Trust God and Do Good

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, March 20, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 37:1-17.

            I talk to a lot of people, as you probably do, too.  And of course, we talk about a lot of things, just like you do.  The weather.  The drought.  Sports.  Things going on in the community.  All kinds of things.

            But a lot of times, the talk turns to things that are going on in the world.  And when the talk turns that way, there seems to be a common theme.  There are a lot of people who, as they look at the world, believe evil is winning.  They see evil ascending, good declining, and they don’t see that changing anytime soon, if ever.

            Maybe you’re one of those people.  If so, I’m not criticizing you.  I understand it.  There are a lot of things that seem to be going wrong.  I’m not going to go list them, because a lot of them have political implications and I don’t want to get into that.  But if you pay even the slightest attention to the news, you know there are a lot of bad things happening.  And even granting that “the news” tends to focus on the bad news, still, there are a lot of things happening in this world that do not seem to be as they should be.  I can understand why some people believe evil is winning.

            But here’s the thing.  If it appears that evil is winning, it’s an illusion.  It may look now, for the moment that evil is winning, but ultimately evil will not win.  Evil cannot win.  Good will win because God will win, and God is good.  We worship the almighty, all-powerful God.  We worship a God who cannot be defeated, who is greater and better than anything we can imagine.  If it appears that evil is winning, that’s just because God allows it to appear that way, for whatever reason God may have.  But no matter how things may appear at the moment, God is winning, and God will win.  

            That’s the message of our Bible reading from tonight from Psalm Thirty-seven.  It says it over and over again.  Don’t worry about evil winning.  It’s not going to.  God will take care of it.  

            Listen to the number of times that message is given, just in these few verses.  Verses one and two:  “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.”  Verse seven:  “Do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”  Verse nine:  “Those who are evil will be destroyed”.  Verse ten:  “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.”  Verses twelve and thirteen:  “The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth against them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.”  Verses fourteen and fifteen:  “The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright, but their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.”  Verse seventeen:  “The power of the wicked will be broken.”

            Seven times, in these seventeen verses, we are told that evil will not win, and the wicked will not succeed.  And if we had read the rest of the psalm we’d have heard that message five more times.  I think God, speaking the author of this psalm, wants us to get the point.  Evil will fade away.  Those who are evil will be destroyed.  In fact, they will be obliterated.  Their own schemes will bring them down.

            So the question is, do you believe that?  And the other question is, if you believe it, do you trust it?  That’s not two ways of asking the same thing.  It’s one thing to say yes, I believe evil will not win.  It’s another to say, I trust that evil will not win.  

Trust is really the key.  Trust is what allows us to live our lives without fear, no matter what may be happening in the world. You see, if we don’t trust that evil will not win, then we think it’s our job to prevent evil from winning.  We think it’s up to us to fight evil, rather than leaving the battle up to God.

So, am I saying that we should do nothing?  Am I saying that we should just sit back, watch what’s happening in the world, and not do anything about it?

No, that’s not what I’m saying.  Our psalm tells us that we have a role to play in fighting evil.  How do we fight evil?  By trusting God, by following God, and by doing good.

That message is given quite a number of times, too, in these few verses.  Verse three:  “Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.”  Verses five and six:  “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.”  Verse seven:  “Be still before the Lord and wait for him; do not fret when people...carry out their wicked schemes.”  Verse eight:  “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret--it leads only to evil.”  Verse eleven:  “The meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.”  Verses sixteen and seventeen:  “Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of the wicked...the Lord upholds the righteous.”

Six times, in those verses, that same message is given.  And it’s made a whole bunch more times in the rest of the psalm.  Our job is not to go out and battle evil.  Our job is not to seek out and destroy the wicked.  Our job is to trust in the Lord.  Our job is to do good.  Our job is to commit our lives, and the way we live them, to God.  We are not supposed to get angry, we are not supposed to be indignant, we are not supposed to worry.  We are to follow the ways of the Lord in everything we do and everything we say.  And we are to leave the rest to God, trusting that God will deal with the wicked and will take care of us.

So, again, the question is, do you believe that?  And again, the other question is, if you believe it, do you trust it?  Because, again, that’s not two ways of asking the same question.  It’s one thing to say we believe that our job is to trust in the Lord, commit ourselves to God, and do good.  It’s another to say, I’m going to actually do that, I’m going to actually live that way, and I’m not going to worry about what may happen as a result of that.

Because here’s the thing.  I said it’s not our job to go out and battle evil, and I believe that.  But at the same time, there are times when evil will bring the battle to us.  Because there are times when committing our lives to God, doing good, following the ways of the Lord in everything we do and say, can get us into trouble.  God is not always popular in our society right now.  Following God is not always popular in our society right now.  We may not feel it as much, living here in small town South Dakota, but if you follow the news at all you’re aware of it.  And our little towns are not walled off from society, much as we might like to imagine that they are.  Those same elements that make God unpopular in other parts of the country are going to make their way here, and in fact already are.  We may not feel it now, but someday we will.

That’s why believing these things and trusting them are not the same thing.  If we believe these things, but we don’t trust them, we may not be able to withstand the pressure from society.  When following the ways of the Lord gets us into trouble, we may fold.  We may take what appears to be the easy way out.  It’s always tempting to go along with the crowd.  It takes courage, and it takes trust in God, to resist the crowd and continue to follow the ways of the Lord, and to not worry about what may happen as a result of doing that.  It takes courage to trust that God will take care of us, and that God will bless us, if we resist the pressure to go along and get along and instead stay faithful to God.

It’s easy to believe that evil will win.  But it won’t.  God is going to win.  God always wins.  The almighty, all-powerful God is undefeated.  And He always will be.

So let’s have faith in God.  Let’s trust in God.  And let’s believe what the psalm says.  Evil will fade away.  It will be destroyed.  It will be obliterated!  The wicked’s own schemes will bring them down.  All we need to do is trust in the Lord.  Do good.  Commit our lives to God, don’t get angry, and don’t worry.  Follow the ways of the Lord.  God will take care of the evil and the wicked.  And God will take care of us, too.