The Search for Serenity | The Search - Psalms 37:1-7 | Tony Walliser

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Silverdale's Lead Pastor is Tony Walliser.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Well, good morning. Welcome to Siverdale Baptist Church. It's so good to see all of you here worshiping with us today. I'd like to welcome all of you here at this campus at Bonnie Oaks, but like to welcome all of you to all of our campuses and all of our venues and those of you that are worshiping with us online. If I haven't had a chance to meet you personally, I'm Tony Walliser, one of the pastors here at Siverdale, and have the privilege today to share with you God's word. So I just want to encourage you to do. Go and take your Bibles. Open up in the Old Testament to the book of Psalms. Um, Psalm 37. That should be about right in the middle of your Bible. Psalm 37. If you got a smartphone, you can open your Bible app to Psalm 37 as well. But then do this take out these Bible study outlines that we provide for you. We give these outlines so you can follow along and take notes as we study God's Word together. We always believe that when God speaks to your heart, when you write it down, you'll remember it better. And so when God speaks, write it down, okay? Well, we are in just a brief little series called the search. And what we're doing in these two messages is we're looking at the two major searches that humanity goes after. And last week we looked at the search for happiness. And so we saw Solomon on that search in Ecclesiastes, and we discovered something that you cannot really appreciate God's creation unless you have a right relationship with a creator. But now, today, we're talking about the second primary search that humanity has, and that is the search for serenity. The search for peace. Because the reality is we have so many storms in our life, and we're like, can we really find peace in this life and have peace and in the storms of life? Um, read this story about this young passenger who was on a plane, and during that flight, that plane went through a storm. And so there was a lot of turbulence going on, the plane was shaking. I mean, people were getting scared because it was so rough. They were grabbing their armrest, um, frightful looks on their faces. People were praying out loud. One lady was crying. But there was this one young girl who was sitting in her seat unaffected by the storm. She was just coloring in her coloring book. And after they had gone through the storm, the lady next to her and says, Weren't you afraid at all during the storm? And she goes, No. She goes, Well, why not? She said, Because my dad is the pilot. You see, she had confidence in the storm because she knew that her dad, who she trusted in, was gonna get her through the storm. Well, I got good news for you today. Your dad, your abba father, almighty God, is the pilot of your life. And if you will learn to trust in him, even in the midst of those storms, you can experience his peace and serenity. That's what we're gonna discover in Psalm 37. One of my favorite Psalms. It's written by King David. It's later on in his life. So he's lived most of his life. He's now looking back at all the ups and downs of his life, and he's writing down those things that gave him this peace in the midst of fretful times. Now you may go, well, what kind of stress did a king ever have? Well, let me just tell you about David's life summary. Right? He was anointed the king by prophet Samuel, but there was another king still on the throne, Saul. And Saul wanted him dead, tried to assassinate him twice. Then he hired these um rogue band of assassins to kill David. David had to hide in caves for years as they tried to kill him. Then, whenever he became king, his son Absalom tried to overthrow his kingdom and kill him. And then one of his closest friends and advisors betrayed him in order to kill him. Are you seeing a little theme here? Everybody wants to kill the guy, right? And then his family was messed up. One child died, another child was murdered, his daughter was raped. I mean, you had warring countries that were always against him trying to kill him. So David is looking back at his life and go, Man, I had a lot of hard times, but I had peace because I learned how to trust in the Lord. And so that's what we're gonna learn from Psalm 37 today. Notice how he starts the psalm off. He starts with a negative, verse one. He says, Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong. You go, what does it mean, fret? That means to worry, to be anxious, to be overwhelmed, right? And there's a lot of things in our life that we can point to and go, oh yeah, the economy, or, you know, that war or those people, right? And so we can point to different things and go, okay, those are things that cause us to fret. But today, I want you to just think about you, just for a second. What is it in your life that causes you the most fret? What is it that makes you most anxious? What is the biggest weight that you're carrying right now? And so as we jump into this passage today, I want you to think, okay, this is what it is. Can God handle this? And the answer is absolutely. And so at the top of your outline, let's just talk about what are some of those things that cause fretting in our lives. David's going to list two things. Obviously, he's had a lot of you know enemies. So the first thing that he saw was that the injustices in our world. There's a lot of injustices around us, right? I mean, the simple reality is that life is not fair. Right? Life's not fair. I know that's not very encouraging to hear. Welcome to Sewardell. Life's not fair, but the truth is, life isn't fair. In fact, do this, turn to the person next to you. Remind them, life is not fair. Life is not fair. This is not heaven, folks, right? And so what do we have? Today, we, because of the internet, we have 24-hour access to all the evil, crazy things going on in the world all the time. Right? We do. And we're bombarded. Okay, there's the violence there, here's the crime here, there's the wars and rumors of wars there. Okay, you got natural disasters, you got the wildfires there, the tornadoes there, the earthquakes over there, you got the economy stuff over here. I mean, we're bombarded all the time with this stuff, right? No wonder we're so anxious all the time. Jesus taught us to pray, Father, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Let me just remind you, all this stuff that's going on in this world right now, it's not the Father's will. This is not heaven. We pray that God's kingdom will come one day and he's gonna make all the wrong right, but that's not where it is right now. So there's these things that cause us to fret, but let's be honest, for some of you, it's not vaguely out there, this violence out there. For some of you, it's close by. Maybe, I mean, it's amazing how many prayer requests we get as pastors, people saying, Pastor, please pray for me in my work situation. I got this guy at work, he's trying to sabotage me. He's spreading rumors about me. I don't understand why the boss exalt this guy and he doesn't like me, right? I mean, the fact is life isn't fair. There's injustices in life. But David lists a second thing that causes him to fret and us as well, and that is the inequities of life. The inequities of life. What does that mean? It just seems like these guys are prospering, and I'm not. The bad guys seem to be winning. I mean, check it out. Look at again, verse one. Do not fret, or look at it, be envious of those who do wrong. You go, what does that mean to be envious? That means you covet, you desire, you're jealous of these people. You know what can steal your peace like that? What is it? It's comparisons. You try to compare your house with their house, or your marriage with their marriage, or your gifting with their gifting, or their career with your career. Listen, comparison will destroy contentment. And so what do we do? We look around and we see it seems like the cheaters are getting ahead. And in Hollywood, all the people that get applauded and awarded seem to be the most ungodly people imaginable. And so what do we get enamored by them, or so we're like, are we supposed to join them? Is that what we're supposed to do? No. So here's David saying, okay, we've got all these things in life that cause us to fret. But what I love about the Word of God, it doesn't just tell us what not to do, it tells us how to do it. And so in the first few verses of Psalm 37, David says, This is what I've done. I've taken these steps, and it brings peace in the midst of the storms of life. It removes the fretting in my life. So what are they? There's five things. We're gonna go through them real quickly today. Number one, first of all, is this. Jot this down in your outline. First, you've got to learn to trust God's character. You've got to learn to trust in God's character. David moves from what will cause you to fret to actually the God that will remove your fretting. Look at it, verse three. Trust in the Lord. I mean, you go, what does it mean to trust? It means to place your confidence in, to rely upon, to press into, to put your weight on. You can trust in the Lord. Why? Because he is trustworthy. Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, trust in your feelings, no. Trust in your instincts, no. Trust in your circumstances, absolutely not. You need to trust in the Lord. Why? Because he's trustworthy. I heard about these two explorers in Alaska, and they were crossing over this river that it iced over, and one of them was afraid that the ice was going to crack and they're going to fall through just any minute. And so he was on his hands and knees crawling across this frozen river. The other guy, he's like, okay, it's it's thick enough, and he just he just walks confidently right across, got a, you know, supplies on his back. Now here's the thing: both of them made it across the frozen river. They made it across not because of the level of their confidence. They made it across because of the thickness and the strength of the ice. It's the same way with you. You may be here today and you go, Pastor, I've got very little faith. Well, guess what? You take that little faith and you put it in a big God, it's enough. You have a little mustard seed of faith, Jesus says, and you put it in the hands of a big God and you can move mountains. Why? Because God is faithful. God is big, he is trustworthy. Trust his character. And so David said, trust in the Lord. So you gotta make up your mind, okay, I've got to learn to trust in the Lord. You go, how do you learn to trust in the Lord? Ready? By trusting in the Lord. You are not going to learn how to trust the Lord by reading a book. You're not gonna learn how to trust the Lord by listening to a sermon. You learn to trust the Lord by saying, okay, God, I'm just gonna trust you in this, right? Which is like swimming, right? You can't learn to swim by reading it in a book. You just gotta swim. And then eventually you learn how to swim. Well, it's the same way with trusting in the Lord. The problem with a lot of Christians is what we act like Christian atheists. We believe stuff here, but we refuse to trust here, right? And we go, okay, I don't know if I can let go and let God take this thing, right? And so we go, I've got one more, you know, trick up my sleeve, I've got one more dollar in my bank. I'd rather trust that in myself than God. David said, You're gonna lose your peace that way. First thing you've got to do, you've got to learn to trust God's character. But then he does the second thing. Shout this down. First, trust the Lord. Number two is do something good. Do something good. And so he says, All right, trust in the Lord, but now you got to do something. Look at it in verse 37. Trust in the Lord and do what? Say it loud. Do good. Do good. Now, this is just as much of a command as trusting in the Lord. Why? Because your faith is never to be passive. Well, I'm trusting the Lord, he's gonna work it all out. Okay, what are you doing, right? You need to find something to do, right? The wicked, they are doing something. What are they doing? They're doing evil. Am I supposed to do what they do, right? Okay, I'm gonna fight evil with evil. No. The Bible says you overcome evil with what? With good. In fact, notice how Jesus commands us to do good. Look at it in Luke chapter 6. Jesus said this Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Do you want to break the cycle of anxiety? You say, God, I'm trusting you and your character, but I'm gonna actively do these good things. Even secular counselors that don't believe in the Lord will tell you that if you got anxiety and worry, you gotta get out of the house and go do something good, right? Find something good and go do it. Um, there's a pastor, Tony Capolo, he's already gone on being with the Lord now, but he talked about a time whenever he was a pastor of a church, and and this one lady almost every week would come in and she would just bemoan all of the fretful things in her life, the things that were causing her anxiety and worry in her life. And it didn't matter how much he counseled her or advice that he gave her, it just didn't seem to stick. And so that particular day, she comes in and he says, Hey, I'm about to go on some hospital visits, so I'm not able to talk, but if you'd like to go on the hospital visits with me, you can. And she said, Okay. And so they're in the car, they're going to the hospital, and um he says, Typically, this is what I do. These people just need a couple words of encouragement, and I ask them if they would like me to pray, and I pray for them. I'll do the first couple of folks, and then um you can do some after that. And she goes, Okay. And so they are visiting this different people in the hospital. They were there about three hours, they're they're driving back to the church, and she goes, That was the most exhilarating thing of my life. This is amazing. She goes, I didn't think about my worries at all this entire time. And the pastor said, I think we have just found your cure. I'll see you next Tuesday. And she's like, What? You don't expect me to do this every week, do you? Well, yeah. See, that's our problem, right? We say, I want to trust God, but I don't want to do anything about it. I don't want to do good. No. Go find something to counter the evil of this world and do good. Trust in God's character, do good. Third thing David said, this is very important. Number three is make God your greatest delight. Make God your greatest delight. Notice what it says, verse 4. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Now, those are some of the most misunderstood verses in the entire Bible. Because a lot of people will read those verses and they'll basically think of it like this. Well, if you delight in the Lord, he's gonna give you whatever your little heart desires. You want a bently, well, you delight in the Lord, he's gonna go and give you a bent, right? Hey, you want a bigger house, just delight in the Lord, and he's gonna give you a bigger house, right? I mean, that's the way some preachers are. And so the fact is, is that you go, is that what that verse is saying? That is not what that verse is saying. What is it saying? It's saying, whenever the Lord becomes your delight, his desires become your desires. He changes your desires. Whenever the Lord becomes your treasure, you start to treasure the things that he treasures. Whenever the Lord becomes your delight, suddenly your will is conformed to his will. I mean, think about it. You have a young couple, they're really in love with each other, spending a massive amount of time together, they're doing all this stuff together, and next thing you know, what's going on? Well, they're they're um they're sharing the same dreams and they have the same values. Why? Because whenever you're in love with someone, you suddenly love the things that they love, right? Well, that's what happens with God as well. But here's our problem. Our problem is the Lord is not our delight.

unknown 16:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

We go, yeah, yeah, I I trust in the Lord. Do you delight in the Lord? Well, no. Uh there's other things in my life I would rather delight in, right? And we think that those things are going to remove the anxiety and worry and fretting in our life. Okay, hey, you know, if um if if I go on that vacation, I delight that, or, you know, this relationship or that possession or this success or those hobbies, right? I'll delight in those things. And look, there's nothing wrong with those things, but they cannot be your primary delight. Why? Because they can all disappear. I mean, I think about my life and the things that give me great joy. Well, my life gives me joy. My wife and my kids and grandkids give me great joy. What I do here, ministry gives me great joy. But guess what? All those things can be taken away. I mean, one phone call can turn your world upside down. I could lose my health and my life. My wife could suddenly die. So could my kids, God forbid, but that could happen, right? I mean, I'm getting older physically, I'm not able to do all that I used to do, right? The reality is, is that God has to be your ultimate delight. Christ has to be your well of joy so that when all the other wells dry up, you still have joy. That is why Paul was able to sing praises while he's in prison. That's why Stephen, while he's being stoned, is praying, Father, forgive these guys who are stoning me. That's how you, when you ever you've lost someone you dearly love, can sing, It is well with my soul. Why? Because the Lord has become your delight. And so here's David saying, Hey, how do you overcome the fretting of life? Trust in God's character. Go do something good. Make the Lord your primary delight. Then, number four is this. Shout this down. Commit your direction into God's control. Commit your direction into God's control. You say, God, okay, I'm not in control, you're in control, I'm gonna commit my life, yours, my direction of my life in your hands. Now, here's the problem that a lot of us have with this command. We like being in control. We like, hey, you know, I would release my control to the Lord, but golly, I he's gonna mess up my life, you know. I like being in control. Here, you know, can I just tell you, your control is an illusion. You think you're in control, you're not in control. But notice how David puts this in verse 5. He says, This commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act. Now, the Hebrew language is a very beautiful language, and sometimes they use word pictures, and that happens to be one of the words here. The word commit your way, it literally means to roll it. In essence, what God is saying is he's saying, Hey, there's some things that you're carrying in life. God's saying, I want you to roll it over to me. I mean, the apostle Peter put it like this in 1 Peter. He said, This, cast all your cares on him. Why? Because he cares for you. So right now, you've probably got some boulder that you're carrying around. You can't see my weight, I can't see your weight, but we all got something we're carrying around, right? And God looks at us with all of our boulders and he says to us, I didn't design you and create you to carry this. You can't. It's gonna destroy you. What do I need to do? God says, Will you roll that over to me? Roll that over to me. Right? Release it to me. Maybe it's something at work. You got this burden at work, and so whenever you get in the car to drive to work, you pause and you pray and you say, Lord, you know the relationship problem I've got this person right here. I want to bite their head off. And I know I can't, and I know I shouldn't. But God, I'm gonna roll this over to you, and I'm gonna trust you to order my steps, and God, help me to do good and not evil in this situation. Or maybe whenever you come back from work, the problem is at home. And you go, you and your spouse are at odds, and and you just pause in the garage, and you're like, Lord, you know what's going on between mom and spouse, and we're having a hard time. And God, I'm just rolling this over to you, and I'm asking you, help me to respond the right way, to do good rather than evil in this situation, right? That's what we've got to do. That's what the Bible's telling us to do. Now, here's the thing God says, if you do that, he's got it. Look at it, look at the rest of the verse. It says this trust in him and he will what? Say it out loud. He'll act. God says, I've got it. In fact, what's real cool to me is that word act there is the word made. It's the same word used in Genesis whenever God made the plants and the animals. Do you think the God of the universe who created everything and holds everything together, you think he can handle what's going on in your life? Absolutely, he can. And so you roll it over to God and say, God, I'm gonna trust you with this. And God says, I've got it. The creator of the universe can handle this. I'm gonna order your steps. In fact, later on in this Psalm is probably one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible. It David repeats this idea. Look at it. It's Psalm 37 23. It says this. The Lord directs the steps of the one who delights in him. Though he may stumble, he will not fall. Why? Because the Lord Yahweh upholds him with his right hand. What an incredible promise. God is saying, you roll this thing over to me, you trust in me, and God says, I've got you by the hand and I'm going to walk with you. You may stumble along the way, but you're not going to fall because I'm going to order your steps. Man, what an incredible promise. Now here's the thing. We don't often feel it in the midst of the storm. In the midst of the crisis and the turbulence in our life, we often are like, where is God in this? It's many times later on, after you look back and you go, Oh my goodness, look at what the Lord has done. He ordered our steps through this. Let me give you an example of this. Many of you may remember this story. Years ago, my younger brother, Troy, was the student pastor here at Silverdale. He's now a pastor at Lookout Valley Baptist Church across town. But while he was on staff here one Sunday morning, we got word during the service that Troy's house had burned down. And so, you know, we're all in shock after church. We're going to this house and it's just in ashes and rubble, and um, you know, you're just filled with all these questions of what's going on, why, what happened, right? All this kind of stuff. But let me just tell you, we never can fully answer the whys, right? God often says, hey, just do the what's. What am I trying to do? So let me tell you the rest of the story. Now, as a church, we had bought some land that had a house on it, and we were going to fix it up for a future mission house, but it had just been sitting vacant. Well, our church rallied together, and within two days, they had fixed up that mission house and furnished it so that Troy and his family would have a place to stay. Praise God. And then, of course, Troy had insurance for his um for his house, and um insurance company starting to pay, where they had several builders in our church said, Hey, we'll help you out. And so he ends up building a nicer and bigger house than he ever had before the one got burned down, okay? And because they had helped him out so much, he had a lot of money left over. Well, God had always put it in he and Amy's heart to adopt a child one day. And so they adopt Trevor. You go, which one's Trevor? He's the big guy in the middle, right? And so let me review this for you. Burned down house. But we have a mission house that's fixed up that we're still using to this day. He got a bigger, nicer house, and he rescued a child that was now a part of a loving family. Right? At the moment when we're seeing the burned down house, we go, why? But now you look back and go, wow, God really does order the steps of the righteous. And though we may stumble, we're not gonna fall because he holds us by the hand. Folks, that is our God for you. God says, You do this, I've got it. I'll act. So, trust in God's character, do good, find your delight in the Lord, commit your way and control to the Lord, and then the final thing is this. Shut this down. Number five is learn to wait on God's timing. You've got to learn to wait on God's timing. Now, let me just say, this is the hardest one to do. It really is, right? I mean, because we go, okay, yeah, I can trust in the Lord, I can surrender that to the Lord, but waiting for God to figure this thing out, God said he's got it, but boy, you're not working on my timetable, right? I mean, notice how David puts this, verse 7. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. That is a hard verse to obey. Anybody here like waiting? Anybody here, you know, just love going to the DMV and waiting, you know, to get your driver's license, right? Renewed? You know? Ever like waiting behind, I call them accelerator challenge people, right? I've got places to go, people to see, you are not moving on my time schedule here. Or how about those individuals that basically they're at a stoplight and you're there and the light turns green, and they're like doo doo doo doo doo, right? You know? And you okay, 1001, 1002. I'm about to blow the horn now, right? Or anybody like waiting, you know, in the doctor's office, that's why they call you a patient, because you've got to be patient there, right? And listen, those are all things that we all gotta learn to wait for, right? But sometimes waiting is much harder than that. Maybe you're waiting as a single person, wondering, God, am I ever gonna be married? Or maybe you're waiting as a childless couple and you're wondering, God, are you ever gonna bless our home with a child? Or maybe you're waiting with a disease and the cure seems to be more painful than the disease. And let me just tell you, whenever you're hurting and waiting, it's hard to wait. It is, let's be honest. It is hard to wait. And so what often happens is that we will abandon our peace and try to figure it all out on our own. I'm gonna take matters in my own hands. Why? Because sometimes we think that God's absence means that, you know what, God's silence means he's absent. Or, you know what, God's um God's delays mean that he's denial, or you know what, the waiting means God's abandoned me. But that's not true. I believe that God does his deepest work in us during the waiting. We don't like it, but it's true. See, I I see God with sort of like two hands. You have his miraculous hand, and when he acts, whoo, you know it, you see it. But then you have the providential hand of God. This is what God is doing behind the scenes, and most of the time you don't even see it working. Now, whenever we expect God to work, we want the miraculous hand of God. God is moving, hallelujah, this is amazing. But if you study the Bible, 95% of the time, God is working with his providential hand behind the scenes, and it's not until afterwards that you go, oh my goodness, look at what the Lord has done. And so, can you wait on the Lord when your circumstances don't change? Can you wait on the Lord even whenever you can't see God working? Because listen, God is working, but you need to remind yourself God works on a different timetable than you. Let me say that again. God works on a different timetable than you. Turn to the person next to you and say, God's on a different timetable than you. God's on a different timetable than you. He is. Now let me be honest. I am a person of time. I'm always in a hurry. I'm always looking at my watch. I'm always pressured by my schedule and calendar. But God doesn't own a watch. God is eternal. God does not work on our timetable. But there's a principle I learned a long time ago that helped me in this waiting. And it's basically this basic principle, and it's this jot this on the bottom of your outline. With God, timing is more important than time. Timing is more important than time. You go, what does that mean? That means we have our time frame of when we want things to be done, and God is always looking for his perfect timing. So that whenever God responds, we go, oh my goodness, that was perfect timing by Almighty God. God may seem slow, but folks, he is always on time. And so we've got to trust him. Okay, Lord, you really are working behind the scenes even when I can't see it or understand it. There's an old fable from India about this king who had an advisor, and this advisor had this annoying habit that anytime something bad happened, he goes, Well, that's good. That's good. Well, one day the king has a hunting accident and he loses a toe. And the advisor goes, Well, that's good, that's good. And the king goes, No, this is not good. You're fired. Get out of my presence. Well, a few weeks go by, and um a rival tribe kidnaps the king. And they're planning on sacrificing the king to one of their, you know, pagan gods. And so they're getting the king ready for the sacrifice, and they notice that he's missing a toe. And they're like, Oh my goodness, this is an unpure sacrifice. We can't do it. So they release him. He goes back to the palace, he brings back in the advisor, and he's like, You're right, it was good that I lost a toe. That's amazing. And then he says, Okay, answer this question. When I fired you, you said that was good. In what way is that good? And he's like, Well, think of it. Everywhere you are, that's where I've been. So if you hadn't fired me, when they kidnapped you, they would have kidnapped me. And when they discovered you're missing a toe, I've gotten all my toes, I would have been sacrificed. It was good, right? Well, that's the way life is. We do not often understand. How does this make sense? This does not look good. But God says, no, I can I can make it good. In fact, there's a promise in the New Testament, Romans 8.28. You understand this one. But God causes all things to work together for good. Now, God's not saying all things are good, but God is so powerful, God is so great, God is so sovereign that he can work behind the scenes and cause even those things that are not good and turn them into good. Now, is that promise for every person on this planet? No, it's not. It is for who? For those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So think of my opening story of the girl on the plane, turbulence going on, everybody's freaking out except her. Why was she not freaking out? Because she trusted the character of the pilot because the pilot was her dad. The pilot of your life is your dad. He's abba father, but he's not like any other father. He is the father who is the lord of heaven and earth. He is the lord over your life and in the circumstances of life, and he is so great and he is so good that he is trustworthy. And if you will put your trust in him and choose to do good, and find your delight in him and roll your burdens over to him, he says, I've got it. Now just wait on me, and you'll see that I've got it. I'm telling you, when you follow that pattern, you'll have peace in the midst of the storm. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for your word. I thank you, Lord, that your word speaks to where we live. Lord, you know every person here and the burdens and the worries. You know the evil that has come against them. You know the burdens they're carrying. Lord Jesus, help us to trust in you and find our rest in you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.