Wisdom for the Righteous

This morning we’re in Psalm 37, and let’s start by praying. Psalm 119:130 says that the unfolding of God’s word gives light and imparts understanding, and that’s what we want him to do in times like this. So let’s ask him. Wherever you are as you watch this, would you pray with me:

Father, help me to see what you have for me in Psalm 37. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Psalm 37 is what’s called a “wisdom psalm” — which means in this psalm we’re going to find very practical conclusions about how to live faithfully before God in this world. And often in wisdom psalms, the way the wisdom is shown to us is by describing the righteous in contrast to the wicked.

And that’s the first thing that we need to get clear.

Who Are the Righteous and the Wicked?

Because so much is said about the righteous and the wicked in Psalm 37, we need to know who the righteous and wicked are. Who are the righteous and who are the wicked?

Here goes:

Not everybody is righteous; and not everybody is wicked; but everybody is one or the other.

You — whoever is watching this — you are either righteous or wicked. And that might make you feel uncomfortable. And ironically, what’s uncomfortable about this binary simplification of humanity is that both the righteous and the wicked can have a hard time believing that’s who they are.

For example, there are people in this world who don’t care a thing about God, but they are law-abiding citizens; and they eat at Chick-fil-a; and therefore they would never imagine themselves to be wicked. This is the “Good Guy Conspiracy.” You’re a good guy; Ima good guy; aren’t we all just good guys? Wicked is a word used for Hitler, not me. The world is full of wicked people who don’t think they’re wicked.

But then also, if you are truly righteous, and you hear me tell you that you’re righteous, something inside of you might cringe a little bit. That’s because you think of righteousness as moral impeccability, and you know that’s not you. You know what goes on in here; you know your indwelling sin; you feel at home with Jeremiah 17 when he says the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. So actually you tend to think of yourself as wicked.

So this is ironic, see. The wicked can think they’re righteous, and the righteous can think they’re wicked, or we make up this middle category and try to claim that — and we just need to get this right. What does God think?

Go ahead and skip to verse 40. This is the last verse of Psalm 37, but we need to see this before we get to the wisdom.

Verse 40 says that God helps the righteous and delivers them — but why? — this is the last line in the psalm: “because they take refuge in him.” Because taking refuge in Yahweh is what it means to be righteous.

And that’s the answer: in the Book of Psalms, the righteous are those who take refuge in the Lord.

And we’ve seen this. It takes us back to the beginning, in Psalm 1 and 2, where we see that God’s blessing is for the righteous man and the refuge-taker — because they are the same. The righteous are those who take refuge in God, and the wicked are those who don’t.

The wicked are those who not only refuse to take refuge in God, but they live as if God is not real. This is the practical atheist we find in Psalm 14, who is called the fool.

The wicked person is the foolish person who does not trust in Yahweh;

The righteous person is the wise person who does trust in Yahweh — and that makes all the difference. It has to do with your hope.

And I want to start here because I realize I’m speaking to people who are either righteous or wicked, and I want you to know you that can become righteous. Look at verse 31 …

Verse 31 is a profound truth in Psalm 37. Verse 31, speaking about the righteous, David says “The law of God is in his heart.” Now that’s profound because that is a New Covenant promise! The law of God written on our hearts is what the Holy Spirit does when we put our faith in Jesus. The law of God on your heart is what it means to be born again, and that is characteristic of the righteous in Psalm 37.

So I want to bring it altogether and tell you: to become righteous you put your faith in Jesus. You become righteous when you take refuge in him. And you can do that right now. In this moment, turn from your sin, and hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus took the punishment you deserved for your sin, and he did it so that you would have life. So trust him; be forgiven; receive the righteousness of faith.

Welcome to Psalm 37!

And now, if you’ve done that, if that’s you — for the righteous, for all who take refuge in Jesus — welcome to Psalm 37! There is wisdom in this psalm for us, so let’s take a look:

First, notice that there are three categories of statements throughout these 40 verses. There are:

• descriptions of the wicked (I counted 25 descriptions)

• descriptions of the righteous (I counted 36 descriptions)

• exhortations to the righteous based upon these descriptions (I counted 20 verbs that tell the righteous what to do)

But the thing is, each of these different categories of statements are all mixed together. Psalm 37 is an acrostic psalm (so each verse starts with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet); so this psalm is not one neat logical argument; but it’s meant to be an artistic presentation of wisdom. And when step back and consider this psalm as a whole, we find at least three lessons here that I think are very practical for us, and relevant for where we are. For the rest of our time, that’s what we’re looking at.

These are three lessons for the righteous in Psalm 37.

Lessons for the Righteous

Time is on our side (vv. 1–2)

Look at verse 1: Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

The command in verse 1 is to not fret evildoers because, verse 2, evildoers will not last. Don’t worry yourself over what will soon fade away.

The positive principle here is that our concern (or worry or fret) of something should be proportionate to its lastability. Or another positive way to say it: invest most in the things that last longest.

This is the wisdom behind what David is saying. He is convinced that if we, the readers, only knew how non-lasting the wicked are, then we would not fret over them. You fret because you must think that the way things are right now is the way things will always be.

See, David is making a connection between our anxiety and our misunderstanding of time. He’s saying that the cause of our anxiety is because we have the wrong perspective on time, and therefore, the converse is also true: a remedy to our anxiety is to get the right perspective on time.

Which is what he’s doing. David is reminding us that evildoers — wrongdoers, the wicked who reject God — they will not eternally get away with their evil. They are headed for God’s judgment. In the grand scheme of things, according to God’s perspective on humanity and history, he will put an end to the wicked. That Day is coming.

And what will bring us from this present moment to that future Day?

Time.

That’s what time is. That’s what time is doing. Time is always moving, and it’s trajectory is always toward the Last Day when the wicked are judged and the righteous are saved. That’s what I mean when I say time is on our side. Time — which includes right now and every passing moment — is only bringing us closer to our final redemption. Time is on our side!

And this is the main way Christians should think about our relationship to time, and the more we are able to keep this perspective right in our minds and hearts, then the more at peace we will be. And to live in this world with that kind of peace about time is incredibly counter-cultural.

Just think about how hard the world fights against time. Everything from FOMO and YOLO in youth culture, to plastic surgery and age-resistant pharmaceuticals, our world is at enmity with time. The world’s way views time as running out. The Christian way views time as heading forward.

So take a deep breath. Maybe you need to slow down. Ultimately, time is on our side.

Stand for what you stand on (v. 11)

One repeated theme in Psalm 37 is the concept of land. The land, and the idea of inheriting the land and dwelling on the land, is mentioned eight times:

Verse 3: “Trust in Yahweh, and do good; dwell in the land…”

Verse 9: “those who wait for Yahweh shall inherit the land.”

Verse 11: “the meek shall inherit the land”

Verse 22: “For those blessed by Yahweh shall inherit the land.”

Verse 29: “The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever” (this is the same concept of dwelling in verse 28)

Verse 34: “Wait for Yahweh and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land.”

The mention of land is the most repeated concept in the psalm. And of course, the mention of land in the context of Hebrew readers is the land God had given them. This is the land of Israel they possessed by God’s promise to Abraham. But this is really interesting because Jesus quotes Psalm 37:11 in Matthew 5:5.

This is in Jesus’s famous Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes, Jesus says, verse 5: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Now the words for “land” and “earth” are interchangeable in Hebrew and Greek, but when Jesus says “earth” in Matthew 5 he means something more than the land of Israel. Those who trust in Yahweh, the people of God, the righteous, the meek — they don’t just receive the land confined to the geopolitical borders of Israel, but they receive the land of the whole earth. The whole earth is our inheritance. That’s what Jesus means.

David Says, Jesus Says, Paul Says

This is the same thing the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3. The Christians at the church in Corinth had been arguing about their associations with different teachers. Some claimed Paul as their guy, others claimed Apollos — and they compared the two and boasted about who they thought was better. It was a silly conflict. And the way that Paul points out the silliness is by reminding these Christians what they owned. 1 Corinthians 3:21,

So let no one boast in man. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours

He’s saying: Don’t boast about having Paul over having Apollos, because you have them both.

In my house, I have a kitchen and I have a dining room, and I don’t brag to myself that dining room is better than my kitchen — because they’re both mine. That would be silly. Paul is saying the same thing applies to the entire world. David says, Jesus says, Paul says that we, Christians, are going to inherit the earth.

Now what kind of impact should this have on us in the present?

Hope for a Place

It should give us hope for a place.

Our inheritance of the whole earth doesn’t loosen us from this earth now, but it compels to go deep where God has placed us as we look forward to the new creation.

See, God hasn’t given us everything yet, but he has given us something — and now imagine our something only expanding in time to include the entire earth fully redeemed. We start where God has placed us, but because we know our future inheritance, we have all kinds of hope for our place. It’s a little mustard seed, but it’s going to grow.

For now God has given Cities Church a place at 1524 Summit Avenue in St. Paul — but it doesn’t end here. We’re going to own all of St. Paul. We’re going to own all of Minneapolis. So we’re invested in these cities. Because we know our inheritance, we can stand for what we stand on.

And so much more could be said about this, and I’m excited for us to get there, but for today, just take a look at verse 3. David says in verse 3 to “dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” Stay where you are and live faithfully. That’s the idea. And it especially makes sense in light of time being on our side. Gospel impact is meant to be non-anxious work. This is where we get the concept of faithful presence — which doesn’t mean that we just take up space and outlast everybody else. Because David says in verse 3 to “do good.” He says it again in verse 27. The vision, then, is that we live faithfully present where God has placed, and that faithful presence includes actively seeking to bless those around us.

And that brings us to the third lesson.

Don’t Just Make It

Look at verses 25-26:

I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.
He is ever lending generously,
and his children become a blessing.

These two verses are David’s observation from his years of experience and wisdom. Remember this is a wisdom psalm, and so we can imagine David saying what he says here as an old, wise man. He’s rocking in his chair, and the youngons are gathered around on the floor. This past week after dinner I read this verse to my kids and did my best old wise man impersonation.

This is what old man David has seen, verse 25: God does not forsake the righteous. His children are not begging for bread. They’re not left destitute.

Now this doesn’t mean they don’t suffer. We’ve read the psalms up to this point. The righteous do suffer. The most faithful servant of all is hated without cause. David’s observation says nothing about the absence of suffering; but he is saying that suffering doesn’t have the final say. Affliction doesn’t mean forsaken, and whatever the people of God must endure, they do endure. They come through it.

David confirms this in verse 25, but he doesn’t stop in verse 25. Notice verse 26:

“He [the righteous person] is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing.”

When I read this weeks ago, thinking ahead to this sermon, I was struck by the leap from 25 to verse 26. David is still telling us his observation, but he says something categorically different in verse 26:

In verse 25 the righteous are not forsaken // in verse 26 the righteous are overflowing with generosity.

In verse 25 the children are not begging for bread // in verse 26 the children become a blessing.

In my Bible I wrote a little note beside verse 25, “We’re going to make it.” Then I wrote a little note beside verse 26, “We’ve made it.”

And what do you think God wants for you and your family?

Do you think he wants to just squeeze you by with verse 25? Or does he want to give you verse 26?

So much of the Christian life is hanging on. It’s endurance. God, hold me fast, please! But the joy is real. The blessings are felt. Life in Christ is meant to be good.

As I think about my own life and my family, and what it means to be a witness to the realness of Jesus, I don’t think I can improve on the vision of verse 26. I want to be generous, and I want my kids to become a blessing. I want to be a giver from the heart, and I want my children to create ripple-effects of grace all around them.

God doesn’t just want my verse 25; he wants my verse 26 — and the same goes for you. And I can say this with confidence because “he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31).

I think this is important for us to hear right now.

For most of this entire year, because of the coronavirus pandemic, it feels like we’ve all been in survival mode. We’ve all kind of pared down our systems and we’re just trying to get by. And that makes sense. I get it. There are times when we must “just get by” but we also need to remember that God has called us to more, and so we should ask him for that. Ask him for more.

And listen, please don’t confuse this with the “prosperity gospel.”

The “prosperity gospel” is a lie from Satan that says God wants you to have more stuff — more money, more material things — all stuff that the world values. That’s not what we’re talking about here. The “more” we’re asking for based on Psalm 37:26 is to be rich in faith; it’s to have more of anything I can give more of; to be so overcome with the glory of Jesus that you pour your life out for the sake of his name; and you’ll go anywhere and do anything he wants you to; and you slow down enough to know this is bigger than you, but it includes your children. And so you love your children with their little hearts and precious futures, and you do all you can under God’s sovereignty to point them to Jesus so that they would be overcome by him like you’ve been overcome by him. You ask God to bless you to become a blessing — and you want it in your soul. That’s what we’re asking. We want more of that.

So, I want to close by encouraging you. 2020 has been quite the year, and this pandemic has affected almost everything, but don’t let it shrink your faith. Psalm 37 snaps us back to reality, and its wisdom gives us helpful perspective: Time is on our side. Stand for what you stand on. Don’t just make it. There’s more.

Father, lead us! In Jesus’s name, amen.