your steps and he's delighted when you walk in them. He's with you.

He's with you by establishing your path and he is with you and delighted when you walk in it.

You're not alone. You're not alone in this wicked and evil world. You're not in the valley of the shadow of death by yourself.

He's with you. His rod and his staff, they comfort you. You're not alone. Verse 24 tells us when he falls, when you fall, he will not be hurled headlong because the

Lord is the one who holds his hand. Notice the way that God is responding to his people here.

He's not just giving us commands. Do not worry. Do not be envious. Do not be given over to anger.

He's not just giving us commands here. He's saying that I am with you. I'm the one who's keeping you.

I'm the one who's holding you. I'm the one who's sustaining you. I'm the one who's delivering you. So why would you ever be afraid?

Why would you ever, dear child, take matters into your own hands when it is your faithful and loving

God who is with you and who is fighting your battles and who is overturning the wicked and the evil in your life through his power and his strength?

Why would we ever be afraid? Why would we ever be angry? Why would we ever be anxious or envious of the wicked when a

God like this is beside of us, even while we suffer? Verse 28 says, for the

Lord God loves justice and he does not forsake his godly ones.

They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.

This means that even though we want justice on our terms and on our timelines, the Lord actually prefers and loves and celebrates his idea of justice over yours.

Did you see that? It says the Lord loves justice. The Lord loves justice.

The Lord's love is infinite. The Lord's love is perfect. Therefore, the Lord loves his ideas of justice more so than yours.

The Lord's not asking you to sit in your basement and to concoct a grand master plan on how you are going to overturn evil in the world.

He delights in his ideas of justice. He loves his justice.

He celebrates his timeline. He's not, he is not anxious like we are.

I know when we look at situations like what is happening in Minnesota, we want justice yesterday. We want justice quickly.

But the Lord, praise him for who he is, delights in his view of justice. He delights in his timelines and his timetables.

He delights in his will and his knowledge and because he is the only one who is capable of perfectly executing justice.

You and I are hasty. You and I are quick to make generalizations and opinions and you and I are quick to respond with anger and aggression, but yet the

Lord responds in perfect righteous justice and we can trust him in that.

We don't have to seek justice on our own because our justice isn't perfect.

Our justice is limited. Our justice is hasty. Our justice is not well thought out. Our justice is so finite in comparison to his infinite perfect justice that I believe we can trust him, that he is the one who is going to protect the godly with his justice, that he is the one, unlike these vigilantes who are burning down buildings of the innocent,

God's justice is so perfect that when he executes it, it actually preserves and protects the godly as well.

And his justice perfectly and permanently deals with the wicked.

And the question is whether you're going to trust that. Whether you're going to rest in his justice or if you're going to seek justice on your own in a limited way, in a way that's not helpful, in a way that adds more evil on top of evil.

Again, I'm not saying that Christians should not speak out, not saying that Christians should not call evil what it is.

What I am saying though, is that a sort of justice that takes matters into our own hands that does not trust

God, that perpetrates more sin and wickedness in a situation than what is required or necessary, is in fact just as evil as the evil that first caused it.

I believe that the Psalm is teaching us that we must trust the Lord, that we must trust his justice, that we must trust his timing, that we must surrender our need for revenge and give that over to the perfect and holy and righteous

God. And as we do that, I want us to see how

David ends the Psalm. And I think it's beautiful the way that he ends it. He says, but the salvation of the righteous is from the

Lord. He is their strength in times of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them.

He delivers them from wicked and he saves them because they take refuge in him. Do you notice what he's saying? Salvation.

Righteousness. Strength. It comes from the Lord. Strength comes from trusting in him.

Here's what I hope that we see in the Psalm as we conclude this sermon today.

While evil rages in this world and while it seems to win, you and I don't need to take justice into our own hands.

We don't need to fear, we don't need to be angry, and we don't need to be filled with envy and sinful passions.

Instead, we can wait on the justice of God.

We can wait with hope, we can wait with peace, and we can wait with joy. Because God will rescue us.

He will save us. He will fight for us. He will establish us, whether that be in this life or permanently and forever in the next.

God will perfectly deliver his people. Our anger does not produce the righteousness of God.

We are not called to return evil with more evil because God is the one who can perfectly fight our battles.

Our job is to rest, to trust, to wait, and to hope, and to rejoice in God.

Praise God for that too because he will fight these battles more perfectly than you and I could ever imagine.

So let us rest in him, and wait on him, and hope in him, and trust him, and rejoice in him together.

Let us pray. Dear Lord Jesus, I do start this prayer by just asking you for your justice to come and reign in the town of Minneapolis.

Lord, I pray that you would bring hope and peace and comfort to the

Floyd family. Lord, I pray that you would bring healing to all of the men and women who have felt for decades and even centuries that they are not loved in this country.

Lord, I pray that evil in all of its shapes, colors, sizes, and proportions would be permanently crippled and its power would be cut off.

And Lord, I know that that won't happen fully until you return. But Lord, lately my eyes and my heart have been so turned to your coming.

Lord, I pray that your coming would come soon. Lord, I pray that you would heal the evil and the wicked that we see all around us.

And Lord, I pray that we as your people would wait well. Lord, I pray that we would not take matters into our own hands.

Lord, I pray that we would learn from your example like a sheep before its shearers you were silent.

When they smacked you in the face, you didn't say a word. When they mocked you, you did not call down a legion of angels to protect you.

When they beat you and when they mocked you and when they pulverized you and crushed you and beat you and nailed you to a cross, you let them.

Because Lord, you understand and you knew that evil is not overcome with more evil.

And Lord, on the cross, you demonstrate to us the greatest defeat that evil has ever been dealt yet.

Until the day that you return and you finally and fully crush evil on the cross was the greatest defeat of evil ever imaginable.

And it was done without a single blow thrown by you, Jesus. Every blow was thrown at you and you took it and you died and you were buried in a grave.

But on the third day, God vindicated you and he rose you from the dead. And that, Lord, is the victory over evil that we celebrate.

So Lord, as your redeemed, purchased, bought people, would we respond to evil like that?

Not with anger, not with fear, not with malice, not with worry, not with dread, but for the joy set before us like you, would you allow us to endure it with patient, long -suffering hope?

Lord, would you let us grow as men and women through our persecutions and sufferings?

Would you let us grow deep? Would you let us grow wise? Would you let us grow mature so that we would be complete and lacking in nothing?

Lord, would you protect us from anger? Lord, would you protect us from graceless rants?

Lord, would you protect us from just simply throwing our opinions out there and hurting other people? Lord, would you allow us with grace and love and kindness to respond to those who are hurting, to love them while they're hurting, to be gracious to them while they're hurting, even as we are patient while we wait for you to return?

Lord, only you, only your gospel, only you can heal our land and only you can fill our hearts with the sort of love that will bring us and make us whole.