Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 11, 2019


Ep 184 ｜ Most Misused： Psalm 37_4


Episode Stats

Length

30 minutes

Words per Minute

183.00487

Word Count

5,491

Sentence Count

347

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, happy Monday. Welcome to Relatable. Today we are going to start a series that
00:00:11.300 I'm really excited about. I had a ton of fun preparing for this episode. Some of you have
00:00:17.040 asked me to do this before and I just thought that it was a great idea. So what we are going
00:00:20.940 to do, I don't know if this is going to be a series that is every week in a row or if
00:00:26.000 I'm going to kind of spread it out. It might be good to spread it out so you guys don't
00:00:29.680 get worn out by this, but I am going to take a commonly used and commonly misused verse
00:00:37.360 and talk about what it actually means. What is the real context of this verse? What does
00:00:43.700 it tell us about God and how are we supposed to apply it to our lives? Today we are going
00:00:49.840 to talk about Psalm 37, 4, which is delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the
00:00:56.080 desires of your heart. This is a very popular verse. In future episodes, we will talk about
00:01:01.580 Philippians 4, 13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Jeremiah 29, 11.
00:01:06.980 I know the plans I have for you. Matthew 7, 1. Don't judge, lest you be judged. And any other
00:01:12.140 verses that you guys would like me to approach that you see misused pervasively, not just a
00:01:19.140 one-off. I'm happy to address those as well. I think even those of you who might anticipate
00:01:25.080 what I am going to say or who know the proper study of these verses, I still think that you
00:01:31.080 will enjoy these episodes. And as always, if you've got something to add or even something
00:01:36.360 that you disagree with in what I say, please feel free to reach out to me and let me know.
00:01:40.780 I love learning with you guys. So like I said, I am really excited about this. I had a whole
00:01:45.400 lot of fun preparing it. It took me a long time and I could really probably talk about
00:01:50.180 this for a lot longer than I'm going to today because there's just so much here and so much
00:01:54.720 to talk about. But before we get into all of it, I do want to say that we have all misinterpreted
00:02:01.440 verses at one point in our walk. I have never met someone who had a full and flawless theological
00:02:08.040 understanding. As soon as they got saved, we have all had bad theology at some point in
00:02:12.480 our lives. I was actually thinking about this because I know I mentioned this the other
00:02:15.380 day and couldn't think of examples off the top of my head. But I was thinking about
00:02:18.720 bad theology that I've had or just theological misunderstandings. I remember this phrase that
00:02:23.720 I used to use when I was in college that I thought was so clever. I'm sure other people
00:02:27.460 have used it as well. But I remember saying the phrase, God cannot use a parked car or God
00:02:33.180 cannot drive a parked car, meaning I have to be moving forward so God can actually direct
00:02:38.380 me. That is not true. God does not need me. Yes, we are called to obedience. We are called
00:02:44.100 to be obedient and responsive to his calling. Of course, there are actions that we are called
00:02:48.440 to take. But even my obedience, even our obedience is a work of the Holy Spirit. I can't
00:02:53.660 even take credit for that. Not any kind of innate discipline that I have actually moves
00:02:59.760 me towards obedience to God. It is all him working in my life. Just as a rule of thumb,
00:03:05.380 by the way, most phrases, theological phrases that start with the term God can't, they're
00:03:13.180 probably going to be inaccurate. We have to be really careful in saying what God cannot
00:03:18.620 do. God doesn't need us. He is God. He can do whatever he wants to do. If he can raise
00:03:23.720 us from spiritual death to life through Christ because of no merit of our own or no effort of
00:03:29.680 our own, as Ephesians 2 says, then I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure God can drive a parked
00:03:34.100 car. So that to say, if you're listening to any of these episodes and you realize,
00:03:38.100 oh, wow, I have misused that verse. That's embarrassing. Yeah. All I have to say to you
00:03:43.140 is welcome to the club. We have all done that at some point in our lives. That is how I know
00:03:48.380 it happens because not only have I seen it happening, but I've also done it myself. I have
00:03:52.940 been there, girlfriend. I have been there. Thankfully, God is faithful. He is good. He is
00:03:58.020 gracious. He draws us in. He is our teacher. He gently instructs us. He corrects us.
00:04:03.780 He disciplines us and thank God for the Holy Spirit and that he left his inerrant word for
00:04:08.880 us to be able to learn from. He wants us to have a correct understanding of who he is.
00:04:14.580 He uses, as I said, the Holy Spirit and his written word to guide us. As this is episode
00:04:20.920 number one in the series, I do need to back up a bit and give us some context for our analysis
00:04:26.240 or for why we're even doing analyses of these verses in the first place. I did an episode a
00:04:31.760 while ago titled Reading the Bible that walked through how we can approach scripture reading
00:04:38.060 to make sure that we are interpreting the text as accurately as we possibly can. That
00:04:41.680 means we look at the text in the context and ask ourselves, what does this mean? What
00:04:46.880 does this say about God? And from there, what lesson am I supposed to draw from this? So
00:04:51.120 that's not inserting ourselves in the center of the narrative and making ourselves the star
00:04:55.680 of the biblical play. It is making sure that God is in his rightful place in the center and
00:05:02.080 acknowledging him as the leading role in the biblical narrative and the historical and eternal
00:05:07.680 narrative. Of course, as I've said many times, it is impossible to know God intimately unless
00:05:14.020 we know God accurately. It is impossible to know God intimately unless we know God accurately.
00:05:21.880 If you couldn't tell me any of your spouse's characteristics, for instance, if you couldn't
00:05:27.340 tell me what his interests are, what he likes, what he doesn't like, what his background is,
00:05:32.340 where he's from, what he does for work, I'm going to assume that you guys, I'm going to probably
00:05:36.580 think it's weird that you guys are married or that you're just a terrible listener. And I'm going to
00:05:40.440 kind of wonder how things are going. I'm also going to assume just that you guys aren't very close
00:05:44.980 or the same thing with a friend. If you can't relate to the spouse example, if you can't give
00:05:49.540 me an accurate description of what your friend is like, I am just going to assume that you don't
00:05:54.060 know her very well and that your friendship probably isn't very strong. I think that's probably
00:05:57.560 a fair assessment. When you start dating a guy and you start to really like them, and especially
00:06:03.380 when you feel yourself falling in love with them and every waking moment you want to spin with them
00:06:08.460 and nothing they could do would possibly ever annoy you, you try to learn everything about him.
00:06:13.880 You want to know about his family, his background, his hobbies, his interests, his strengths,
00:06:19.720 weaknesses, his pet peeve, what makes him angry, what brings him joy. You spend hours talking to him,
00:06:26.040 thinking about him, coming up with ways to show your love for him, to serve him, to prove how well
00:06:31.440 you know him. That's because knowledge and love go hand in hand. When you love someone,
00:06:37.140 you want to know them. And it's only when you know someone that you can really, truly love them.
00:06:44.180 Unfortunately, in young women's Christian circles, sometimes emotion reigns. Now, women do tend to
00:06:50.880 be more emotional than men, and that is not a pejorative. That is not a bad thing. There's nothing
00:06:56.100 wrong with that. God made us that way. Women's inherent sensitivity and empathy are God-given
00:07:01.640 strengths that can be used for his glory as we comfort those in affliction, as we nurture the
00:07:06.800 vulnerable, as we sympathize with those in need. That doesn't mean that men aren't also called to
00:07:10.760 those things or that men aren't also nourishing or nurturing, and men don't also have emotion. Of
00:07:16.220 course they do. But women tend to be more emotional than men are, and that is a good thing. That's why men
00:07:22.480 and women, one reason why we compliment each other so well. And both men and women are made in the image
00:07:26.800 of God, so our innate propensity towards being a little bit more emotional is not bad. But here's
00:07:32.600 the thing with that. In order for our emotions to glorify God, they first have to submit to God.
00:07:39.840 When we don't submit our emotions to God, they end up ruling us and leading us astray. Jeremiah 17 9
00:07:46.800 says this, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? That is
00:07:53.560 a radical verse in this day and age. In a time when self-obsession is regarded as virtue, when
00:08:00.440 self-discovery is presented as the path to fulfillment, when introspection and constant
00:08:05.660 self-evaluation are offered as the most important and necessary tools to maintaining this overused term
00:08:12.640 of mental health, the world is stunned and offended to hear that we shouldn't follow our hearts, that not
00:08:20.720 all of our feelings are valid, that not all of our desires should be given into. That is blasphemy
00:08:26.480 today. Blasphemy towards the entity that society today worships, the God of self. As I said, saying
00:08:33.560 that we should not follow our hearts because our hearts, as the Bible says, are desperately wicked
00:08:39.480 is blasphemy toward the entity that society today worships, the God of self. If you are your own God,
00:08:46.940 you have no other option but to follow your heart, to defer to your feelings. But guys,
00:08:52.700 how exhausting is that? How tiring is that? Even those of you who aren't Christians, can you just
00:08:57.520 have a moment of honesty for a second with yourself and admit that, yeah, more than once your heart has
00:09:04.900 led you astray? Maybe you thought that that guy would love you after you had sex with him and he
00:09:09.320 didn't. You were wrong. Maybe you thought that pursuing your dream job would fulfill you, but it didn't.
00:09:14.480 Maybe you thought that traveling Europe after college to find yourself would make you feel free
00:09:19.800 and happy, but it didn't. I mean, can't we all do the same thing? Can't we all think of the times when
00:09:25.540 our hearts led us in the wrong direction, toward a wrong person, toward a wrong life choice, one that
00:09:31.220 seemed right at the time, but turned out maybe not just disappointing, but devastating? Can't we all
00:09:37.620 think back to times in our lives when we've done the same thing? The heart is deceptive. It is wicked.
00:09:42.940 It is not worth following. The new age has made a comeback in recent years. We've talked about this
00:09:49.280 before as Christianity has become less mainstream in this country, which is essentially the worship
00:09:54.740 of self. You even hear language like the universe will smile on you if you do this, if you're confident,
00:10:00.640 if you do the things that make you happy. So in this scenario of this new age universe smiling on you,
00:10:07.660 you are the center of the universe and you are being worshiped by the entire cosmos.
00:10:14.240 That is what the new age believes. Crystals, hypnosis, zen, vibrations, so like good vibes.
00:10:21.280 Yes, even the Enneagram, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago,
00:10:25.880 have all been glorified as tools for self-knowledge. The new age regards self-knowledge,
00:10:32.520 self-understanding as the highest form of spiritual health and the key to lifelong satisfaction and
00:10:39.220 confidence. But guess what? Self-understanding will never fully satisfy us because it's not
00:10:46.520 the fuel our souls run on. We can be intimately acquainted with ourselves and still feel lonely
00:10:54.720 and unfulfilled. This would be why, by the way, if you follow any account dedicated to self-love
00:11:01.060 for women. I talked about this on Instagram last week. Typically, the people posting them,
00:11:07.180 as you can tell from the captions, are miserable. They're miserable. Every post is about being
00:11:13.520 depressed or about being insecure. Every post is about feeling suffocated or tired or sad or anxious,
00:11:20.300 and every post blames these things on the patriarchy, on society, on capitalism, white supremacy,
00:11:25.680 imperialism, etc. No, no, no. My response to that is, no, no, no. You people are miserable
00:11:33.160 because your prescription for what ails you is making you sicker. As we have said on this podcast
00:11:40.060 many times, the self cannot be both the problem and the solution. If the problem is the self,
00:11:46.760 we need a solution other than the self. Depression and anxiety are very real things for many people.
00:11:52.880 I've done an episode on this as well. I think it was titled depression and suicide a couple months
00:11:57.220 ago. These are very real things for many people. We certainly shouldn't trivialize them or write
00:12:01.860 them off as things that aren't real or have quick fixes for it. But don't you think that maybe
00:12:06.840 if self-love were really the solution to these things, the people propagating self-love would feel
00:12:13.140 better than they do? Like, don't you think so? Isn't it interesting that most of the people insisting
00:12:18.460 that self-love and self-acceptance are the keys to happiness aren't happy and are trying to get
00:12:24.400 other people to wallow in misery with them? Misery loves company. This is true of this crowd obsessed
00:12:31.620 with the self. Now, one note, I do think that self-awareness is good. Knowing what talents God
00:12:38.000 has given us, our temptations that we have a propensity toward, etc. I think knowing these things
00:12:45.480 is important. If you think that you're an amazing singer, but you can't carry a tune,
00:12:50.400 it would be very detrimental to you. And probably the people around you, if you try to pursue
00:12:57.280 a career in singing, if that's just not a talent that God gave you, you need someone to tell you
00:13:02.720 the truth. You need a little bit of self-awareness if you are going to spend all of your time doing
00:13:08.280 something that's never going to add anything to the world, whereas a career utilizing your talents
00:13:12.840 would. But here's the thing with self-awareness. When self-awareness, which is healthy, I believe,
00:13:20.380 turns into self-obsession, which is unhealthy, self-understanding becomes a way to glorify
00:13:25.860 ourselves rather than God. So I'll repeat that. When self-awareness, which is healthy,
00:13:31.120 turns into self-obsession, which is unhealthy, self-understanding becomes a way to glorify
00:13:36.480 ourselves rather than God. It is self-idolatry. It is a way to worship the God of self.
00:13:42.100 And what does the very first of the Ten Commandments tell us? You shall have no other
00:13:47.480 gods before me. We went off on that tangent for a couple of reasons. One, as a way to explain
00:13:54.080 that the knowledge of God, not share emotions about God, are necessary to knowing him both
00:14:00.500 accurately and intimately because the heart is deceptive. So following our emotions, even when
00:14:06.660 we are studying the Bible, is going to lead to self-worship rather than God worship. And whether
00:14:11.760 we are self-proclaimed Christians or not, following our emotions in any scenario rather than submitting
00:14:18.840 our emotions to God will lead to devastation, destruction, disappointment. And two, the second
00:14:25.620 reason we went off on that tangent is to explain the nature of the heart, which is necessary to
00:14:31.180 understanding the first misused verse we will be discussing today, which is Psalms 30, Psalm 37 for
00:14:38.360 delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. I love Psalm 37. I love
00:14:46.300 this verse, but I love the whole chapter of Psalm 37. I encourage you to read it today this week. If
00:14:51.560 that's not a place where you've spent a whole lot of time, there are lots of parts in the Bible. I
00:14:55.180 haven't spent a whole lot of time. And so if you haven't ventured over to Psalm 37, I recommend that
00:15:00.820 you do. I had a ring in high school. It was an ictus ring, you know, the Jesus fish. And on the inside,
00:15:06.680 it had inscribed Psalm 37, one through seven. My sister-in-law and my brother actually gave that to
00:15:14.240 me. I think it was for my 17th birthday, if I'm correct. Oh, maybe that's why they did 37, one through
00:15:20.160 seven. I just now thought of that one, seven, 17. I think that's what it is. But let me, let me read
00:15:25.780 those few verses for you because they've ended up being incredibly comforting and specifically
00:15:31.160 applicable to almost every stage of my life. It feels like it says, uh, verses one through seven
00:15:38.360 say, fret not yourself because of evil doers. Be not envious of wrongdoers for they will soon fade
00:15:43.900 like the grass and wither like the green herb trust in the Lord and do good dwell in the land and
00:15:49.340 befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
00:15:55.360 Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness
00:16:00.020 as the light and your justice as the noon day. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
00:16:06.340 Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices.
00:16:12.820 These verses have proven to be, like I said, extremely comforting and reassuring to me in most
00:16:19.080 seasons of my life. As I am reminded of God's unchanging nature, his faithfulness to his
00:16:25.620 children, his trustworthiness, his power, even when it seems like the world around me is falling
00:16:31.640 apart. And most people I would say are unfamiliar with the verses surrounding verse four, which is
00:16:37.680 kind of crazy. And I'll talk about why I think that is because the surrounding verses are beautiful.
00:16:43.220 They are meaningful. They are fulfilling and comforting to read. And yet we know verse four
00:16:49.220 much better than we know the other verses. I'm sure that I was one of those people who maybe
00:16:54.840 misinterpreted this verse when I first got my ring in high school. Delight yourself in the Lord and he
00:17:00.380 will give you the desires of your heart. How this verse is commonly read is that if we follow God,
00:17:06.040 so if we say we believe in him, if we pray to him, if we go to church, if we read our Bible,
00:17:10.320 he will give us what we want. So he will give us a husband if we're craving that. He will give us
00:17:15.820 children if we're longing for that. He will give us a promotion if we're working towards that. He
00:17:19.620 will give us success, popularity, happiness, healing, whatever we feel our soul is longing for.
00:17:25.520 We are comfortable with this transaction because we like the idea of giving something to God and
00:17:33.060 getting something tangible in return, giving our time and belief to God and giving us some kind of
00:17:38.460 material blessing in return, which is why I think verse four is far more popular than the other
00:17:44.760 verses. The other verses are much harder to misinterpret. But when we hear the desires of
00:17:49.440 our heart, it sounds like God is going to give us something that we see if we rub the genie in a
00:17:57.320 bottle just the right way so that he will respond to our wishes. But if we think about this just a
00:18:05.000 little bit, we start to see that that interpretation of that verse falls apart. The apostles have faith
00:18:11.900 and church tradition holds that most of them were martyred, at least persecuted. Job had faith and all
00:18:17.640 he had was taken from him. Some of the greatest, most faithful missionaries throughout history
00:18:22.880 were martyred. Christians around the world today are being brutally persecuted, tortured, killed,
00:18:28.800 imprisoned for their faith right now. Christians die every day of a cause other than old age.
00:18:36.940 Christians lose their jobs. They suffer. They're cheated. They are lied to. They're smeared.
00:18:43.140 Does God not love those Christians? Are they not delighting in him enough? Is that why their life is
00:18:49.000 hard? If they just believed a little bit harder, would God give them what they want? No, because Jesus never
00:18:56.720 promises his followers an easy life. He promises persecution, not promotions. And while God may
00:19:03.540 choose to bless us materially, he may. He may choose to do that with a promotion or a husband or kids or a
00:19:11.120 house or influence or success. And we should thank him for all of these things. But these are given to
00:19:15.620 us because he is gracious, not because we deserve them. Therefore, every gift we have is to be used in
00:19:22.580 obedience to him for his glory. We are stewarding the things that belong to him that he has given to
00:19:28.980 us for the time being. Everything the Christian has is God's. That's why we can rest assured that God's
00:19:35.600 faithfulness is not dependent upon what we have. As Job says, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
00:19:42.580 Blessed be the name of the Lord. As Paul says in Philippians 4, I know how to be brought low and I know
00:19:48.800 how to abound in any and every circumstance. I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger,
00:19:53.760 abundance and need. Then he says another often misused verse that we will analyze on a later
00:19:57.700 episode. I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Romans 8, 35 through 38 says this,
00:20:04.980 who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or
00:20:09.880 nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written for your sake, we are being killed all the day long.
00:20:14.900 We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all things we are more than conquerors through
00:20:20.400 him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
00:20:26.240 present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will
00:20:31.900 be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I don't know about you, but
00:20:37.400 distress and persecution and famine and danger are not the desires of my heart. They are not what I will
00:20:43.820 sit here and tell you that I want. And yet the Bible says Christians can and will face these
00:20:48.240 things. And in the midst of them, we are still resting within God's unconditional, unchanging
00:20:53.420 love for us. So knowing all of this, what does it mean for God to give us the desire of our hearts?
00:21:00.840 Well, let's look at that in context. The book of Psalms is a collection of praise, of petition,
00:21:06.880 thinking God, asking him for help, for guidance, for wisdom, praising him for his goodness,
00:21:11.600 talking about his characteristics, talking about the righteousness of his law, the goodness of his
00:21:16.940 law, the protection of his law. Most of the Psalms were written by David, who was known in Israel
00:21:21.700 as an accomplished musician and songwriter. We read his reactions and his prayers to God as he is
00:21:28.220 fleeing from the persecution of Saul, as he is seized by the Philistines, as he declares victory over
00:21:33.380 Transjordan, as he's wandering through the desert of Judah, as well as various other events and stages
00:21:39.060 in his life. According to my ESV study Bible, the key themes in Psalms are, in the book of Psalms are
00:21:46.380 monotheism. So the emphasis on God being the one and only God, a creation and fall. We are made as
00:21:52.020 image bearers of God and have all sin during need of God's grace, election and covenant. God has chosen
00:21:57.240 a people for himself and has bound himself to them in an everlasting covenant, covenant membership,
00:22:02.680 describing the salvation of God's people, his faithfulness to them, the suffering they will endure,
00:22:08.460 and the hope that they have. Eschatology, the anticipation of a future reality in which all
00:22:13.640 Jews and Gentiles who trust in the Messiah will be united in their worship of the Savior.
00:22:19.420 This particular Psalm, Psalm 37, is a Psalm of David. It is referred to as a wisdom Psalm. It follows
00:22:25.520 a lot of themes that we see in Proverbs about the wisdom of waiting on the Lord, of staying close to
00:22:31.300 the Lord, of following his way, of resisting the urge to be hasty even against our enemies.
00:22:36.060 It is also an acrostic poem, which is interesting. So the first letter of the first word of every
00:22:41.220 stanza begins with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first verse in this chapter,
00:22:46.880 fret not yourself because of evildoers, is the theme of the chapter. This is what the entire passage is
00:22:54.060 about, why the people of God don't have to worry about those who do wrong, especially those who do
00:22:59.640 wrong and prosper. David has looked around him in his life and he has seen the wicked seemingly
00:23:04.540 get away with their wickedness, but he is reminding himself and those who follow God that though justice
00:23:10.260 seems to elude us, that God is not going to forsake us. That even though we can't see it right now,
00:23:16.380 even though it doesn't feel like it, God has vengeance in store for those who do evil. Yes, God sees.
00:23:22.620 Yes, God hears. Yes, God cares. Yes, God is going to do something about it. God is a God of justice.
00:23:30.560 This truth is exactly what comforts me when I look around at the world and feel, especially today,
00:23:35.680 and feel that evil is winning, that darkness is taking over, that everything is backwards.
00:23:40.860 God is just. The Bible says he will not be mocked. He will not let the wicked get away with their sin
00:23:46.280 forever. One day he will destroy evil once and for all. So within this context of trusting
00:23:51.980 and the Lord's faithfulness and justice, let's look at verse four and the verses around it.
00:23:56.680 Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon
00:24:02.600 fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land
00:24:08.020 and befriend faithfulness. This can also be translated as feed on faithfulness. Delight yourself in the
00:24:13.600 Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he
00:24:18.400 will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as light and your justice as the noon day.
00:24:23.320 This text is saying, even when it feels that the evildoers around you are winning, even when it seems
00:24:28.780 hopeless, delight in, find joy in, derive your happiness from, cultivate peace in the Lord.
00:24:35.600 The Hebrew word for desire in this verse is, I hope that I'm saying this right. Probably not.
00:24:41.560 Any Jewish friends that might be listening to Theology Monday, welcome. Please tell me if I'm saying
00:24:46.320 this incorrectly. It's Mishalah. I think that's how you say it. That's the Hebrew word for desire in
00:24:52.040 this verse, Mishalah, which can mean to petition or to request. So this verse could be phrased as
00:24:57.860 God will grant you the requests of your heart when you find your joy in him, even when calamity and
00:25:05.780 injustice seems to be winning around you. So don't worry. Do not worry. Your petitions will be
00:25:11.600 answered. Your desires will be fulfilled. Your needs will be met. How? Because as you delight in
00:25:18.220 him, as you find your satisfaction in him, what your heart seeks will be that which he seeks.
00:25:23.960 That doesn't mean that you won't want a husband or kids or whatever else you long for because you
00:25:29.420 might. But if you are delighting in God, what you desire more than anything is his will, his glory,
00:25:36.140 his justice and mercy and faithfulness to be made manifest in your life, to be proclaimed to other
00:25:42.700 people. And God may also grant us other things. But even if he doesn't, he promises to satisfy you
00:25:50.340 with himself, no matter what you have or don't have. You will be cared for. You will be seen. You will be
00:25:56.980 known. You will be fought for. Your righteousness will be made known even when others slander you.
00:26:01.880 Truth will be brought to light even while everyone around you is lying. Justice will be executed even
00:26:08.300 when all you can see is corruption. Those of us who follow God can trust in that ultimate and eternal
00:26:14.340 reality. I really want to read this whole chapter. I'm not going to because it is pretty long. But here
00:26:21.020 are some other verses. Verses 10 through 13. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more. Though
00:26:26.360 you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight
00:26:30.920 themselves in abundant peace. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him.
00:26:36.100 But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. Verses 16 through 19.
00:26:41.320 Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the
00:26:45.460 wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless
00:26:50.000 and their heritage will remain forever. They are not to be put to shame in evil times. In the days of famine,
00:26:56.080 they have abundance. Verses 27 through 28. Turn away from evil and do good. So you shall dwell forever.
00:27:02.340 For the Lord loves justice. He will forsake his saints. Aren't these the true abiding deep desires in the
00:27:12.220 hearts of those who love God to be saved, to be ultimately and eternally defended and protected against death
00:27:20.680 in evil? God promises. He guarantees his children these things. He promises us his faithfulness and
00:27:27.780 strength. He says to us over and over again in this passage, children, do not fret. Don't fret. Don't worry.
00:27:35.940 Do not worry about the evildoer. I have a plan for him. He's got nothing on me. And in the meantime,
00:27:41.960 I've got you. Do not fret. Isn't this the desire of our hearts? Those of us who find our delight in
00:27:49.620 the Lord. This reminds me of what Jesus tells us in Matthew 6, 31 through 33. Therefore, do not be
00:27:56.020 anxious saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek
00:28:01.120 after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all, but seek first the
00:28:06.140 kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. How fitting that Jesus,
00:28:11.500 the true and better. David has the same message for us generations later. God knows what you need.
00:28:19.580 Seek him, pursue righteousness, and God will care for you. He longs to be gracious to you.
00:28:26.640 This reading of Psalm 37, 4 is so much better, is so much longer lasting and richer than the reading
00:28:35.640 of the verse that tells us this means God's going to give us a job promotion. How fleeting and
00:28:41.020 unsatisfying is that compared to what it actually means, that God's going to give us himself,
00:28:47.140 his protection, his love, his strength, and that we have nothing to worry about. God the father is so
00:28:54.020 much better than God the genie. Reading the Bible for what it means rather than what we want it to mean
00:29:01.280 will be so much more satisfying in the long run. Maybe it temporarily doesn't tickle our ears as
00:29:09.540 the Bible says in another passage about false teaching, but it is so much more satisfying as
00:29:16.040 it points us to the well that never runs dry in the bread of life that is Jesus. The truth that God
00:29:21.900 has for us is always better than the so-called truth that we come up with. Why? Because while our
00:29:28.280 hearts are desperately wicked, God is perfectly good. And while we can't follow our hearts because
00:29:33.560 they're untrustworthy, we can follow God because he alone is worthy of our trust. That is what Psalm
00:29:40.280 37, 4 tells us. Okay, that was episode one of this series. I hope that you guys learned something from
00:29:47.660 it. Let me know what you think. I look forward to seeing you back here on Wednesday.
00:29:58.280 you