My Mom's Secret to Contentment
Notes
Transcript
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mom’s out there! I’m so sorry that we can’t be together in person today to celebrate, but I am thinking of you all!
I also want to say a word to those ladies who wanted to be a mom, but for some reason were not able to be. I recognize that days like today can be difficult for you. You are in my thoughts as well.
Pleas join me in prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father,
I thank you the godly heritage you have given me — being born to a family in which my mother and father both loved and served You, and taught their sons to do the same.
I pray for the many mothers who are unable to be with their family this years on Mother’s Day due to the situation with this awful virus. Be with them in a special way.
I pray for those who will be listening to this message that Your Spirit would enable them to trust in You, to delight in You, to Commit their way to You, and to wait patiently for You.
In Jesus Name, AMEN.
Please take your Bible and turn to Psalm 37. My mother’s favorite Bible verse was the midpoint of this passage. I have spent some time thinking of her lately, and so I decided that for Mother’s Day this year I would attempt to preach on her favorite verse, which was:
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Normally, when I preach through a psalm I try to preach through the entire psalm in one message. But since this is a lengthy psalm I have chosen to focus on the first seven verses. Let’s read those together: Psa 37.1-7
Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself 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 act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
Notice first:
The Context of the Passage
The Context of the Passage
Though it occurs way too frequently, it is wrong to take a verse and isolate it from its context. That is because the true understanding of the verse can only be found in its proper context.
The context of this psalm has to do with the stress that happens to others as the result of someone else’s wrongdoing. And the promise that God is in control and will not forsake His own. There is a sense in which David, throughout this psalm is seeking to help others learn to be content rather than being envious.
Notice the first two verses of this passage:
Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
David begins with a command that is stated in the negative: “Fret Not!” He is saying that we shouldn’t let ourselves get worked up because of the deeds of evil people. That doesn’t mean that we don’t take a stand against evil, or that we don’t confront sin. Verse 8, which is not part of our focus this morning, tells us why we shouldn’t get worked up by evildoers:
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
The parallel command in verse 1 is that we shouldn’t envy folks who are wrongdoers. Envy is the polar opposite of contentment, and I believe David’s focus in this psalm is on trying to help others, as well as himself, find contentment rather than envy. Notice what David wrote about halfway through this psalm:
The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand. I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.
Paul wrote that godliness with contentment is great gain. So, is it possible to cultivate godliness with contentment in our lives? Yes; absolutely yes!
Having given a negative command (fret not or do not fret), David goes on to give four positive commands over the next several verses, and the keeping of these commands is a way of cultivating contentment in the life of the believer. These can be summed up with four words: trust, delight, commit, and wait.
Let’s look first at
Trust
Trust
Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
The object of our trust in the LORD
Trust leads to doing good
Dwelling in the land leads to befriending faithfulness
Mark Hopper
Let’s look next at
Delight
Delight
This brings us back to my mom’s favorite verse:
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
The idea of “delight” is easier to describe than to define. Those who know our family know that in our late 50’s we adopted a little boy last December. Watching this child find pleasure in the simple things of life is a delight for me. The other day he was downstairs with me, and standing at the bottom of the stairs he’d throw a ball up the stairs and it would bounce back to him. This gave him such delight, and it was delightful for me to watch it.
My mom and her siblings knew how to find joy and delight in the simple things of life. Often the family would be gathered together, and the laughter would be so loud. That was because they had found something to take delight in. I think my brother had that in mind when he wrote these words to our Aunt Linda who was dying from terminal cancer. Though they were written specifically to her, I believe they equally applicable to my mom’s entire family.
Laughter is what I see, your joy is what I remember; your love for life’s simple things are memories I’ll always treasure.
Notice the following about this verse:
It is a command
The Hebrew term for delight, which I will not attempt to pronounce, is in the form of an imperative — which means that it is a command. Spurgeon referred to it as a precept written upon sparkling jewels in comparison to the Ten Commandments which were written on tablets of stone — perhaps stone as hard as granite.
People who have merely made a profession of faith, one which lacks any real substance, or those who are flagrantly ungodly cannot perceive how a believer could find joy in a command to delight in God. That is because commands are often seen as being drudgery.
But for the one who has truly placed their faith in Christ, the command to delight in God is a joy, and not drudgery.
The object of our delight is the LORD
Why is it so much easier to find delight in things or other people than in the Lord?
Perhaps we find it easier to delight in things we can see rather than to delight in things we can’t see
Though we cannot see the invisible God, we can see His handywork in creation
Is delighting in God really all that important?
Absolutely — God would not have commanded it if it were not important
God’s commands are not arbitrary — there is always a reason behind them
Why is delighting in God important?
It is important because God is glorified in our delight of Him
The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever
We glorify God by enjoying Him!
How do we delight in God?
It takes time — wait on the Lord is a strong theme in this psalm
It takes thoughtfulness — think on these things
It takes practice
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Note that the believer is to delight in God’s Word
Note that the believer is to delight in God’s Word
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.
I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.
Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.
for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.
their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.
Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.
If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
Note next that the believer finds delight in the Attributes of God
Note next that the believer finds delight in the Attributes of God
Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, “Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of his servant!”
Note next that the believer delights in the works of God
Note next that the believer delights in the works of God
Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.
This include taking delight in ourselves as well as the ministry that we undertake
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
What is the outcome of delighting in God?
When we delight in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our heart
Not to be confused with the prosperity gospel which is false
What is your desire?
My present desire it take more delight in the Lord
I want to remind you that the psalmist is seeking to help the believer develop contentment in life. And he has referred to trust and delight as being steps toward contentment. Next we see him refer to:
Commit
Commit
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
Commitment is something that our society struggles with today. People don’t want to make a commitment because they want freedom to keep their options open. Many choose to live with their significant other rather than to be joined to them in marriage because they want to keep their options open. Many folks don’t want to commit to the local church and become members because they want to keep their options open.
As with the previous steps toward contentment, the object to whom we are to commit is the LORD. Commitment goes hand and hand with faith and trust. David here refers to committing our way to the Lord.
We commit our way to the Lord when we bring Him our burdens and lay them at His feet
We commit our way to the Lord when we look to Him for wisdom in the situations of our life, and then trust Him to supply that wisdom
We commit our way to the Lord when we say “not my will, but Your will be done”
Solomon wrote:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
The outcome of committing our way to God is that He will bring forth [our] righteousness as the light, and [our] justice as the noonday.
Quoting the O.T. prophet Habakkuk, Paul stated:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
It is not that the believer in Jesus Christ is righteous in and of himself or herself. But that we are made righteous by faith. Or another way of putting is by faith we are made righteous. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ for our salvation, depending on His perfection, work, death and resurrection, we are declared righteous by God. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and it is His righteousness that is reflected in the believer. Paul said elsewhere: Phil 3.8-9
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
The final step toward contentment that we are going to look at today is
Wait
Wait
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
Waiting is hard work. It is something that we have all had to work at in recent days as we wait for this horrendous pandemic to pass. We take comfort in the knowledge that this too shall pass. But by now I imagine most of us are getting itchy feet!
Along with waiting on the virus to pass or at least lessen enough so that we can resume our normal lives, we are also waiting on our Governor to gives us the green light to resume life as we once knew it.
In our passage it is the Lord that we are to wait patiently for. And as we wait we are to be still.
By now you’ve probably figured out that I have a hard time being still. One thing that putting these sermons on YouTube has forced me to do is to watch myself preach and see what you dear folks have to put up with! One of the things I’ve noticed is that I tend to rock back and forth. I just can’t stand still. And don’t get me going on my habit of talking with my hands!
When David wrote: Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him — he was referencing, among other things, prayer. I can’t speak about your prayer habits, but I know from my own experience that I often don’t take the time to wait on the Lord. I bring my prayer requests to Him, and then get on with my business.
In this context being still and patient are in reference to waiting for God to deal with the seeming disparity between the prosperity of the wicked and the struggles of the righteous. God will not forsake the righteous, and so we shouldn’t take vengeance on the wicked. As a matter of fact, crossing over that line and taking out our wrath on the ungodly will bring God’s discipline on us for doing what is evil.
As much as my mom found contentment in the simple things of life, there were times when she didn’t hold back her wrath, as she ought to have. Many of us have done the same. Even the most mature believer in Jesus Christ can have moments when our old fleshly nature takes over. It may not be in the form of a hot temper, but sin is sin.
These four commands to trust, delight in, commit your way to, and wait for the Lord, are uniquely for the believer in Jesus Christ. For those who are not believers they cannot possibly trust in the Lord and do good. They cannot delight in the One whom they don’t believe. They cannot commit their way to the One in whom they don’t believe, nor be still and wait patiently for Him. If that is the case for you then I invite you to pray and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you. Ask Him to make you alive in Christ, and then ask Him to teach you to trust, delight, commit and wait.
Let’s pray.
Dear Father,
I thank you for the joy of knowing You. I thank you that You have made me alive in Christ Jesus, that You have given me a heart that seeks after You. But Lord, I fall so short so often. Teach me contentment by trusting in You, by delighting in You, by committing my way to You, by waiting patiently for You.
I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ, that they too would learn to trust, delight, commit, and wait on You.
I pray for those who have not yet come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, that they would be made alive in Christ and enabled to trust in You for their salvation. And then learn to trust, delight, commit, and wait for You.