Fret Not

Fret Not

All right, let’s take our Bibles, please, and turn together to Psalm 37 this morning. My heart has been drawn to this portion of Scripture this morning for the message, and I’d like to read it as our scripture text as we typically do on Sunday morning. Psalm 37:1, A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers. Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil, for evil doers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

Let’s pray. Father, take your word this morning and help us. I do not pretend to know what’s in everybody’s hearts this morning. And it’s not my responsibility to know what the thoughts of every heart are, because I wouldn’t even know my own thoughts if it wasn’t for your word. And so I pray that you would minister. We pray for the freedom for the Holy Spirit to just minister in our hearts this morning. The so we would not put up any roadblocks to keep you from showing us more about yourself and our own need of you. Today we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

The words fret not here are rooted in the Hebrew word that literally means do not get heated. Do not get heated. Maybe a phrase we use in our vernacular today. We would say something like, don’t get all worked up. Don’t get all worked up. Sometimes I say, don’t get in a tizzy or something like that. But that’s the idea of fret not. Fret not here. The word chara in the Hebrew is translated kindled or wroth or hot, angry, displeased, fret. You get the idea. It’s all all worked up and Upset, even anger or intense emotional agitation about something. We know that God’s anger is righteous anger. And something I notice about God’s anger is that he is slow to wrath. He is long suffering. He is long before his wrath comes to a boil, we might say. And there’s that understanding even in the original languages, when we see God is slowed to wrath, literally, it takes him a long time to get heated up, is the idea there. A long time to be vehement in his wrath because he is slow to wrath. Unlike we are, some of us even more so than others. Some of us. You know, what is the saying? The redheads, you know, they tend to be a little bit quicker to get upset. I hate to put that on redheads, but, you know, it’s just sometimes that’s the way. It’s not only redheads, though. But I mean, sometimes our personality just lends to that, right? But all of us have a shorter fuse than we ought to have without the Lord. But don’t get worked up. Don’t get worked up is the idea, because of evildoers. Because that would be our natural tendency, right? Get worked up. But we’ve been commanded instead to rest in the Lord, to trust in the Lord, to be patient, wait on the Lord, right? We’ve been commanded to do that. And our Lord here in this passage is commanding us through. I mean, David, of course, writing this, but is commanding us not to get worked up, but because of those who are doing wrong and not to envy them. Not to envy them. What does that mean? I think we know what it means. But don’t be jealous of them. To the point that. Not just to the point, but don’t be jealous of them and want to be what they are and have what they have. And kind of like Asaph in Psalm 73, isn’t it, where he said, I was envious of the workers of iniquity. You know, I thought I was foolish, but I was thinking, why am I putting out all this effort to do the right thing when it seems like I’m not reaping the benefits for doing right? And they seem to be getting ahead in life because of what they’re doing, how they’re manipulating circumstances, how they are working things out to favor them. You know, they’re rigging the game, so to speak, to work in their favor. Well, we’re not to envy them.

The scripture says, verse 8. If you look down in verse 8, and we’ll come to this, but I just want to read it in light of what we read in Verse one, we see it again, Verse eight, cease from anger and forsake wrath. But it says here, fret not thyself. Don’t fret. Don’t get all worked up in any wise to do evil. Isn’t that what happens? We end up doing the wrong thing when we get upset. When we get worked up in our spirit, it’s going to produce wrong actions. And that’s why we must not address situations in anger, whether it’s among brethren or it’s with people on the job, or it’s our children or with anybody for that matter. We should not address matters from a place of anger and retaliation. And we’re bitter. And what is it? Bitter envying and strife in your hearts, right? That’s not how we’re to address matters. That’s not how we’re to think about things and people. We’re not to envy. We’re not to fret ourselves and get worked up to the point that we will do as it says in verse number eight here, to do evil ourselves. In fact, we should hate evil. Not only in other people, we should hate it. Lord, search me. Try me. Time out. Time out. When my spirit is getting worked up, Lord, help me to forsake evil in my own life. Help me to forsake evil in my own thinking so that I act, think, think, speak and act righteously in a way that is right in your sight. Two wrongs we’ve been taught, haven’t we? Never make a right. Two wrongs do not make a right. Well, I’m retaliating against my sister because she did this to me. That’s not right. It’s not right. What she did might not be right. Just like what Shimei did to David this morning might not be right. But it didn’t justify David treating him in the same way that he had been treated. Right? We saw that last week. If they smite you on one cheek, turn the other cheek, right? Don’t repay evil with evil. And yet we need patience, don’t we? We need patience. It’s God’s responsibility to avenge. It’s not our responsibility. I think I’ve covered this well enough to say that if someone is trying to kill your family members, defend your home, okay, that’s not what we’re talking about here. But if somebody is insulting you, don’t return the insult. If somebody is, somebody is taking advantage of you, don’t retaliate with the same kind of activity because that’s not condoned by the Lord. Don’t get yourself worked up you need patience?

Looking for James chapter one with me. James chapter one, verse 17. And we notice here we could probably just quote it still from our memory. But let’s read it together. Let’s look at it together. James 1:17, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. And so we see here that God tells us and what the context is, is when your faith is being tried, right? The trial of your faith, when your faith is under testing. It would be easy. It will be. The natural thing to do will be. It will not be that we should be slow to wrath and slow to speak. The natural thing is we want to defend ourselves, right? We want to take up for ourselves, so to speak. But we must, like David acknowledged this morning when we were looking in our Sunday school lesson, he acknowledged, the Lord has allowed this to happen. The Lord has allowed basically this fool to come and hurl all these words at me. I recognize the Lord is behind this. I’m not saying that he should be doing what he’s doing, but the Lord’s allowing it. It’s part of my humiliation. It’s part of the humbling to test and see where am I truly repentant before the Lord.

And so we see that if we are not envying and we are not fretting and getting worked up because of the workers of iniquity, then we will trust. Verse 3. Trust in the Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily shalt thou be fed. If we’re trusting in the Lord, we’re trusting he’s going to. He’s to going. He’s going to take care of the evildoers. He’s going to have to be the one to resolve that we should not take that into our own hands, as verse two indicates. But verse three is to trust in the Lord and do good. That’s our responsibility. Do right, do good, do what is well pleasing in the Lord’s sight. It is not that the sin that Maybe someone else is doing that we see in the world around us. Yes. And the sin itself should be unsettling and upsetting to our hearts. In a sense. Yes. David would say that rivers of water run down my eyes because they keep not my law. The sin grieves, and it should grieve our hearts, but it’s our responsibility to do good. Our responsibility. God never gave us the jurisdiction. God never gave us the responsibility to. To take judgment into our own hands. God never gave us that responsibility, and he’s not going to give it to us. Our responsibility is to rest in and trust in Him. That’s our responsibility. Just like our children. Our children hear how we have to address matters with one of their siblings. And so sometimes they get the audacity to take on that tone with their sister or their brother themselves. And we have to remind them, you’re not the mama, you’re not the daddy. Let us handle. Let us handle it with your sibling. That’s not your. And then we hear that echo coming back to us. We’re children of the Heavenly Father. It’s not our responsibility to deal with the needs of even our brothers and sisters. No. Yes, of course we need to go to our brother after we take the beam out of our own eye if there’s something that’s truly between us and that brother. But still, even at that, it’s not our responsibility to judge that soul in one sense, because God is going to do that. God is the one. There’s a reason why there’s a judgment seat of Christ. We’re not in the business of judging motives, but we do have to, as Christians, we do have to maintain the. The unity of the Spirit among ourselves as brethren, Right? Part of that involves confessing our faults one to another, going one to another, and those kind of things. But we’re talking about evildoers here. And we see that our responsibility is to rest in the Lord, not to get worked up. And vengeance, remember, is the Lord’s he will repay.

And when and if we will see how great God is, can we just stop and stand in awe and get our eyes off of the evil that is being done and get our eyes on the Lord. We won’t fret about little man and what he’s doing, right? We won’t get so worked up about the wrongs like our tendency will be to get worked up. But if we truly get our eyes on the Lord, and if we truly get our eyes upon him, it’s amazing how the things of earth will grow strangely dim as the hymn says, in the light of his glory and grace. How true that is. How true I find that to be in my own life. And when I’m starting to get anxious and worked up over things, I know that my eyes are in the wrong place. My eyes are on the wrong things. We have to trust in Him. He’s able to feed us and meet our needs. He’s able, like the Psalm says. Psalm 23, right? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. When we start getting our eyes on people and fretting ourselves about circumstances, we don’t have our eyes on the shepherd. And we are not able in that time. We are not truly able to say, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, you know, leads me beside the still waters. No, there’s no still waters to be found in that kind of life because we’re in a tumult. The Lord has had to get me still this week and just reset my sights to reset my sights on Him. Satan wants us to fear what’s going to happen to us if the plans of evildoers succeed. That’s not our responsibility to worry about that. Because the plans ultimately of those who oppose God’s plans are not going to succeed. They’re just not. They’re not going to succeed. There’s nothing that can be done against God that is ultimately going to succeed. You can’t. And in the meantime, if we’re truly resting and trusting in the Lord and doing good, who’s going to harm us? Who’s going to hurt us? If you’re doing what you ought to be doing before the Lord, you have nothing to worry about. You have nothing to fear. God is in control. God is in control. So shalt thou dwell in the land. That sounds like Psalm 23, you know, green pastures, still waters, and verily thou shalt be fed. He’s going to keep feeding you. He’s going to keep providing for your every need. He’s going to protect you. Nothing will harm you. Sometimes, well, we get worked up because. And we have to really stop and think, what’s the sin behind getting worked up? It’s because we’re not trusting. We’re not actually trusting. The Lord will provide. Just admit it. We have to admit it. I have to admit it. Am I really trusting the Lord? No, I’m not. And that’s why I’ve got my eyes on this or that situation and I’m worrying about it. It’s because I think somehow this situation is Going to this person, this individual, this trouble in the world is going to. Somehow it’s going to hurt me. Nothing can hurt us if we trust in the Lord. Isn’t that a wonderful thought? We can lie down in a prison cell like Peter did and sleep among the Roman prison guards. And sleep so soundly the angel has to shake us extra hard and get us up, you know, so to speak, because the Lord’s in control. It’s okay. What’s the worst thing they can do? They can kill the body. They can’t kill the soul.

Delight thyself here in our text also verse 4, in the Lord. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. It’s here in this verse that we see true joy and true satisfaction that comes and fills our hearts and in our minds when our eyes are truly. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. True joy, true delight, true satisfaction comes to our hearts. If we are worked up, of course it’s impossible to delight ourselves in the Lord, or if we’re not delighting ourselves in the Lord, we will get worked up. But as long as we’re trying to take matters into our own hands, we’re not delighting in the Lord, are we? We’re. As soon as we begin to contemplate and meditate upon the excellence the Majesties we saw this morning, how majestic is thy name. As soon as we begin to think upon and dwell upon and delight on, delight in the Majesties and the excellency of our Lord. How often have you found that when you truly turn your eyes upon the Lord, tears of joy just well up in your eyes. And more importantly than your eyes, just that your soul, you feel that release the Lord brings you into a large place, a wide place, not a constricted place, where you feel, I’ve got to. I’ve got to do something about this. I’ve got to work this out. No, you don’t have to. You just got to do what the Lord tells you to do and leave the rest. What does the hymn say? Leaving it all with Jesus. My peace today, as on yesterday, is leaving it all with Jesus. Not trying to drag that burden around. Leave your heavy burdens. We sing at the cross. Leave them at the cross.

Well, verse five says, commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday. The idea of the word here commit is literally to Roll commit thy way Roll thy way unto the Lord Just leaving it all with Jesus is the idea. Once again, leave it with him and he’ll bring it to pass. Are you weary, the hymn says. Are you heavy hearted? Tell it to Jesus alone. Right you no other such a friend or brother. Tell it to Jesus alone. Is there a heart or bound by sorrow? Is there a life weighed down by care? Come to the cross each burden bearing all your anxiety. Leave it there. If we are trusting, as verse four tells us, then we will be rolling our burden upon the Lord and committing our way to the Lord and trusting in him, trusting he’ll bring it to pass in his way and his time. You know, we’ll take our burdens and we won’t bring them back with us from the throne of grace. Sometimes we’re good at that, aren’t we? We pray about the matter and then when we get done praying, we just take the burden back on our shoulder and we walk back into our daily duties with that burden. We didn’t really fully leave it with the Lord.

Verse 7, Rest in the Lord says, wait patiently for him. Fret not. Here’s this word again. Fret not thyself. Because of him who prospereth in his way. He seems to be getting away with whatever he’s doing. Right? That’s not right because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. And so we see that this is something that is going to continue to happen until the Lord comes back. There are going to be men that bring wicked devices to pass.

I was reading a little bit of the hymn story this week. It was a blessing to me. The hymn story, Jesus, I am resting. Resting. I want to share a little bit of that with you. Not so much maybe of the actual way the hymn was birthed in the heart of the writer, but an application of how it was used by God. The words were penned in 1876 by Jean Pigott and the music, the hymn tune Tranquility, was provided by James Mountain. Little is known about Pigott Jean Piggott, except that she was born in Ireland and was one of eight children. She is known to have written only two hymns and this one and another one that we don’t. I don’t think anybody here knows the other one. I didn’t know it. Jesus, thou didst keep thy child. It’s said that this was Hudson Taylor’s favorite hymn and whenever. Whenever his work permitted it, Mr. Taylor was in the habit of turning to a little harmonium for refreshment, playing and singing many A favorite hymn, but always coming back to his favorite hymn. Jesus, I am resting, Resting in the joy of what thou art. I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart. An evangelist, George Nicholl was with Hudson Taylor on one occasion When Taylor received news of serious rioting in two of the older stations of the Mission China Inland Mission. Thinking that Taylor might wish to be alone, the younger man was about to withdraw when to his surprise, Taylor began to whistle. It was the soft refrain of the same well loved hymn. Jesus, I am resting, Resting in the joy of what Thou art. Turning back to Mr. Nickel. Sorry. Turning back. Mr. Nicholl could not help asking. How can you whistle when our friends are in so much danger? Would you have me anxious and troubled? Was the quiet reply. That would not help them and certainly would incapacitate me for my work. I have Just to roll the burden on the Lord day and night. This was his secret. Just to roll the burden the Lord. And the thought came to me this week as I was reading that hymn story. How many times have I been. Mr. Nickel. How can you whistle that tune knowing you know whatever it is that we’re facing at the time? Have we tried to bear our burdens alone? Have we tried to bear them? Or are we resting in the Lord and His precious promises. And those promises producing peace and patience in our lives? Have we rested in our own understanding? Or are we in the situation becoming impatient? Are we becoming restless? Or are we truly resting in the Lord as we’re told here in verse 7? Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way. Because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

We’re to cease. We’re to cease from anger and forsake wrath. Verse 8. Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. Impatience comes from resting on our own understanding. Isn’t will lead us to respond in bitterness. It will lead us to respond in anger to the situations of life as they arise. Even hurting those that may be closest to us. Not just the evildoers that know not God. But even our brothers and sisters we may harm by retaliating in bitterness against someone. Remember Peter? He cut off the high priest servant’s ear. Malchus. But he did not do it in obedience to the Lord. He did it in anger. He did it thinking it was righteous anger. But the Lord picked up that ear and put it back on and healed it, didn’t he? Even to his enemies. Jesus was gracious. He was kind he did not render evil for evil, but was merciful. He was patient. And Jesus was perfectly patient with his Father’s plan. He knew that the Father’s way was best. We don’t see him getting all roiled and upset because of his Father bearing long or dealing with him in a long, drawn out sort of way. He said, my hour’s not yet come. My hour’s not yet come. They’re trying to kill me. And he just walked out trusting his Father. He trusted in God, Let him save him. Well, no, he trusted in God and was obedient all the way to the cross. And even on the cross, into thy hand I commit my spirit. He trusted. It is finished. The Father’s will is complete. You know, we’re probably. Yeah, we never know what will happen in our lives, but it’s very high likelihood you’re not going to be nailed on a cross. We don’t know what we’ll face in our lives, but whatever we face, you could die of a bullet wound, you could die of old age, you could die of cancer. I mean, we don’t know how we’ll go. The Lord may come back and take us. That’s not ours to figure out. That’s not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to trust in the Lord, to cease from anger, forsake wrath, don’t fret ourselves in any wise to do evil. Two wrongs, as we saw this morning in the Sunday school hour, do not make a right.

Jesus said in John 12:27, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. No. But for this cause came I unto this hour. For this cause came I unto this hour. There is. He knew that even going to the cross he must do what was right. And he knew that the Father would do what was right. He was resting, resting in the father’s plan.

Verse 9 says, for evildoers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. Isn’t that a delightful reality this morning that we will inherit as believers the earth? David says, surely, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And what happens after that? And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The Lord will never leave his children, nor forsake them. And we know that not only will we one day dwell in the house of the Lord forever, but even while we walk through this earth below, our Lord once again will. He will not. He might. He will Comfort he will provide, he will protect. He will show goodness and mercy to those who are his in every imaginable way. As we trust in the Lord, we wait on the Lord, rest in him, commit our way unto Him. He will comfort, protect and provide for us. Do you know the Lord is your shepherd today? Do you know? Do you know his rod and his staff? Do they comfort you? That’s not just merely a positive thinking question. Certainly as Christians we should think positively. But it’s not merely the power of positive thinking. It’s the power that comes to our lives as we trust the unchangeable truth of God’s promises to us and we know. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. There’s not a situation I can find myself in trusting the Lord that He is not going to provide, that he’s not going to meet my needs. My responsibility is not to worry. My responsibility is not to work myself up into disobedience to him first of all. That would be disobedience in itself. But it will lead to more disobedience. Worrying instead of trusting is a sin. And it will lead to sins of action and words that will now begin to hurt other people and do damage to his name and to his glory in the earth. I cannot do that, Lord, help me. Help me not to disobey even when I’m under pressure, right? Help me to recognize sin in my own life when it begins to rise up in my thinking, and help me to squash it by your grace. Help me to put it down and help me instead to dwell on this wonderful thought that surely the Lord will guide me and I’ll dwell in his house forever. Who can separate me from the love of Christ? What a wonderful thought. And then we begin to think of things, passages like, you know, our light affliction, which is but for a moment is working for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. And then we can sing, right? And then we can rejoice and delight ourselves in the Lord and say, what a wonderful God I serve, what a wonderful Savior he is to me. The devil wants to see us bitter, he wants to see us fretful. He wants to see us in a state of confusion like we see in the world, hearts failing for fear. But the choice is ours. It’s a spiritual battle and we’ve got to put on the armor and we’ve got to appropriate and lay hold of what God’s promised to us. It’s just there for the taking. We have to believe it. We have to Trust in Him. May the Lord help us to do that.

Heavenly Father, thank you for these truths that we find in your word. Help us, Lord, not to just get our eyes on what’s wrong. There’s so many things we can focus our attention on that are wrong around us in the world. And we can spend our energy and give all the effort of our lives to dwell on that. And Lord, while we certainly should hate lawlessness and hate iniquity, we must love what is good. We must love you with all of our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves. We must trust in you with all our heart. We must commit our way unto you. We must keep our eyes upon you. We must let your rod and staff comfort us. And we must. We must let you maintain in our hearts a song as we delight and trust in you. We pray, Lord, that you’d help each and every one of us in that each one of us have unique set of circumstances. Maybe we have a difficult job. Maybe we have difficult neighbors or family situations. Or maybe we have a challenge that is very private in nature that we can’t tell anybody else about. But you know about it, Lord, and we pray that we will just commit it all to you and trust in you, Lord. Help us with that and bring us into a large place. If we’re fretting about something, Lord, that we may, we may rejoice in your salvation afresh in our lives. And we pray and ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.