June 29, 2025 • 47 mins
Eric Stites explores Psalm 37 with a focus on the biblical call to patience and the spiritual challenge of waiting. Rather than seeking quick justice or immediate change, believers are called to “trust in the Lord and do good” even when the wicked appear to prosper. Eric unpacks how David contrasts the fleeting success of evildoers with the enduring security of the righteous, encouraging the church to remain rooted in God's promises.
Drawing from his personal experiences in ministry and stories from CrossTown, Eric connects this theme of waiting to life in under-resourced communities, where justice often feels delayed. He reminds listeners that the faithfulness of God outlasts the instability of our circumstances. As we wait, we do not wait passively—we cultivate faith, take delight in God, and commit our way to Him, trusting that in due time, He will act.
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Episode Transcript
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Rev. Damein Schitter (00:05):
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Damian.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City, orlando.
At New City, we believe all ofus need all of Jesus for all of
life.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at newcityorlandocom.
Thanks for listening.
Joshua Esquivel (00:20):
Please join me in the prayer of illumination.
Heavenly Father, may your wordbe a lamp to our feet and a
light to our path, through JesusChrist, our Lord, amen.
Our scripture today is Psalm 37.
Fret not yourself because ofevildoers.
Be not envious of wrongdoers,for they will soon fade like the
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grass and wither like the greenherb.
Trust in the Lord and do good.
Dwell in the land and befriendfaithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lordand he will give you the desires
of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord.
Trust in him and he will act.
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He will bring forth yourrighteousness as the light and
your justice as the noonday.
Be still before the Lord andwait patiently for him.
Fret not yourself over the onewho prospers in his way, over
the man who carries out evildevices.
Refrain from anger and forsakewrath.
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In just a little while, thewicked will be no more.
Though you look carefully athis place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit theland and delight themselves in
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abundant peace.
The wicked plots against therighteous and gnashes his teeth
at him, but the Lord laughs atthe wicked, for he sees that his
day is coming.
The wicked draw the sword andbend their bow to bring down the
poor and needy, to slay thosewhose way is upright.
Their sword shall enter theirown heart and their bows shall
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be broken.
Better is the little that therighteous has than the abundance
of many wicked, for the arms ofthe wicked shall be broken, but
the Lord upholds the righteous.
The Lord knows the days of theblameless and their heritage
will remain forever.
They are not put to shame inevil times.
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In the days of famine they haveabundance, but the wicked will
perish.
The enemies of the Lord arelike the glory of the pastures
they vanish like smoke.
They vanish away.
The wicked borrows but does notpay back.
But the righteous is generousand gives, for those blessed by
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the Lord shall inherit the land,but those cursed by him shall
be cut off.
The steps of a man areestablished by the Lord when he
delights in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not becast headlong, for the Lord
upholds his hand.
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I have been young and now amold, yet I have not seen the
righteous forsaken or hischildren begging for bread.
He is ever lending generouslyand his children becoming a
blessing.
Turn away from evil and do good, so shall you dwell forever,
for the Lord loves justice.
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He will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever.
But the children of the wickedshall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit theland and dwell upon it forever.
The mouth of the righteousutters wisdom and his tongue
speaks justice.
The law of his God is in hisheart.
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His steps do not slip.
The wicked watches for therighteous and seeks to put him
to death.
The Lord will not abandon himto his power or let him be
condemned when he is brought totrial.
Wait for the Lord and keep hisway, and he will exalt you to
inherit the land.
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You will look on when thewicked are cut off.
I have seen a wicked, ruthlessman spreading himself like a
green laurel tree, but he passedaway and behold, he was no more
.
Though I sought him, he couldnot be found.
Mark the blameless and beholdthe upright, for there is a
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future for the man of peace, buttransgressors shall be
altogether destroyed.
The future of the wicked shallbe cut off.
The salvation of the righteousis from the Lord.
He is their stronghold in thetime of trouble.
The Lord helps them anddelivers them.
He delivers them from thewicked and saves them because
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they take refuge in him.
This is God's word.
Eric Stites (05:13):
Well, good morning.
My name is Eric Stites.
I'm the co-founder of CrosstownMinistries.
Folklore is that at one point Iwas a pastor here at New City a
long time ago, but it's trulyan honor to be here.
Crosstown Ministries, locatedin the Paramore community,
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creating and cultivating agospel environment where loved
people love people that's whatwe're about.
I want to say, first of all,thank you.
I've been up here in the lastfew weeks.
You've heard differentannouncements.
You guys have provideddifferent supplies for our
summer camp, provided funmoments for our summer camp over
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the past month, and this weekcamp comes to a close.
So I want to say thank you forthat, but also just thank you.
I'm here because I'm also akingdom partner with New City.
Crosstown Ministries is, and somore than even this summer, a
huge thank you for your supportof this ministry over many, many
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years.
This year is significant for usas well.
For those of you who don't knowum, we purchased the building
um and we'll be moving into thatbuilding, and so you'll be
hearing more about moving dayand helping us um do all of that
to get ready, and so, uh, justvery encouraging all the things
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um that are that are happeningright now in our midst.
But uh, first and foremost, Ijust want to have the
opportunity to say thanks, so weappreciate you all as I begin
this morning.
Last week I had the privilege ofbeing in Colorado, and though
it's really hot here, it'sactually hot over there too, and
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you're a mile closer to the sun, so it feels that way.
So I thought I was going to getsome relief, but I didn't.
Anyway, I was there with DesireStreet Ministries, a group of
ministries with like-mindedhearts, and they bring us out
once a year to get to retreat.
And so we were there.
And while we were there,someone had the bright idea of
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hiking a 14,000 foot mountain,also known as a 14er.
There's several of them inColorado, and so me and Sam, my
oldest son, decided at 8 pm thenight before this little trek
was about to happen, that sure,why not?
We'll go Now.
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If you know anything about thistype of thing, that was pretty
dumb, because you don't engagein this type of hiking without
at least a little bit of apreparation, of which we had
none.
Why?
Because you can't breathe.
There's no oxygen that high.
That's why you don't do it.
A little cross-cultural jokehere.
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This is the stuff white peopledo.
All right, you're welcome.
All right, so we get up at 4 am,get to the trail at 5 am.
Mind you, again, I'm notprepared, didn't even get the
right rest the night before.
I don't have the right gear.
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I'm wearing old workout shoesthat are worn out, have no
traction.
I'm wearing sweatpants and ahoodie.
I'm not prepared for any ofthis.
Meanwhile, you get on the trailand people look like they've
prepared for this thing theirwhole life.
So they have, you know, thebackpack with, like the water
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coming out, and hiking boots andthe right pants that you know
tear off when you get too hotand all this type of stuff.
And so a little intimidatedthere at the beginning.
And so a little intimidatedthere at the beginning.
So we start the trail.
The beginning of this traillooks like any trail you've ever
seen.
Honestly, it would be somethingyou could see in Florida, where
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you just walk in and you'rejust walking into trees.
You have no idea where this isall heading.
You have no idea you're headingto the top of a 14,000-foot
mountain and might regret everystep you take.
So the first mile of what wouldbe a nine-mile hike and this
was supposed to be the easy part.
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Me and a group of others werealready done and couldn't
breathe and I thought, well,this is not going well.
And so we keep going, we takebreaks.
But about in the second milethere was a few of us that you
know.
I looked around and saw someonestruggling and honestly
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panicking because they couldn'tbreathe and they weren't really
talking, to say, hey, can youguys stop?
And so I said, hey, listen, I'mgoing to help you.
I'm joking a little bit.
I've done some difficult hikesso I kind of at least know a
little bit about what I wasdoing.
And so I said I'm going tointentionally help you guys Let
the rest of the group go aheadand I'm going to make sure we're
proactive and intentional andall we're going to do is we're
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going to commit ourselves to away right now.
We're going to commit ourselvesto a way.
Right now we're going to commitourselves to hiking about 50
steps, stopping catching ourbreath, taking another 50 steps,
stopping catching our breath,and that's the only way this is
going to work, or you and Iaren't going to make it to the
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top of this mountain.
And so this is exactly what wedid, and I don't really know how
long this took Sam wouldprobably tell you better because
he was in the group ahead.
So they kept looking back at uslike, oh, I feel sorry for them
.
They're like at the top andwe're like five hours behind
them basically.
And so I think for maybe fourto five hours no exaggeration
there this is what we did, onestep at a time, and I kept
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asking everybody, hey, are youguys all right?
And one guy just kept sayingyes, I'm determined.
And he would point, because I'mgoing up there, that's where
we're headed.
I said all right, and at thatpoint we didn't even really know
where we were going, couldn'teven see the top of the mountain
.
It looked a little bit likethis, so you can see, there's a
path, there's people and notreally sure where the top of the
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mountain was, and we just kepthoping it's got to be over there
somewhere.
And we kept going and keptgoing.
And so the last part of thisthing is switchbacks.
Now, if you've ever done hikingbefore, switchbacks are there
supposedly to be your friend,because the idea is you can't go
straight up, so you're going togo, like this, up the whole
thing.
So you walk about what feelslike 10 miles to go one mile up.
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And so we get through this onetiny little switchback at a time
and we get to the top of thisplateau and there's a view, but
we still weren't at the top.
We weren't at the top yet.
So I get a phone call.
I don't know how that worked,but I got a phone call and it
was Sam.
He said I didn't get it, so itwas a voicemail later, but Sam
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says hey, dad, we're at the top.
I hope you make it All right,sam, I'm working on it, buddy.
So at that point I'm not goingto lie I left the straggling
group behind because I said it'stime for me to put on the gas
and get here.
So I had a lot left in the tankbecause we've been going pretty
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slow, and so I literally ran upthe rest of the mountain.
Now this part of the mountain isboulders, no path, there's no
way, there's no defined way ofhow to get to the top.
And about halfway up, the restof the group's coming down and I
saw Sam and I said Sam, willyou please go to the top with me
?
Will you turn back around anddo this again, basically.
And so, sure enough, sam beingthe 12 year old, with all the
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youthfulness, turned rightaround and went up to the top,
and so this is what was at thetop, all right, so Mount Yale,
14,000 feet, now, of course,like any picture doesn't do it
justice, um, but we were on topof the world, um is what it felt
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like, and uh and so, uh, as we,as we stood there, um, we took
it in, we took in the view thatwe had, and all I can say is,
when I got to the top and welooked around, I had a new set
of glasses on for the world,right, there's a way in which,
you know, five or six hoursearlier, we were looking up at
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peaks that now we were lookingdown at.
We were looking up at peaks thatnow we were looking down at,
literally seeing for probablyhundreds of miles in every
direction.
And so what I knew is that whenI got there, I had this new set
of glasses on, and if I had hadthese glasses on when I started
this whole thing, it would havechanged how I walked through
the whole thing.
You see, the end determines howyou walk through the beginning,
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and so I would have known thatI'm not just walking to walk.
I'm not just breathless to bebreathless, I'm not stopping and
starting just to wait.
I was committing myself to away because I knew what was
coming at the end.
So what about you?
What glasses do you have ontoday?
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Do you only see the here andnow?
Do you just see the trees andthe path and you wonder well,
maybe it's just time to turnaround because this isn't worth
it.
Maybe it's time to just give up.
Maybe you think I don't knowwhere this is going and it
doesn't seem worth it.
Maybe it's time to just give up.
Maybe you think I don't knowwhere this is going and it
doesn't seem worth it.
Well, I want to encourage youthis morning.
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I want to give you a differentset of glasses to see that, as a
believer, your future hope, myfuture hope, shapes how you live
your present life, and this isthe summary of Psalm 37.
See, psalm 37 lives in thatcollision between the here and
now and the there and then.
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It teaches us that when wecan't see where all this is
heading, we need to get a newpair of glasses because we're
not seeing it right.
So I want to encourage you alltoday take out your scriptures,
let's put on a new set ofglasses.
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So the first point this morningis looking back, David's
reflections.
Looking back on David'sreflections.
So we're gonna go all the wayback to the beginning of the
Psalm.
You guys have been here.
If you've been here, you knowwe've been preaching on the
Psalm for about four weeks.
What else could we possibly say?
Right, and I'm going to go allthe way back to the beginning of
the psalm, because thebeginning of the psalm is not
fret, not yourself.
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The beginning of the psalm is ofDavid, of David.
You see, he's writing as anolder man.
He says in verse 25, I wasyoung, but now I'm old, and so
this whole Psalm is a reflectionon his whole life.
And he's dropping wisdom on theyoungins, letting them know
what the truth is.
No cap, you're welcome.
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My kids are sitting right here.
That was all for them.
They don't even realize what Ijust said because they're not
paying attention.
But that's true.
All right, sam, heard me.
All right, that's Gen Z for you.
No cap, I'm not lying.
Okay, that's what that means.
So if I was to summarize thiswhole reflection, it's just that
your future shapes your present, and David is looking to a day
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in his life that has not yetcome, but he is looking to that
day with absolute certainty thatit will come at some point.
And so, simply put, when helooks at his whole life, it
looks like the fight betweenrighteousness and wicked is
happening and the wicked arewinning.
And so in here now.
It just doesn't seem fair.
But the Lord is giving David anew set of glasses.
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If you read through the Psalm12 times, david a new set of
glasses.
If you read through the Psalm 12times, the word will shows up
not like my life is my will, butwill like something will happen
.
It's both a certainty that it'sgoing to happen and he's
acknowledging that it hasn'thappened yet but it will in the
future.
David is future focused.
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As David looks back on his lifeand shares wisdom, he is saying
if you don't have an absolutetruth type of understanding of
the future, your life right nowis going to feel like pure chaos
and you'll make decisions outof that chaos.
But if you know the future thatis coming, you'll walk through
this life in peace and makingsound decisions.
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So what is that future?
How do we get there?
Well, it's certainly not rootedin David, and he knows that
it's not rooted in his abilityto make something happen.
It's rooted in the Lord and hisattributes, who he is and his
actions, what he will do.
Because it says over and overagain what he will do, because
it says over and over again.
By summary, I would say thatthe righteous no-transcript.
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And so, knowing all that, itchanges how David lives in each
moment.
Now, as we reflect back onDavid's life, I want to just
acknowledge something realquickly in the Psalms that
honestly sometimes bothers meit's a little bit of an elephant
in the room and that is thatDavid writes in this kind of
black and white type of waywhere he's able to somehow
basically say, hey, there'srighteous people and there's
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wicked people, and I'm going tolet you know what happens to
both.
But it kind of begs thisquestion like, well, who are
those people, who are therighteous and who are the wicked
?
And it'd be easy to assume thatDavid just says well, I'm the
righteous one, I'm writing thestory right.
But when you look carefully atPsalm 37, it's very interesting.
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David actually never claims tobe either one.
What David does claim is to bean observer of life.
I've seen this happen.
I've seen that the righteousare not forsaken.
I've seen what happens for thewicked.
Why?
Well, if you know David's story, you know good and well he
knows that he's been a part ofthe righteous and the wicked
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story.
You know good and well he knowsthat he's been a part of the
righteous and the wicked.
So what's David's life?
Let's take just a quick lookback over his life as he writes
Psalm 37.
What is he possibly talkingabout?
So we know, david the giantslayer kills Goliath, and no one
else in Israel would do that.
Everyone was too scared.
And so King Saul, at the time,when he sees David do this, he
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praises him for it.
He brings them into close,gives them a high rank in the
army.
And then what happens?
Women start giving praise toDavid and Saul, but they give
David a little bit more praise.
Right, so Saul killed histhousands.
Raise, right, so Saul killedhis thousands, but David, he
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killed his tens of thousands.
And what happens?
Saul said I ain't having any ofthat.
So jealous and envy stir up inSaul's heart, and so he fears
David.
And so what this sets off isthis whole long story of Saul
pursuing David and David goingon the run.
And so you can see in this waywhere some of Psalm 37, that
tension of I'm trying to do theright thing and yet it seems
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like even my friend is againstme.
And so, multiple times, davidhas the opportunity to take Saul
out.
You know this story right.
There's this one time whenSaul's in a cave going to the
bathroom and David's in the caveas well and has this moment he
could take him out, but insteadhe realizes no, this is not
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right, and so I'm not going todo it, cuts off a piece of the
robe and lets him know hey, Iwas this close.
And then again it happens whereDavid had a moment to take Saul
out.
While he's in his camp asleepNobody was defending him goes
and steals the sword that'sright by his head, but instead
of killing Saul, he takes thesword with him and lets him know
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once again, I had theopportunity to take you out.
And David's own words were theLord rewards everyone for their
righteousness and faithfulness.
All right, so in all thesemoments you can see David seems
to be on that righteous side.
Crazy thing the very nextchapter of scripture, when
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you're reading David's story,opens with these scary words and
David thought to himself.
And what happens after that?
What happens after that isDavid devises this plan that
he's gonna go hang out among thePhilistines, the very same
people where Goliath came from,the very same people that seem
to be the thorn in Israel's side.
David's like, hey, saul's gonnakeep pursuing me, so I'm gonna
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go hang out with these people,hide out for a little while
until Saul forgets about me.
And that's exactly what he does.
So much so that the scripturesays he became so obnoxious to
his people, the Israelites, thathe, talking about David, will
be my servant for life.
That's where David ended up, achapter after realizing the
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righteousness that the Lordrewards everyone for their
righteousness and faithfulness.
So in one chapter, he goes fromthe hero of trusting the Lord
and to deliver him from thehands of his enemy to running
away in fear, not trusting theLord, thinking to himself Can't
you hear the tension of Psalm 37?
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The Lord is going to uphold therighteous and take down the
wicked, but right here, rightnow, david's like I don't see
that happening.
I don't see it, so I'm going totake matters into my own hands,
without God.
And the story goes on.
David continues to think tohimself at different points in
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life, right Even after he's king, david decides when all the
kings are out to war.
The famous story right, hehangs back, sees a woman that he
desires, and so he uses hispower, his influence, commits
adultery with her, then tries tocover it up with the husband.
That doesn't work, and so hehas the husband killed.
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Now where does that fall in therighteous and the wicked that
David so easily separates inPsalm 37?
Sounds more like the wicked liein wait for the righteous,
intent on putting them to death.
So in one moment, david andSaul sound similar, and we could
go on and on.
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My point is there's a couple ofthings from David's life, as he
reflects on his own life, thatwe need to see.
David knew what it was like towatch the wicked prosper, even
as he did the right thing, eventhose who were supposed to be on
his side and you know thisfriendly fire's the worst.
And David felt that he alsoknew what it was like to have
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the Lord save him when he wasmaking dumb mistakes.
So he knew what it was like tobe wicked, but then, like it
says in Psalm 37, to have hissteps established.
Though he fall, he will not becast headlong, for the Lord
upholds his hand.
What is that?
God's grace?
That's what David knew.
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And David knew, ultimately, thatjustice doesn't lie in his hand
.
It lies in the hands of theLord.
When he kept taking justiceinto his own hands, what
happened?
Big old mess.
But when he entrusted it to theLord, he waited.
And so, through all this, davidis showing us what a different
pair of glasses looks like.
You're living here and now, butyou're looking forward, future
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focused, and so when he looksinto the future, it doesn't make
sense right now, but he seesall things being made right,
justice being done for all theinjustice, but it doesn't even
happen in his own lifetime.
So we look back, we look atDavid's life, his reflection.
We get the tension of whatPsalm 37 sets up for us.
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But now, what do you do in themeantime?
What did David do in themeantime while he was waiting?
What do we do in the meantimewhen you're waiting for the
attention of Psalm 37 toeventually resolve itself?
Well, that's the second pointfor today, which is you look now
, commit your way.
Look now and commit your way.
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Verses three through nine have alot of commands, things like
trust in the Lord, delightyourself in the Lord, be still
before the Lord, wait for theLord.
Verse five, I think, sums itall up Commit your way to the
Lord.
And this is a summary of allthe other ones.
But you see, the word way issomething we use as kind of like
this abstract word.
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You know, commit your way.
I don't know what that means,but in Hebrew that word's very
physical, very tangible.
It's the word we use for road.
So in other words, commit theroad of your life to the Lord.
You see, the danger of allthese commands trust in the Lord
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, delight, be still, wait isthey become trite sayings that
we put on bumper stickers and onour fridge magnets and we look
at them occasionally and say,sure, trusting in the Lord, and
they become meaningless.
What we need to see is that whatmade David righteous, what made
David a man after God's ownheart and light of all the mess
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that he would make in his life,was not first the moral
decisions he made.
He made a lot of sinful, notfirst the moral decisions he
made.
He made a lot of sinful, evildecisions.
He also made morally gooddecisions, but that's not what
made him righteous.
What made him righteous wascommitting the road of his life
to the Lord.
What made him righteous wasseeing himself accurately,
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knowing who God made him to be,allowing his sin to be exposed.
So when Nathan came up to him,tells him his whole story and
parable to describe and getDavid to see what he had done.
David says you should kill thatman.
And Nathan said you're right,it's you.
And what is David's response?
No, it's not me.
No, I've sinned against theLord.
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This is what committing theroad of your life to the Lord
looks like.
So what about us?
I want to dig into how.
How do you commit?
What does this really mean?
I don't want us to just saythat.
I want it to mean something.
So one thing I want us to seeis that in Psalm 37, the word
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Lord shows up 17 times.
Now, the word Lord is the namethat God has given to us.
That makes him personal.
It's not just God, it's theLord.
And I want to challenge you,because I think some of us know
how to trust God, but we don'tknow how to trust the Lord, and
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I say that a little tongue incheek.
I know that you might say thesame, but listen to what I'm
saying.
Some of us trust God like he'san abstract truth, like he's
this big thing out there that'snot really knowable, and when we
think of him in that way, it'swhat turns trust and committing
and delighting into a bumpersticker or a fridge magnet.
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We go through life, the ups anddowns, and we know the truth in
our heads, but it doesn't seemto matter for right now.
Instead, the invitation istrust the Lord, the Lord who's
given us his personal name,because he's a personal,
knowable, alive today,approachable God, and this means
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he's intimately involved in thedetails of your life and my
life, if we're aware.
You see, I think self-awarenessis one of the things that David
was best at, and self-awarenessis the key.
If you don't know yourself, youcan't commit your way to the
Lord.
Now, some of you are like thatsounds like some modern
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psychological nonsense.
I hear you, I hear you, but I'min good company.
One for all of you Calvinists,all right, you can't.
Oh, my goodness, you can'tlaugh at that one, it's all
right, he's okay.
(29:29):
He said the beginning of theinstitutes in order to know God,
you have to know yourself, likeI see who's really, really
Presbyterian, and in order toknow yourself, you got to know
God.
So hey, at least I'm withCalvin, all right, but guess
what?
I'm also with scripture.
You flip all the way back tothe beginning of the book.
Self-knowledge goes all the wayback to the garden, when God
made man in his own image, andthat he made man naked and
(29:51):
unashamed and said this was good.
So the foundation of arelationship with God is coming
to him with your whole self,with nothing in the way.
This is what David didconsistently.
This is what it means to commityour way to the Lord so quickly
.
I just want to run through threethings.
I believe that scripture herein Psalm 37, gives us, shows us
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that we need to commit ouremotions to him.
And now you're like oh, allright, eric, I didn't even go to
seminary for counseling, Ipromise All right.
Emotions are all over the Bible.
They're not good, they're notbad, they just are.
What we do with them is whatleads us astray, and so our
(30:38):
emotions.
Oftentimes we have a temptationwith them.
We either squash them so wedon't feel anything until they
come out in this volcano ofbrokenness, or we allow our
emotions to run wild and makeevery decision for us out of
brokenness, or we just try tofix the bad emotions and make
them good, and that's allnonsense.
The invitation from scriptureis commit your emotions to the
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Lord.
Why?
Because they're a road to him.
They're a road to him.
What I love about the Psalms isthey show us exactly how to do
that.
I love the Psalms because theygive us permission to say things
like where are you, god, whyare you so downcast?
To say things like where areyou, god?
Why are you so downcast, oh mysoul?
The Psalms give us permissionto say why don't you dash their
(31:23):
babies on the rocks right?
And we look at that and saywhat is that about?
That's called anger, and it'snot actually happening.
But David's showing us this iswhat it is to live with the Lord
in the midst of all of that.
So instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be afraid, lord, I'm
(31:48):
afraid right now.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be angry, I want to
rip that person's head off rightnow.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be sad, lord, I kind
of wish I wasn't here right now.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be sad, lord, I kind
of wish I wasn't here right now.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be ashamed, lord.
I'm so ashamed of myselfinstead of.
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I know I'm not supposed to hateLord, I'm really struggling
right now to love this person.
I could go on and on.
Derek Kidner, in his commentaryon this psalm, calls this a
deliberate redirection of youremotions.
Deliberate redirection of youremotions.
Where are they going?
Commit your way to the Lord.
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Give your emotions to him.
Now, men, men in the room,you're like dude, I don't know
what you're talking about.
Right now, I don't feel a thing.
Yes, you do so.
If I got in your car right nowand we went on I-4 and I got
someone to cut you off, I bet Icould get you to be emotional.
If we went to a game togetherand your favorite team was
(32:53):
losing, I bet I could get you tobe emotional.
If I went up to you anddisrespected you and your family
, I bet I could get you to beemotional.
You have emotions.
Don't lie to yourself.
You just need to dig deep andfind out where they are and
where they're directed andcommit your way to the Lord.
All right.
So the second thing commit youremotions, commit your
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circumstances to the Lord.
When we see the realities Davidis talking about in Psalm 37,.
It's very tempting for us totake those circumstances into
our own hands and make themright.
Think about your own life, whatyou got going on.
Where are the circumstances,where are the things that you
want to see fixed?
The temptation is to take theminto your own hands and say I'm
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gonna fix this right.
When you study David's life,you see two things happen.
One David thought to himself.
Two David inquired of the Lord.
Two very different approachesand two very different results.
When David thinks to himself,he commits adultery.
When David inquires of the Lord, an army of the Lord marches
(34:01):
out from balsam trees and takesout his enemy before he even has
to do anything.
It's a big, big difference.
Are you going to take yourcircumstances into your own
hands or are you going to waiton the Lord?
Be still like David says.
You see, for our American lives, waiting sounds ridiculous, but
(34:22):
I'm here to tell you thatwaiting is working.
We need to get better at thework of waiting.
See, our culture is built on.
I'm going to make things happenbecause I work hard.
You will not cross me, becauseI'm going to fix that.
That's American.
Now, of course, I'm not talkingabout don't get a job because
you're just waiting to feelmotivated, and all that type of
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stuff.
That's the generationunderneath me.
That's not good, all right.
No, I'm talking about when yousee an injustice, as David sees,
you commit those circumstancesto the Lord.
You struggle with him in theweight.
God, why aren't you doinganything right now?
Why haven't you shown up to fixthis?
Rather than I got this, I'mgonna fix this on my own.
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Commit your emotions.
Commit your circumstances.
The last thing is commit yourdesires to the Lord.
Verse four I love this verse,one of the most cherry picked
verses in this whole thing.
Though.
Delight yourself in the Lordand he will give you the desires
of your heart.
Oh, that sounds so sweet, right.
(35:27):
And so what do we do?
We take that verse and we say,oh man, all right.
So basically, god cares aboutwhat I want to do, so he's just
going to give me what I want IfI just kind of ask him for it
and all this type of stuff.
Look at the rest of the Psalm.
It ain't got nothing to do withthat.
It's about wicked peopleprospering and waiting for the
righteous to get their reward.
(35:47):
That it would shine like thedawn right.
So the reality is.
You and I are hardwired todesire things right, but, like
our emotions, when we take ourdesires and we follow them
without being connected to theLord, we make really bad
decisions.
David clearly desired Bathsheba,but this was not a good thing.
(36:09):
So when you read, delightyourself in the Lord.
He will give you desires ofyour heart.
Make sure you temper it withthat reality.
He followed that desire withoutthe Lord.
But David clearly also desiredto kill Saul when he had a
chance.
But he followed that desirewith the Lord and said that's
not the right thing to do rightnow.
See, we can desire godly things, we can desire evil things.
(36:31):
So what do you do with thedesire?
You share them.
You share that desire godly orevil with the Lord in his
presence.
Instead, what do we do?
Kill that thing If it's bad.
Right, shouldn't want that.
It's bad, so we try to do awaywith it.
But what we actually need to dois follow that desire all the
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way to his conclusion.
Because guess what's at the end?
The Lord.
The Lord is at the end.
He's the one that when wefollow those desires, we find
him.
As the conclusion, we'll findthat our desires are ultimately
leading us back to worship RightWorship of the one who made us
(37:18):
Now summarize all this.
You know, I moved into Paramore12 years ago and I have a coach
who I've been with for severalyears and over the course of
time, right, I've had this.
You know, you have this wholegoal of what you're going to do
and you know all these amazingthings that are going to happen
and you're trusting the Lord andas time goes along, you start
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to see, man, this ain't workingout like I thought it was going
to right.
There's hard things.
It's not as easy as you mighthave thought it was going to be.
Difficult things happen.
People pass away.
Ministry is tough, right?
My coach would tell me hey,eric, the only reason you're
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there is so that God could bewith you, so that God could
strip away whatever strategy,whatever good idea you thought
you had about how this was goingto work, so that he could just
have you.
So, over the past 12 years,committing my emotions, my
circumstances, desires, what I'msharing with you right now has
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been the path of life that Godhas called me on, and so this
has never happened.
If someone ever asked me toteach a class on how do you do
ministry, no one's asking.
But if they did, I would sayI'm not going to do that.
But I will teach you a class onhow to be intimate with the
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Lord.
Do something hard.
Let him strip it all away andrealize that you still have him.
Commit your way to the Lord.
So we got to look back atDavid's life.
We have to look now.
Commit your way.
And then we got to look forwardto a future hope.
Look forward to a future hope.
(39:12):
The famous theologian Ben Kant,in prepping for this.
He's not here so I can say that, ben, when you listen to the
podcast you're welcome.
As we were prepping for thesermon series, he let us know
there's this like elusive themein here that binds the whole
psalm together and he said it'sverse 37.
The whole Psalm together and hesaid it's verse 37.
(39:35):
There is a future for the manof peace.
There is a future for the manof peace.
You see, the future is God'sgoing to make all the wrong
things right.
Where there is an injustice,he's going to bring justice.
You hear it In just a littlewhile, the wicked will be no
more.
The Lord laughs at the wicked,for he sees their day coming.
The sword of the wicked willenter their own heart.
The wicked will at the wicked,for he sees their day coming.
The sword of the wicked willenter their own heart.
The wicked will perish likesmoke.
(39:56):
They vanish away.
The wicked seem to be growinglike a beautiful tree, but
eventually they pass away and,on the flip side, the meek shall
inherit the land.
The blameless will remainforever.
They will not be put to shame.
Though the wicked try to bringthe righteous down, the Lord
will not abandon them in theirtime of need.
There is a future for the manof peace.
(40:16):
What about us?
Here's the thing.
What David was looking forwardto was certain, but it was
blurry.
He didn't have the glasses onthat we have on now.
He didn't know how it was allgoing to work out.
He just knew it was going towork out.
But we live in the reality thatthe salvation of the Lord has
already come in Jesus Christ.
It's different.
(40:37):
We have a different set ofglasses on.
You see, god puts skin on, bornto a teen mom in the Middle
East, incarnated as Jesus theMessiah, into a broken world
where the wicked seem to beprospering.
He comes with a salvation thatcomes from the Lord that Psalm
37 talks about, but it's asalvation they weren't expecting
.
He doesn't take down theoppressors with a sword.
(40:59):
He overcomes evil with love.
He looks at God's people.
He looks at the enemies ofGod's people.
He says guess what?
Y'all all need the same thingyou need forgiveness and you
need redemption from your sinand brokenness.
So guess what?
Jesus set his face on thefuture, set his face on the
(41:24):
cross, said I'm walking towardsthat, and lived his life in
light of where he was going, sothat his love takes on the form
of self-sacrifice so he couldbring about a future hope that
was better than anyone's wildestdreams.
He said trust in me, trust inmy work, trust in my sacrifice.
So on the cross, he says it isfinished, what's finished?
(41:45):
He's dealt the final death blowto all that Psalm 37 is talking
about and he's looking forwardto the day when it's all going
to be made.
Right?
I came to New City as a seminarystudent in 2010.
I remember being captivated bythe vision of a new city.
Right, justin already said ityou flip to the end of the book.
(42:07):
You find out what's going on.
Some of y'all, that's how youread books.
You decide whether or not youwant to read it.
What's going on, some of y'all,that's how you read books.
You decide whether or not youwant to read it.
Well, when you read the end forus it's good, it's really,
really good and what you find isRevelation 21,.
A holy city.
That's why I had us read thisthis morning New Jerusalem
coming down, a place wherethere's no more death, no more
(42:29):
mourning, no more crying, nomore pain, more death, no more
mourning, no more crying, nomore pain.
God wipes away every tear andwe have the fullness of God's
presence with us.
I also remember being captivatedby the fact that New City was
one word.
Now, some of y'all need to getthat right when you write things
(42:50):
down.
All right, now, I don't know,things have changed.
I haven't really been around,okay, but I remember thinking
well, this is dumb, it's twowords.
But then I realized there wasintentionality there.
Why?
Because the church sits in thisunique place, at the collision
between heaven and earth,between the here and now and the
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then and there.
And so, as we even sit here inthis building, we're living in a
real city, orlando, and you canfeel as you walk out the doors
that there's this collision ofthe new and the city.
Sometimes the city part seemslike it's winning and the
newness feels really far away.
Maybe it's even non-existent.
But this truth is, the new iscoming.
(43:37):
Now I wanna say something realquick.
If you don't know Christ, Iwanna make sure you understand
that you don't actually havethis hope that I'm talking about
right now, and that's a realthing.
Whatever hope you might have,you got the wrong glasses on.
It's a mirage.
Those glasses will deceive you,and so I want you to implore
you got the wrong glasses on.
It's a mirage.
Those glasses will deceive you,and so I want you to implore
you to explore what iscommitting my way to the Lord
(43:59):
about to have a future hope likethat where everything really is
made right.
But the truth is, for all of us, the new is already here, and
the best new is still yet tocome.
And so if you're trusting inChrist right now, you have an
anchor for your soul.
Your future shapes your presentlife.
You have hope of where thisworld is going, you have hope of
(44:24):
where you are going, and youhave hope that you are with the
Lord now.
You will be with him forever inthis new city.
You will be with him forever inthis new city.
Martin Luther King, his lastspeech on this earth sermon.
Essentially he said things likewe're not going to let any dogs
(44:47):
or water hoses turn us around,we're not going to let any
injunction turn us around.
He said I don't know what willhappen now.
We've got some difficult daysahead of us but it doesn't
really matter with me now,because I've been to the where,
to the mountaintop.
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I've been to the mountaintopand I've looked over and I've
seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you,but we will get there and I'm
not worried about anythingbecause mine eyes have seen what
, the glory of the Lord.
The next day he lost his life,assassinated for all that he was
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speaking about, but we know theimpact that he had that we can
be so heavenly minded that weare of immensely earthly good.
Where are you looking?
What is shaping your presentlife right now?
The Bible says look to thefuture, look to this new city
(45:57):
that Jesus has secured for us.
Put your hope there.
Thomas Merton says your life isshaped by the end you live for.
You are made in the image ofwhat you desire.
What glasses are you wearingthis morning?
Let's look forward to our hopefor tomorrow, so we can commit
our way to the Lord.
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Today let's pray, heavenlyFather.
We praise you for your word, wepraise you for David's words
here in Psalm 37, that, thoughwe live in a world where things
seem to not add up, the wickedseem to prosper and the
(46:39):
righteous can seem to be eatenalive and not be given what is
their due.
And so, lord, in that space,help us to commit our way, lord,
help us to have glasses thatare looking to the future, to
see clearly what you have madefor us, what is waiting for us,
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that we might hope in that andlive for today.
Jesus, thank you for the gospel, that you have saved us, that
you have redeemed us, that wemight have your presence in our
life now, that, as we go throughthe challenges and trials of
life today, lord, that we arenot alone but we are with you.
(47:25):
You are with us.
You have made us your people.
It's in Jesus name we pray,amen.
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Damian.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City, orlando.
At New City, we believe all ofus need all of Jesus for all of
life.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at newcityorlandocom.
Thanks for listening.
Joshua Esquivel (00:20):
Please join me in the prayer of illumination.
Heavenly Father, may your wordbe a lamp to our feet and a
light to our path, through JesusChrist, our Lord, amen.
Our scripture today is Psalm 37.
Fret not yourself because ofevildoers.
Be not envious of wrongdoers,for they will soon fade like the
(00:45):
grass and wither like the greenherb.
Trust in the Lord and do good.
Dwell in the land and befriendfaithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lordand he will give you the desires
of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord.
Trust in him and he will act.
(01:05):
He will bring forth yourrighteousness as the light and
your justice as the noonday.
Be still before the Lord andwait patiently for him.
Fret not yourself over the onewho prospers in his way, over
the man who carries out evildevices.
Refrain from anger and forsakewrath.
(01:27):
In just a little while, thewicked will be no more.
Though you look carefully athis place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit theland and delight themselves in
(01:52):
abundant peace.
The wicked plots against therighteous and gnashes his teeth
at him, but the Lord laughs atthe wicked, for he sees that his
day is coming.
The wicked draw the sword andbend their bow to bring down the
poor and needy, to slay thosewhose way is upright.
Their sword shall enter theirown heart and their bows shall
(02:16):
be broken.
Better is the little that therighteous has than the abundance
of many wicked, for the arms ofthe wicked shall be broken, but
the Lord upholds the righteous.
The Lord knows the days of theblameless and their heritage
will remain forever.
They are not put to shame inevil times.
(02:38):
In the days of famine they haveabundance, but the wicked will
perish.
The enemies of the Lord arelike the glory of the pastures
they vanish like smoke.
They vanish away.
The wicked borrows but does notpay back.
But the righteous is generousand gives, for those blessed by
(03:02):
the Lord shall inherit the land,but those cursed by him shall
be cut off.
The steps of a man areestablished by the Lord when he
delights in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not becast headlong, for the Lord
upholds his hand.
(03:22):
I have been young and now amold, yet I have not seen the
righteous forsaken or hischildren begging for bread.
He is ever lending generouslyand his children becoming a
blessing.
Turn away from evil and do good, so shall you dwell forever,
for the Lord loves justice.
(03:43):
He will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever.
But the children of the wickedshall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit theland and dwell upon it forever.
The mouth of the righteousutters wisdom and his tongue
speaks justice.
The law of his God is in hisheart.
(04:03):
His steps do not slip.
The wicked watches for therighteous and seeks to put him
to death.
The Lord will not abandon himto his power or let him be
condemned when he is brought totrial.
Wait for the Lord and keep hisway, and he will exalt you to
inherit the land.
(04:24):
You will look on when thewicked are cut off.
I have seen a wicked, ruthlessman spreading himself like a
green laurel tree, but he passedaway and behold, he was no more
.
Though I sought him, he couldnot be found.
Mark the blameless and beholdthe upright, for there is a
(04:46):
future for the man of peace, buttransgressors shall be
altogether destroyed.
The future of the wicked shallbe cut off.
The salvation of the righteousis from the Lord.
He is their stronghold in thetime of trouble.
The Lord helps them anddelivers them.
He delivers them from thewicked and saves them because
(05:08):
they take refuge in him.
This is God's word.
Eric Stites (05:13):
Well, good morning.
My name is Eric Stites.
I'm the co-founder of CrosstownMinistries.
Folklore is that at one point Iwas a pastor here at New City a
long time ago, but it's trulyan honor to be here.
Crosstown Ministries, locatedin the Paramore community,
(05:35):
creating and cultivating agospel environment where loved
people love people that's whatwe're about.
I want to say, first of all,thank you.
I've been up here in the lastfew weeks.
You've heard differentannouncements.
You guys have provideddifferent supplies for our
summer camp, provided funmoments for our summer camp over
(05:58):
the past month, and this weekcamp comes to a close.
So I want to say thank you forthat, but also just thank you.
I'm here because I'm also akingdom partner with New City.
Crosstown Ministries is, and somore than even this summer, a
huge thank you for your supportof this ministry over many, many
(06:19):
years.
This year is significant for usas well.
For those of you who don't knowum, we purchased the building
um and we'll be moving into thatbuilding, and so you'll be
hearing more about moving dayand helping us um do all of that
to get ready, and so, uh, justvery encouraging all the things
(06:40):
um that are that are happeningright now in our midst.
But uh, first and foremost, Ijust want to have the
opportunity to say thanks, so weappreciate you all as I begin
this morning.
Last week I had the privilege ofbeing in Colorado, and though
it's really hot here, it'sactually hot over there too, and
(07:03):
you're a mile closer to the sun, so it feels that way.
So I thought I was going to getsome relief, but I didn't.
Anyway, I was there with DesireStreet Ministries, a group of
ministries with like-mindedhearts, and they bring us out
once a year to get to retreat.
And so we were there.
And while we were there,someone had the bright idea of
(07:26):
hiking a 14,000 foot mountain,also known as a 14er.
There's several of them inColorado, and so me and Sam, my
oldest son, decided at 8 pm thenight before this little trek
was about to happen, that sure,why not?
We'll go Now.
(07:48):
If you know anything about thistype of thing, that was pretty
dumb, because you don't engagein this type of hiking without
at least a little bit of apreparation, of which we had
none.
Why?
Because you can't breathe.
There's no oxygen that high.
That's why you don't do it.
A little cross-cultural jokehere.
(08:11):
This is the stuff white peopledo.
All right, you're welcome.
All right, so we get up at 4 am,get to the trail at 5 am.
Mind you, again, I'm notprepared, didn't even get the
right rest the night before.
I don't have the right gear.
(08:31):
I'm wearing old workout shoesthat are worn out, have no
traction.
I'm wearing sweatpants and ahoodie.
I'm not prepared for any ofthis.
Meanwhile, you get on the trailand people look like they've
prepared for this thing theirwhole life.
So they have, you know, thebackpack with, like the water
(08:52):
coming out, and hiking boots andthe right pants that you know
tear off when you get too hotand all this type of stuff.
And so a little intimidatedthere at the beginning.
And so a little intimidatedthere at the beginning.
So we start the trail.
The beginning of this traillooks like any trail you've ever
seen.
Honestly, it would be somethingyou could see in Florida, where
(09:14):
you just walk in and you'rejust walking into trees.
You have no idea where this isall heading.
You have no idea you're headingto the top of a 14,000-foot
mountain and might regret everystep you take.
So the first mile of what wouldbe a nine-mile hike and this
was supposed to be the easy part.
(09:35):
Me and a group of others werealready done and couldn't
breathe and I thought, well,this is not going well.
And so we keep going, we takebreaks.
But about in the second milethere was a few of us that you
know.
I looked around and saw someonestruggling and honestly
(09:56):
panicking because they couldn'tbreathe and they weren't really
talking, to say, hey, can youguys stop?
And so I said, hey, listen, I'mgoing to help you.
I'm joking a little bit.
I've done some difficult hikesso I kind of at least know a
little bit about what I wasdoing.
And so I said I'm going tointentionally help you guys Let
the rest of the group go aheadand I'm going to make sure we're
proactive and intentional andall we're going to do is we're
(10:20):
going to commit ourselves to away right now.
We're going to commit ourselvesto a way.
Right now we're going to commitourselves to hiking about 50
steps, stopping catching ourbreath, taking another 50 steps,
stopping catching our breath,and that's the only way this is
going to work, or you and Iaren't going to make it to the
(10:40):
top of this mountain.
And so this is exactly what wedid, and I don't really know how
long this took Sam wouldprobably tell you better because
he was in the group ahead.
So they kept looking back at uslike, oh, I feel sorry for them
.
They're like at the top andwe're like five hours behind
them basically.
And so I think for maybe fourto five hours no exaggeration
there this is what we did, onestep at a time, and I kept
(11:05):
asking everybody, hey, are youguys all right?
And one guy just kept sayingyes, I'm determined.
And he would point, because I'mgoing up there, that's where
we're headed.
I said all right, and at thatpoint we didn't even really know
where we were going, couldn'teven see the top of the mountain
.
It looked a little bit likethis, so you can see, there's a
path, there's people and notreally sure where the top of the
(11:29):
mountain was, and we just kepthoping it's got to be over there
somewhere.
And we kept going and keptgoing.
And so the last part of thisthing is switchbacks.
Now, if you've ever done hikingbefore, switchbacks are there
supposedly to be your friend,because the idea is you can't go
straight up, so you're going togo, like this, up the whole
thing.
So you walk about what feelslike 10 miles to go one mile up.
(11:50):
And so we get through this onetiny little switchback at a time
and we get to the top of thisplateau and there's a view, but
we still weren't at the top.
We weren't at the top yet.
So I get a phone call.
I don't know how that worked,but I got a phone call and it
was Sam.
He said I didn't get it, so itwas a voicemail later, but Sam
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says hey, dad, we're at the top.
I hope you make it All right,sam, I'm working on it, buddy.
So at that point I'm not goingto lie I left the straggling
group behind because I said it'stime for me to put on the gas
and get here.
So I had a lot left in the tankbecause we've been going pretty
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slow, and so I literally ran upthe rest of the mountain.
Now this part of the mountain isboulders, no path, there's no
way, there's no defined way ofhow to get to the top.
And about halfway up, the restof the group's coming down and I
saw Sam and I said Sam, willyou please go to the top with me
?
Will you turn back around anddo this again, basically.
And so, sure enough, sam beingthe 12 year old, with all the
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youthfulness, turned rightaround and went up to the top,
and so this is what was at thetop, all right, so Mount Yale,
14,000 feet, now, of course,like any picture doesn't do it
justice, um, but we were on topof the world, um is what it felt
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like, and uh and so, uh, as we,as we stood there, um, we took
it in, we took in the view thatwe had, and all I can say is,
when I got to the top and welooked around, I had a new set
of glasses on for the world,right, there's a way in which,
you know, five or six hoursearlier, we were looking up at
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peaks that now we were lookingdown at.
We were looking up at peaks thatnow we were looking down at,
literally seeing for probablyhundreds of miles in every
direction.
And so what I knew is that whenI got there, I had this new set
of glasses on, and if I had hadthese glasses on when I started
this whole thing, it would havechanged how I walked through
the whole thing.
You see, the end determines howyou walk through the beginning,
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and so I would have known thatI'm not just walking to walk.
I'm not just breathless to bebreathless, I'm not stopping and
starting just to wait.
I was committing myself to away because I knew what was
coming at the end.
So what about you?
What glasses do you have ontoday?
(14:29):
Do you only see the here andnow?
Do you just see the trees andthe path and you wonder well,
maybe it's just time to turnaround because this isn't worth
it.
Maybe it's time to just give up.
Maybe you think I don't knowwhere this is going and it
doesn't seem worth it.
Maybe it's time to just give up.
Maybe you think I don't knowwhere this is going and it
doesn't seem worth it.
Well, I want to encourage youthis morning.
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I want to give you a differentset of glasses to see that, as a
believer, your future hope, myfuture hope, shapes how you live
your present life, and this isthe summary of Psalm 37.
See, psalm 37 lives in thatcollision between the here and
now and the there and then.
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It teaches us that when wecan't see where all this is
heading, we need to get a newpair of glasses because we're
not seeing it right.
So I want to encourage you alltoday take out your scriptures,
let's put on a new set ofglasses.
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So the first point this morningis looking back, David's
reflections.
Looking back on David'sreflections.
So we're gonna go all the wayback to the beginning of the
Psalm.
You guys have been here.
If you've been here, you knowwe've been preaching on the
Psalm for about four weeks.
What else could we possibly say?
Right, and I'm going to go allthe way back to the beginning of
the psalm, because thebeginning of the psalm is not
fret, not yourself.
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The beginning of the psalm is ofDavid, of David.
You see, he's writing as anolder man.
He says in verse 25, I wasyoung, but now I'm old, and so
this whole Psalm is a reflectionon his whole life.
And he's dropping wisdom on theyoungins, letting them know
what the truth is.
No cap, you're welcome.
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My kids are sitting right here.
That was all for them.
They don't even realize what Ijust said because they're not
paying attention.
But that's true.
All right, sam, heard me.
All right, that's Gen Z for you.
No cap, I'm not lying.
Okay, that's what that means.
So if I was to summarize thiswhole reflection, it's just that
your future shapes your present, and David is looking to a day
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in his life that has not yetcome, but he is looking to that
day with absolute certainty thatit will come at some point.
And so, simply put, when helooks at his whole life, it
looks like the fight betweenrighteousness and wicked is
happening and the wicked arewinning.
And so in here now.
It just doesn't seem fair.
But the Lord is giving David anew set of glasses.
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If you read through the Psalm12 times, david a new set of
glasses.
If you read through the Psalm 12times, the word will shows up
not like my life is my will, butwill like something will happen
.
It's both a certainty that it'sgoing to happen and he's
acknowledging that it hasn'thappened yet but it will in the
future.
David is future focused.
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As David looks back on his lifeand shares wisdom, he is saying
if you don't have an absolutetruth type of understanding of
the future, your life right nowis going to feel like pure chaos
and you'll make decisions outof that chaos.
But if you know the future thatis coming, you'll walk through
this life in peace and makingsound decisions.
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So what is that future?
How do we get there?
Well, it's certainly not rootedin David, and he knows that
it's not rooted in his abilityto make something happen.
It's rooted in the Lord and hisattributes, who he is and his
actions, what he will do.
Because it says over and overagain what he will do, because
it says over and over again.
By summary, I would say thatthe righteous no-transcript.
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And so, knowing all that, itchanges how David lives in each
moment.
Now, as we reflect back onDavid's life, I want to just
acknowledge something realquickly in the Psalms that
honestly sometimes bothers meit's a little bit of an elephant
in the room and that is thatDavid writes in this kind of
black and white type of waywhere he's able to somehow
basically say, hey, there'srighteous people and there's
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wicked people, and I'm going tolet you know what happens to
both.
But it kind of begs thisquestion like, well, who are
those people, who are therighteous and who are the wicked
?
And it'd be easy to assume thatDavid just says well, I'm the
righteous one, I'm writing thestory right.
But when you look carefully atPsalm 37, it's very interesting.
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David actually never claims tobe either one.
What David does claim is to bean observer of life.
I've seen this happen.
I've seen that the righteousare not forsaken.
I've seen what happens for thewicked.
Why?
Well, if you know David's story, you know good and well he
knows that he's been a part ofthe righteous and the wicked
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story.
You know good and well he knowsthat he's been a part of the
righteous and the wicked.
So what's David's life?
Let's take just a quick lookback over his life as he writes
Psalm 37.
What is he possibly talkingabout?
So we know, david the giantslayer kills Goliath, and no one
else in Israel would do that.
Everyone was too scared.
And so King Saul, at the time,when he sees David do this, he
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praises him for it.
He brings them into close,gives them a high rank in the
army.
And then what happens?
Women start giving praise toDavid and Saul, but they give
David a little bit more praise.
Right, so Saul killed histhousands.
Raise, right, so Saul killedhis thousands, but David, he
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killed his tens of thousands.
And what happens?
Saul said I ain't having any ofthat.
So jealous and envy stir up inSaul's heart, and so he fears
David.
And so what this sets off isthis whole long story of Saul
pursuing David and David goingon the run.
And so you can see in this waywhere some of Psalm 37, that
tension of I'm trying to do theright thing and yet it seems
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like even my friend is againstme.
And so, multiple times, davidhas the opportunity to take Saul
out.
You know this story right.
There's this one time whenSaul's in a cave going to the
bathroom and David's in the caveas well and has this moment he
could take him out, but insteadhe realizes no, this is not
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right, and so I'm not going todo it, cuts off a piece of the
robe and lets him know hey, Iwas this close.
And then again it happens whereDavid had a moment to take Saul
out.
While he's in his camp asleepNobody was defending him goes
and steals the sword that'sright by his head, but instead
of killing Saul, he takes thesword with him and lets him know
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once again, I had theopportunity to take you out.
And David's own words were theLord rewards everyone for their
righteousness and faithfulness.
All right, so in all thesemoments you can see David seems
to be on that righteous side.
Crazy thing the very nextchapter of scripture, when
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you're reading David's story,opens with these scary words and
David thought to himself.
And what happens after that?
What happens after that isDavid devises this plan that
he's gonna go hang out among thePhilistines, the very same
people where Goliath came from,the very same people that seem
to be the thorn in Israel's side.
David's like, hey, saul's gonnakeep pursuing me, so I'm gonna
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go hang out with these people,hide out for a little while
until Saul forgets about me.
And that's exactly what he does.
So much so that the scripturesays he became so obnoxious to
his people, the Israelites, thathe, talking about David, will
be my servant for life.
That's where David ended up, achapter after realizing the
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righteousness that the Lordrewards everyone for their
righteousness and faithfulness.
So in one chapter, he goes fromthe hero of trusting the Lord
and to deliver him from thehands of his enemy to running
away in fear, not trusting theLord, thinking to himself Can't
you hear the tension of Psalm 37?
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The Lord is going to uphold therighteous and take down the
wicked, but right here, rightnow, david's like I don't see
that happening.
I don't see it, so I'm going totake matters into my own hands,
without God.
And the story goes on.
David continues to think tohimself at different points in
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life, right Even after he's king, david decides when all the
kings are out to war.
The famous story right, hehangs back, sees a woman that he
desires, and so he uses hispower, his influence, commits
adultery with her, then tries tocover it up with the husband.
That doesn't work, and so hehas the husband killed.
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Now where does that fall in therighteous and the wicked that
David so easily separates inPsalm 37?
Sounds more like the wicked liein wait for the righteous,
intent on putting them to death.
So in one moment, david andSaul sound similar, and we could
go on and on.
(23:34):
My point is there's a couple ofthings from David's life, as he
reflects on his own life, thatwe need to see.
David knew what it was like towatch the wicked prosper, even
as he did the right thing, eventhose who were supposed to be on
his side and you know thisfriendly fire's the worst.
And David felt that he alsoknew what it was like to have
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the Lord save him when he wasmaking dumb mistakes.
So he knew what it was like tobe wicked, but then, like it
says in Psalm 37, to have hissteps established.
Though he fall, he will not becast headlong, for the Lord
upholds his hand.
What is that?
God's grace?
That's what David knew.
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And David knew, ultimately, thatjustice doesn't lie in his hand
.
It lies in the hands of theLord.
When he kept taking justiceinto his own hands, what
happened?
Big old mess.
But when he entrusted it to theLord, he waited.
And so, through all this, davidis showing us what a different
pair of glasses looks like.
You're living here and now, butyou're looking forward, future
(24:45):
focused, and so when he looksinto the future, it doesn't make
sense right now, but he seesall things being made right,
justice being done for all theinjustice, but it doesn't even
happen in his own lifetime.
So we look back, we look atDavid's life, his reflection.
We get the tension of whatPsalm 37 sets up for us.
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But now, what do you do in themeantime?
What did David do in themeantime while he was waiting?
What do we do in the meantimewhen you're waiting for the
attention of Psalm 37 toeventually resolve itself?
Well, that's the second pointfor today, which is you look now
, commit your way.
Look now and commit your way.
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Verses three through nine have alot of commands, things like
trust in the Lord, delightyourself in the Lord, be still
before the Lord, wait for theLord.
Verse five, I think, sums itall up Commit your way to the
Lord.
And this is a summary of allthe other ones.
But you see, the word way issomething we use as kind of like
this abstract word.
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You know, commit your way.
I don't know what that means,but in Hebrew that word's very
physical, very tangible.
It's the word we use for road.
So in other words, commit theroad of your life to the Lord.
You see, the danger of allthese commands trust in the Lord
(26:11):
, delight, be still, wait isthey become trite sayings that
we put on bumper stickers and onour fridge magnets and we look
at them occasionally and say,sure, trusting in the Lord, and
they become meaningless.
What we need to see is that whatmade David righteous, what made
David a man after God's ownheart and light of all the mess
(26:32):
that he would make in his life,was not first the moral
decisions he made.
He made a lot of sinful, notfirst the moral decisions he
made.
He made a lot of sinful, evildecisions.
He also made morally gooddecisions, but that's not what
made him righteous.
What made him righteous wascommitting the road of his life
to the Lord.
What made him righteous wasseeing himself accurately,
(26:56):
knowing who God made him to be,allowing his sin to be exposed.
So when Nathan came up to him,tells him his whole story and
parable to describe and getDavid to see what he had done.
David says you should kill thatman.
And Nathan said you're right,it's you.
And what is David's response?
No, it's not me.
No, I've sinned against theLord.
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This is what committing theroad of your life to the Lord
looks like.
So what about us?
I want to dig into how.
How do you commit?
What does this really mean?
I don't want us to just saythat.
I want it to mean something.
So one thing I want us to seeis that in Psalm 37, the word
(27:40):
Lord shows up 17 times.
Now, the word Lord is the namethat God has given to us.
That makes him personal.
It's not just God, it's theLord.
And I want to challenge you,because I think some of us know
how to trust God, but we don'tknow how to trust the Lord, and
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I say that a little tongue incheek.
I know that you might say thesame, but listen to what I'm
saying.
Some of us trust God like he'san abstract truth, like he's
this big thing out there that'snot really knowable, and when we
think of him in that way, it'swhat turns trust and committing
and delighting into a bumpersticker or a fridge magnet.
(28:23):
We go through life, the ups anddowns, and we know the truth in
our heads, but it doesn't seemto matter for right now.
Instead, the invitation istrust the Lord, the Lord who's
given us his personal name,because he's a personal,
knowable, alive today,approachable God, and this means
(28:44):
he's intimately involved in thedetails of your life and my
life, if we're aware.
You see, I think self-awarenessis one of the things that David
was best at, and self-awarenessis the key.
If you don't know yourself, youcan't commit your way to the
Lord.
Now, some of you are like thatsounds like some modern
(29:06):
psychological nonsense.
I hear you, I hear you, but I'min good company.
One for all of you Calvinists,all right, you can't.
Oh, my goodness, you can'tlaugh at that one, it's all
right, he's okay.
(29:29):
He said the beginning of theinstitutes in order to know God,
you have to know yourself, likeI see who's really, really
Presbyterian, and in order toknow yourself, you got to know
God.
So hey, at least I'm withCalvin, all right, but guess
what?
I'm also with scripture.
You flip all the way back tothe beginning of the book.
Self-knowledge goes all the wayback to the garden, when God
made man in his own image, andthat he made man naked and
(29:51):
unashamed and said this was good.
So the foundation of arelationship with God is coming
to him with your whole self,with nothing in the way.
This is what David didconsistently.
This is what it means to commityour way to the Lord so quickly
.
I just want to run through threethings.
I believe that scripture herein Psalm 37, gives us, shows us
(30:17):
that we need to commit ouremotions to him.
And now you're like oh, allright, eric, I didn't even go to
seminary for counseling, Ipromise All right.
Emotions are all over the Bible.
They're not good, they're notbad, they just are.
What we do with them is whatleads us astray, and so our
(30:38):
emotions.
Oftentimes we have a temptationwith them.
We either squash them so wedon't feel anything until they
come out in this volcano ofbrokenness, or we allow our
emotions to run wild and makeevery decision for us out of
brokenness, or we just try tofix the bad emotions and make
them good, and that's allnonsense.
The invitation from scriptureis commit your emotions to the
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Lord.
Why?
Because they're a road to him.
They're a road to him.
What I love about the Psalms isthey show us exactly how to do
that.
I love the Psalms because theygive us permission to say things
like where are you, god, whyare you so downcast?
To say things like where areyou, god?
Why are you so downcast, oh mysoul?
The Psalms give us permissionto say why don't you dash their
(31:23):
babies on the rocks right?
And we look at that and saywhat is that about?
That's called anger, and it'snot actually happening.
But David's showing us this iswhat it is to live with the Lord
in the midst of all of that.
So instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be afraid, lord, I'm
(31:48):
afraid right now.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be angry, I want to
rip that person's head off rightnow.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be sad, lord, I kind
of wish I wasn't here right now.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be sad, lord, I kind
of wish I wasn't here right now.
Instead of I know I'm notsupposed to be ashamed, lord.
I'm so ashamed of myselfinstead of.
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I know I'm not supposed to hateLord, I'm really struggling
right now to love this person.
I could go on and on.
Derek Kidner, in his commentaryon this psalm, calls this a
deliberate redirection of youremotions.
Deliberate redirection of youremotions.
Where are they going?
Commit your way to the Lord.
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Give your emotions to him.
Now, men, men in the room,you're like dude, I don't know
what you're talking about.
Right now, I don't feel a thing.
Yes, you do so.
If I got in your car right nowand we went on I-4 and I got
someone to cut you off, I bet Icould get you to be emotional.
If we went to a game togetherand your favorite team was
(32:53):
losing, I bet I could get you tobe emotional.
If I went up to you anddisrespected you and your family
, I bet I could get you to beemotional.
You have emotions.
Don't lie to yourself.
You just need to dig deep andfind out where they are and
where they're directed andcommit your way to the Lord.
All right.
So the second thing commit youremotions, commit your
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circumstances to the Lord.
When we see the realities Davidis talking about in Psalm 37,.
It's very tempting for us totake those circumstances into
our own hands and make themright.
Think about your own life, whatyou got going on.
Where are the circumstances,where are the things that you
want to see fixed?
The temptation is to take theminto your own hands and say I'm
(33:37):
gonna fix this right.
When you study David's life,you see two things happen.
One David thought to himself.
Two David inquired of the Lord.
Two very different approachesand two very different results.
When David thinks to himself,he commits adultery.
When David inquires of the Lord, an army of the Lord marches
(34:01):
out from balsam trees and takesout his enemy before he even has
to do anything.
It's a big, big difference.
Are you going to take yourcircumstances into your own
hands or are you going to waiton the Lord?
Be still like David says.
You see, for our American lives, waiting sounds ridiculous, but
(34:22):
I'm here to tell you thatwaiting is working.
We need to get better at thework of waiting.
See, our culture is built on.
I'm going to make things happenbecause I work hard.
You will not cross me, becauseI'm going to fix that.
That's American.
Now, of course, I'm not talkingabout don't get a job because
you're just waiting to feelmotivated, and all that type of
(34:43):
stuff.
That's the generationunderneath me.
That's not good, all right.
No, I'm talking about when yousee an injustice, as David sees,
you commit those circumstancesto the Lord.
You struggle with him in theweight.
God, why aren't you doinganything right now?
Why haven't you shown up to fixthis?
Rather than I got this, I'mgonna fix this on my own.
(35:07):
Commit your emotions.
Commit your circumstances.
The last thing is commit yourdesires to the Lord.
Verse four I love this verse,one of the most cherry picked
verses in this whole thing.
Though.
Delight yourself in the Lordand he will give you the desires
of your heart.
Oh, that sounds so sweet, right.
(35:27):
And so what do we do?
We take that verse and we say,oh man, all right.
So basically, god cares aboutwhat I want to do, so he's just
going to give me what I want IfI just kind of ask him for it
and all this type of stuff.
Look at the rest of the Psalm.
It ain't got nothing to do withthat.
It's about wicked peopleprospering and waiting for the
righteous to get their reward.
(35:47):
That it would shine like thedawn right.
So the reality is.
You and I are hardwired todesire things right, but, like
our emotions, when we take ourdesires and we follow them
without being connected to theLord, we make really bad
decisions.
David clearly desired Bathsheba,but this was not a good thing.
(36:09):
So when you read, delightyourself in the Lord.
He will give you desires ofyour heart.
Make sure you temper it withthat reality.
He followed that desire withoutthe Lord.
But David clearly also desiredto kill Saul when he had a
chance.
But he followed that desirewith the Lord and said that's
not the right thing to do rightnow.
See, we can desire godly things, we can desire evil things.
(36:31):
So what do you do with thedesire?
You share them.
You share that desire godly orevil with the Lord in his
presence.
Instead, what do we do?
Kill that thing If it's bad.
Right, shouldn't want that.
It's bad, so we try to do awaywith it.
But what we actually need to dois follow that desire all the
(36:52):
way to his conclusion.
Because guess what's at the end?
The Lord.
The Lord is at the end.
He's the one that when wefollow those desires, we find
him.
As the conclusion, we'll findthat our desires are ultimately
leading us back to worship RightWorship of the one who made us
(37:18):
Now summarize all this.
You know, I moved into Paramore12 years ago and I have a coach
who I've been with for severalyears and over the course of
time, right, I've had this.
You know, you have this wholegoal of what you're going to do
and you know all these amazingthings that are going to happen
and you're trusting the Lord andas time goes along, you start
(37:41):
to see, man, this ain't workingout like I thought it was going
to right.
There's hard things.
It's not as easy as you mighthave thought it was going to be.
Difficult things happen.
People pass away.
Ministry is tough, right?
My coach would tell me hey,eric, the only reason you're
(38:02):
there is so that God could bewith you, so that God could
strip away whatever strategy,whatever good idea you thought
you had about how this was goingto work, so that he could just
have you.
So, over the past 12 years,committing my emotions, my
circumstances, desires, what I'msharing with you right now has
(38:25):
been the path of life that Godhas called me on, and so this
has never happened.
If someone ever asked me toteach a class on how do you do
ministry, no one's asking.
But if they did, I would sayI'm not going to do that.
But I will teach you a class onhow to be intimate with the
(38:49):
Lord.
Do something hard.
Let him strip it all away andrealize that you still have him.
Commit your way to the Lord.
So we got to look back atDavid's life.
We have to look now.
Commit your way.
And then we got to look forwardto a future hope.
Look forward to a future hope.
(39:12):
The famous theologian Ben Kant,in prepping for this.
He's not here so I can say that, ben, when you listen to the
podcast you're welcome.
As we were prepping for thesermon series, he let us know
there's this like elusive themein here that binds the whole
psalm together and he said it'sverse 37.
The whole Psalm together and hesaid it's verse 37.
(39:35):
There is a future for the manof peace.
There is a future for the manof peace.
You see, the future is God'sgoing to make all the wrong
things right.
Where there is an injustice,he's going to bring justice.
You hear it In just a littlewhile, the wicked will be no
more.
The Lord laughs at the wicked,for he sees their day coming.
The sword of the wicked willenter their own heart.
The wicked will at the wicked,for he sees their day coming.
The sword of the wicked willenter their own heart.
The wicked will perish likesmoke.
(39:56):
They vanish away.
The wicked seem to be growinglike a beautiful tree, but
eventually they pass away and,on the flip side, the meek shall
inherit the land.
The blameless will remainforever.
They will not be put to shame.
Though the wicked try to bringthe righteous down, the Lord
will not abandon them in theirtime of need.
There is a future for the manof peace.
(40:16):
What about us?
Here's the thing.
What David was looking forwardto was certain, but it was
blurry.
He didn't have the glasses onthat we have on now.
He didn't know how it was allgoing to work out.
He just knew it was going towork out.
But we live in the reality thatthe salvation of the Lord has
already come in Jesus Christ.
It's different.
(40:37):
We have a different set ofglasses on.
You see, god puts skin on, bornto a teen mom in the Middle
East, incarnated as Jesus theMessiah, into a broken world
where the wicked seem to beprospering.
He comes with a salvation thatcomes from the Lord that Psalm
37 talks about, but it's asalvation they weren't expecting
.
He doesn't take down theoppressors with a sword.
(40:59):
He overcomes evil with love.
He looks at God's people.
He looks at the enemies ofGod's people.
He says guess what?
Y'all all need the same thingyou need forgiveness and you
need redemption from your sinand brokenness.
So guess what?
Jesus set his face on thefuture, set his face on the
(41:24):
cross, said I'm walking towardsthat, and lived his life in
light of where he was going, sothat his love takes on the form
of self-sacrifice so he couldbring about a future hope that
was better than anyone's wildestdreams.
He said trust in me, trust inmy work, trust in my sacrifice.
So on the cross, he says it isfinished, what's finished?
(41:45):
He's dealt the final death blowto all that Psalm 37 is talking
about and he's looking forwardto the day when it's all going
to be made.
Right?
I came to New City as a seminarystudent in 2010.
I remember being captivated bythe vision of a new city.
Right, justin already said ityou flip to the end of the book.
(42:07):
You find out what's going on.
Some of y'all, that's how youread books.
You decide whether or not youwant to read it.
What's going on, some of y'all,that's how you read books.
You decide whether or not youwant to read it.
Well, when you read the end forus it's good, it's really,
really good and what you find isRevelation 21,.
A holy city.
That's why I had us read thisthis morning New Jerusalem
coming down, a place wherethere's no more death, no more
(42:29):
mourning, no more crying, nomore pain, more death, no more
mourning, no more crying, nomore pain.
God wipes away every tear andwe have the fullness of God's
presence with us.
I also remember being captivatedby the fact that New City was
one word.
Now, some of y'all need to getthat right when you write things
(42:50):
down.
All right, now, I don't know,things have changed.
I haven't really been around,okay, but I remember thinking
well, this is dumb, it's twowords.
But then I realized there wasintentionality there.
Why?
Because the church sits in thisunique place, at the collision
between heaven and earth,between the here and now and the
(43:11):
then and there.
And so, as we even sit here inthis building, we're living in a
real city, orlando, and you canfeel as you walk out the doors
that there's this collision ofthe new and the city.
Sometimes the city part seemslike it's winning and the
newness feels really far away.
Maybe it's even non-existent.
But this truth is, the new iscoming.
(43:37):
Now I wanna say something realquick.
If you don't know Christ, Iwanna make sure you understand
that you don't actually havethis hope that I'm talking about
right now, and that's a realthing.
Whatever hope you might have,you got the wrong glasses on.
It's a mirage.
Those glasses will deceive you,and so I want you to implore
you got the wrong glasses on.
It's a mirage.
Those glasses will deceive you,and so I want you to implore
you to explore what iscommitting my way to the Lord
(43:59):
about to have a future hope likethat where everything really is
made right.
But the truth is, for all of us, the new is already here, and
the best new is still yet tocome.
And so if you're trusting inChrist right now, you have an
anchor for your soul.
Your future shapes your presentlife.
You have hope of where thisworld is going, you have hope of
(44:24):
where you are going, and youhave hope that you are with the
Lord now.
You will be with him forever inthis new city.
You will be with him forever inthis new city.
Martin Luther King, his lastspeech on this earth sermon.
Essentially he said things likewe're not going to let any dogs
(44:47):
or water hoses turn us around,we're not going to let any
injunction turn us around.
He said I don't know what willhappen now.
We've got some difficult daysahead of us but it doesn't
really matter with me now,because I've been to the where,
to the mountaintop.
(45:07):
I've been to the mountaintopand I've looked over and I've
seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you,but we will get there and I'm
not worried about anythingbecause mine eyes have seen what
, the glory of the Lord.
The next day he lost his life,assassinated for all that he was
(45:33):
speaking about, but we know theimpact that he had that we can
be so heavenly minded that weare of immensely earthly good.
Where are you looking?
What is shaping your presentlife right now?
The Bible says look to thefuture, look to this new city
(45:57):
that Jesus has secured for us.
Put your hope there.
Thomas Merton says your life isshaped by the end you live for.
You are made in the image ofwhat you desire.
What glasses are you wearingthis morning?
Let's look forward to our hopefor tomorrow, so we can commit
our way to the Lord.
(46:17):
Today let's pray, heavenlyFather.
We praise you for your word, wepraise you for David's words
here in Psalm 37, that, thoughwe live in a world where things
seem to not add up, the wickedseem to prosper and the
(46:39):
righteous can seem to be eatenalive and not be given what is
their due.
And so, lord, in that space,help us to commit our way, lord,
help us to have glasses thatare looking to the future, to
see clearly what you have madefor us, what is waiting for us,
(47:05):
that we might hope in that andlive for today.
Jesus, thank you for the gospel, that you have saved us, that
you have redeemed us, that wemight have your presence in our
life now, that, as we go throughthe challenges and trials of
life today, lord, that we arenot alone but we are with you.
(47:25):
You are with us.
You have made us your people.
It's in Jesus name we pray,amen.
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