Trust in the Lord

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on May 30, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 37:1-9.

            One of the awesome things about the psalms is that, in many ways, the psalms are timeless.  The words we read tonight were written over two thousand five hundred years ago.  And yet, they apply so well to the current state of living that they could’ve been written yesterday.

            Listen to how it starts out:  “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong.”  That applies today, right?  We have a lot of concerns about evil in our world.  We may not always call it “evil”, but there are all kinds of things happening in the world that we don’t think is right.  And we worry about it.  We worry about the future.  We wonder what’s going to happen.  We see the world going down what seems to be the wrong path, and we wonder how far down that path things will go.  We wonder when things will change.  We wonder if things will change.  We worry about whether this downhill path the world seems to be on is permanent, if things will just get worse and worse and worse.

            The writer of the psalm says we don’t need to worry about stuff like that.  We don’t need to worry about those who are evil.  Why not?  Because they’re not going to survive.  “Like the green grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.”

            As I thought about that, I thought about the sunflowers.  For a short time, in late summer/early fall, the sunflowers are in full bloom.  And they look beautiful.  They’re big and full and they look like they’re going to be around forever.

            But they’re not.  They only look like that for a few short weeks.  It’s not very long at all before they start to go downhill.  They turn brown.  The heads start to droop.  And before long those “beautiful” sunflowers look ugly.  And pretty soon, they die.

            That’s what our psalm says about evil.  It may look good for a while.  It may even look like it’s really attractive.  But its time is short.  It’s not long before evil starts to go downhill.  It no longer looks attractive at all.  And eventually, it dies out.

            Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that.  It’s hard, sometimes, to see past what’s right in front of us.  It’s hard to believe that things can be different from the way they are, that they can and will be better than how they are.  What we see now is reality.  What will be, what could be--well, who knows?

            God knows.  And God is going to take care of it.  Listen to what our psalm says next.  “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.  Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this:  He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.”

            That’s what we need to do.  When we see evil winning, when it seems like everything’s going downhill, that’s our solution.  Trust in the Lord and do good.  It sounds simple, right?  And it is simple.  It’s just not always easy to do.  

            For some reason, trusting in the Lord seems to be one of the hardest things for human beings to do.  We can believe in the Lord.  We can praise the Lord.  We can worship the Lord.  We can even love the Lord.  But trust the Lord?  Well, that’s different.  That’s another matter entirely.

            Why?  I don’t know.  Part of it, I suppose, is just our natural human impatience.  When we want something to happen, we don’t want it to happen at some point in the future.  We want it to happen now.  

And when it does not happen now, what do we do?  Two things.  The first thing we do is try to force it to happen now.  We’ll do this, we’ll do that, we’ll do anything we can think of to try to make what we think needs to happen, happen right away.  We don’t want to wait for things to happen in God’s time.  We want them to happen in our time.  Today, if not sooner.

And of course, that very rarely works.  So then, we do the second thing, which is give up.  We decide God is not going to do anything.  We decide God has abandoned us.  And so, we give up on God.

And the thing about that is that, when we give up on God, we tend to give up on ourselves, too.  We think, well, what’s the point?  What’s the point of serving God?  What’s the point of staying faithful?  What’s the point of loving God and loving others?  What’s the point of trying to live a good life?  Evil is winning.  God’s not doing anything about it.  There’s no point of anything.  That’s a pretty hopeless feeling.

We need to ask God to help us fight our impatience.  We need to do what the psalm says a little later:  be still.  “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”

Again, that’s not our natural reaction.  When we see things not going right, the last thing we want to do is be still.  But when we do it, when we are just still, sometimes we see amazing things happen.  In fact, I think sometimes that God is saying to us, “I’d love to show you all the incredible things I can do if you would just be still and get out of My way.”

But being still is not the same as doing nothing.  This psalm does tell us to do a few things.  I’ve mentioned them, but I kind of skipped over them.  Let’s look at them.

“Trust in the Lord and do good.”  Do good.  Do things to help people.  Do things to show love to people.  Find ways to support people, to encourage people, to just be there for people.  You might be surprised what a difference those things can make in someone’s life.  You might be surprised at the difference they make in your life, too.  So, in trusting in the Lord, that’s the first things we should do.  Do good.

Next, “dwell in the Lord and enjoy safe pasture.”  In other words, relax.  Know that God gives us good things, and enjoy the good things God has given us.  Enjoy the love of God.  Enjoy the peace of God.  Yes, some things are bad right now, but we don’t have to change the world by ourselves.  In fact, we cannot change the world by ourselves.  Just do good, do what you can to improve things around you, and know that God will handle the rest of it.  We know God can--God is God.  So relax.  Let the love of God and the peace of God surround you, regardless of the circumstances.

And then, we’re supposed to do one more thing.  And when you think about it, it’s the most awesome thing of all.  It’s this:  “take delight in the Lord.”

When’s the last time you did that?  I mean, we may pray to the Lord.  We may ask the Lord for things.  We may thank the Lord for things.  We may even praise the Lord for things.  But do you ever take delight in the Lord?  Do you even know what it would mean, what it would feel like, to take delight in the Lord?

Taking delight in the Lord means just being happy to be around God.  Not necessarily saying anything.  Not necessarily doing anything.  Not even necessarily thinking about anything.  Just being in God’s presence.  Just feeling that you are with God.  Just feeling that God is with you.  It’s like being with someone you love, or even just being with a good friend.  You don’t have to say anything.  You don’t have to do anything.  You just enjoy hanging out with each other.  That’s what taking delight in the Lord means, really.  Just hanging out with God.

Have you ever tried to do that?  To just hang out with God?  Try it.  Just go to God and say something like, “God, I just want to be with you right now.  I’m not going to say anything.  I’m not going to ask you for anything.  I just want to be with you, and I want to feel that you’re with me.  I just want to hang out with you for a while.”  If you do that, if you’re really serious about it, I don’t think it will be too long before you do feel God with you.  And you’ll feel better.  You will take delight in the Lord.

When it seems like evil is winning, when it’s hard to trust the Lord, try doing these things.  Be still.  Do good.  Relax.  Let the love of God and the peace of God surround you.  Feel God’s presence with you.  Just hang out with God.  And I suspect, when we do those things, we’ll find that we do start trusting God.

Evil will not win.  Evil cannot win.  Our reading for tonight says one more thing.  “Those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.”

Evil will be destroyed.  When?  I don’t know.  How?  I don’t know.  I just know that it will happen.  And I know it will be God who makes it happen.  God will take care of it in God’s way and at God’s time.  But God will take care of it.  Just trust in the Lord, do good, and leave the rest to God.