Rev. David Holwick ZN Series on Psalms
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 10, 2000
Psalm 37:1-40
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I. Does godly living pay off?
A. In a mean world, doesn't always seem that way.
1) Rotten people often get ahead.
2) They may try to get ahead at our expense.
B. Do only losers try to follow God's way?
II. A psalm with a lot of wisdom.
A. Put in "wisdom" genre because it speaks to people, not God.
1) Verses are very similar to proverbs.
B. Beautifully structured.
1) Acrostic - verses start with consecutive letters of Hebrew
alphabet.
2) Chiasm - each verse advances to middle, then retreats in
an orderly way. [see end of notes]
C. Inherit land is like refrain: 37:3,9,11,22,29,34.
1) Jesus expands on this idea - not just local, but eternal.
D. Jesus may have been influenced by this psalm.
1) Illustrates "blessed are the meek." Matthew 5:5
2) Context gives meaning of "meek" - those who choose the way
of patient faith instead of pushing themselves forward.
3) "Meek" doesn't have much "sex appeal" these days.
A schoolmaster in France was discouraged with one of his students.
He wrote in his rollbook concerning this student:
"He is the smallest, the meekest, the most unpromising boy
in my class."
Half a century later, an election was held in France to select
the greatest Frenchman.
By popular vote, that meekest, smallest, most unpromising boy was
chosen.
His name? Louis Pasteur, the founder of modern medicine.
At age seventy-three, a national holiday was declared in his honor.
He was too old and weak to attend the ceremony in Paris, so he sent
a message to be read by his son.
The message read: "The future belongs not to the conquerors but to
the saviors of the world."
#3010
III. The quiet spirit.
A. Don't fret.
1) Focus of this section is on mind of believer.
2) Hebrew, "don't get heated." cf. Prov 24:19
3) Car radio story - Unity Church has come out with an anti-
road-rage CD. Lush music, while soothing voices say:
"I am a good driver.
I will think the best of other drivers.
I live in a loving world."
I will not take my 9mm automatic out of the glove
compartment...
[I added that last line on my own]
B. Reasoned encouragements:
1) Look ahead. 37:2,10
a) Be rooted in eternity, not time.
b) The wicked will eventually wither. 37:2
c) Righteous come out ahead in end. 37:9
2) Look up. 37:3-7
a) Turn attention from enemies to God.
1> Be still is literally "be silent." Meditate. 37:7
2> Keep Word of God in your heart. 37:37
b) Redirect your emotions (delight self in Lord). 37:4
1> Anger, resentment, jealousy destroy our confidence
in God's goodness and justice.
c) Entrust your career (5, your way) and reputation
(6, justice of your cause) to God.
3) Look to what you can change. 37:3,8
a) Positive - do good. Be constructive. 37:3
1> Tongue should speak what is wise and just. 37:30
b) Negative - avoid anger and its bitter fruit. 37:8
"Man's anger does not bring about the righteous
life that God desires." James 1:20
c) These are theologically and psychologically wise:
1> Aggrieved person is no longer turned in on self.
2> God's own way is to overcome evil with good.
3> Gospel (and OT) sharpens this to doing good
to those who hate us. Luke 6:27; cf Prov 25:21
IV. God will give us what we need. 37:12-26
A. Section compares wicked and righteous, and outcomes.
B. Persecuted, not forsaken. 37:12-15
1) Cunning, hatred and force have often been turned against
the godly.
a) Has modern flavor - verse 33 even mentions a law court!
2) The wicked are setting themselves up for their own fall.
C. Having nothing, possessing all. 37:16-20,25
1) The righteous have better prospects and consciences.
2) We have everyday needs like anyone else (Matt 6:31-32) but
our real security and wealth lie not in "uncertain
riches, but in the living God." (1 Tim 6:17, KJV)
3) Our days are known to God and he is intimately
acquainted with our needs. 37:18
a) He even knows our days of famine.
4) Never seen righteous forsaken - one man's experience. 37:25
a) Job's comforters saw no exceptions.
b) Paul, however, knew of an abundance which might be
material or spiritual, as God saw fit. Phil 4:12
D. Making many rich. 37:21,26
1) Provides an important balance.
2) We don't just believe because we get stuff.
3) Generosity is a strong component in righteousness.
Eddie Smith will never forget Easter 1946.
She was 14, her little sister Ocy 12, and her older sister
Darlene 16.
They lived at home with their mother, and the four of them knew
what it was to do without many things.
Her dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school
kids to raise and no money.
By 1946 her older sisters were married, and her brothers had left
home.
A month before Easter, the pastor of their church announced that a
special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family.
He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.
When they got home, they talked about what they could do.
They decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a
month.
This would allow them to save $20 of their grocery money for the
offering.
Then they thought that if they kept their electric lights turned out
as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, they'd save
money on that month's electric bill.
Darlene got as many house- and yard-cleaning jobs as possible, and
she and Eddie baby-sat for everyone they could.
For 15 cents, they could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot
holders to sell for $1.
They made $20 on pot holders.
That month was one of the best of their lives.
Every day they counted the money to see how much they had saved.
At night they'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family
was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them.
Their church had around 80 people, so they figured that whatever
amount of money they had to give, the offering would surely be 20
times that much.
After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save
for the sacrificial offering.
The day before Easter, Ocy and Eddie walked to the grocery store and
got the manager to give them three crisp $20 bills and one $10
bill for all their change.
They ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene.
They had never had so much money before.
That night they were so excited they could hardly sleep.
They didn't care that they wouldn't have new clothes for Easter;
they had $70 for the sacrificial offering.
They could hardly wait to get to church!
On Sunday morning, rain was pouring down.
They didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from
their home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet they got.
Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes.
The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.
But they sat in church proudly.
Eddie heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on
their old dresses.
Eddie looked at them in their new clothes, and Eddie felt so rich.
When the sacrificial offering was taken, they were sitting in the
second row from the front.
Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of the girls put in a $20.
As they walked home after church, they sang all the way.
At lunch Mom had a surprise for them.
She had bought a dozen eggs, and they had boiled Easter eggs with
their fried potatoes!
Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car.
Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came
back with an envelope in her hand.
They asked what it was, but she didn't say a word.
She opened the envelope, and out fell a bunch of money.
There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10, and seventeen $1 bills.
Mom put the money back in the envelope.
They didn't talk, they just sat and stared at the floor.
They'd gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor
white trash.
The Smith kids had had such a happy life that they felt sorry for
anyone who didn't have parents like theirs.
They thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether they
got the fork or the spoon that night.
They had two knives, which they passed around to whoever needed
them.
Eddie knew they didn't have a lot of things that other people had,
but she'd never thought they were poor.
That Easter Day Eddie found out they were.
The minister had brought them the money for the poor family, so
they must be poor.
They sat in silence for a long time.
Then it got dark, and they went to bed.
All that week, they girls went to school and came home, and no one
talked much.
Finally on Saturday, Mom asked them what they wanted to do with the
money. What did poor people do with money?
They didn't know. They'd never known they were poor.
They didn't want to go to church Sunday, but Mom said they had to.
Although it was a sunny day, they didn't talk on the way.
Mom started to sing, but no one joined in, and she only sang one
verse.
At church they had a missionary speaker.
He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-
dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs.
He said $100 would put a roof on a church.
The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor
people?"
They looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.
Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope.
She passed it to Darlene, Darlene gave it to Eddie, Eddie
handed it to Ocy, and Ocy put it in the offering plate.
When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was
a little over $100.
The missionary was excited.
He hadn't expected such a large offering from their small church.
He said, "You must have some RICH PEOPLE in this church!"
Suddenly it struck them!
They had given $87 of that "little over $100."
They were the rich family in the church!
Hadn't the missionary said so?
#3921
E. Cast down, not destroyed. 37:23-24
1) Stumble - not moral, but material calamity.
2) There are ups and downs, but God's hand is steady.
V. Keep the long view. 37:27-40
A. Do good - don't fight enemy with his own weapons. 37:27
B. Trust God's justice.
1) Bible and structure of life: what goes around comes around.
C. Promise: there is a solid future for person of peace.
1) For Christians, this extends beyond death.
D. A calm conclusion. 37:39-40
1) God's answer to our fretting.
a) Salvation "from him" and refuge "in him."
2) He can deliver. Trust him for it.
=========================================================================
This sermon borrows heavily from the commentary in the Tyndale Old
Testament series, "Psalms 1-72," by Derek Kidner.
SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#3010 "The Future Belongs To The Saviors Of The World," from sermon
dated May 4, 1992, in Dynamic Preaching, Seven Worlds
Publishing. Originally quoted by Edward Chinn in WONDER OF
WORDS (Lima, Ohio: C.S.S. Publishing Co., Inc., 1987), p. 18.
#3921 "The Rich Family," by Eddie Ogan, Virtue Magazine, April 1999,
page 54.
These and 16,500 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
=========================================================================
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 17:1 (Winter 1974)
pages 11-28
"Chiastic Psalms: A Study In The Mechanics Of Semitic Poetry In Psalms 1-50"
by Robert L. Alden, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary,
Denver, Colorado
Psalm 37
1-8 A Exhortation to righteous to ignore wicked and to trust God.
9 B Wait and inherit the land.
10-15 C Righteous inherit but Lord destroys the plotting wicked.
16 D The poor are blessed though poor.
17 E Lord upholds righteous.
18a F Lord guides righteous.
18b G Righteous inherit.
19 H Righteous get.
20a I Wicked perish.
20b J Wicked like a sacrifice.
20c J Wicked like a sacrifice.
21a I Wicked give not.
21b H Righteous give.
22 G Blessed inherit.
23 F Lord guides righteous.
24 E Lord upholds.
25-26 D The blessed may be poor but not forsaken.
27-33 C Lord loves the righteous who'll live but wicked will die.
34 B Wait and inherit the land.
35-40 A God destroys the wicked but saves the righteous.
___________________________________________________
HOLWICK COMBINED COLLECTION Number: 3421
SOURCE: Discipleship Journal, #90
TITLE: Rethinking The Missionary Call
AUTHOR: Bob Sjogren & Bill And Amy Stearns
DATE: 11/1/95
ILLUSTRATION:
Christians need to remind themselves of the determined commitment of the
true disciple of Jesus Christ. A young pastor in Zimbabwe has the
following tacked up on his wall:
I am part of the fellowship of the un-ashamed. I have Holy Spirit
power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The
decision has been made. I am a disciple of His. I will not look back,
let up, slow down, back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I am
finished and done with low living, sight-walking, small planning, smooth
knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving,
and dwarfed goals.
I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotion, or
popularity. I do not have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised,
regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk
by patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor by power.
My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven. My road is narrow,
my way rough, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought,
compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded, or delayed. I
will not give up, shut up, or let up. I will go on until He comes, and
work until He stops me.
I am a disciple of Jesus.
________________________
(From "Commitment as a Christian," a tract by Bob Morehead for "Hands
for Christ," Roanoke, Virginia)
#3421
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