Feb 20 2022 Trusting God's Faithfulness p2

You delight in showing us Your mercy and grace. We are your children in whom You are well-pleased.

The word, faithfulness, can also be described as trustworthy. Both words have a connection with shorter words – faith, and trust.

Trust is our response to God’s faithfulness. We trust because God is trustworthy.

Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

So, what we have in this one verse -this whole connection between faithfulness, trustworthiness, trust and faith and how they all tie together.

Cultivate faithfulness – scholars differ on the meaning of this phrase. Some think this is us developing our faithfulness to God, others, us, learning to rely on God’s faithfulness. I believe it is both. This develops into a pattern or cycle that works together:0

It all begins with God’s faithfulness at the top – and as we go clockwise – our response to God’s faithfulness – when we really believe that God is trustworthy, we will put our trust in God.

The result of that is we begin living faithfully to God – as faithful followers of Christ.

As we live as faithful followers of Christ, we begin to experience God’s faithfulness. How do we get our lives building into this cycle?

Let’s look at seven words in Psalm 37 that describe how to do this:

Ps 37:4-5 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

First, we need to discover ways to engage in our relationship with God that bring us JOY – how do you find joy or rejoice in the Lord? For some this seems easy. Maybe we know people who have this joy and delight. Maybe it is tremendous faith, or maybe it is their personality.

For some of us, this can be a hard thing. To think of delighting in God, we might think how do we do that? It may depend on your faith experience – how your view of God was formed. Go back to the early years of your faith formation – and the tradition you were in at the time – the church and leaders had tremendous impact on your view of God. For me, it was guilt and fear! The concept of delight is not one I could understand. For me, it was judgment – so I didn’t find much joy.

For others, it might be performance – you had to perform for God. If your relationship is a performance-based relationship, you too will not enjoy God. You will be stressed and feel like you are not attaining.

We had an example of this in the Olympics – women’s figure skating was riddled with scandal. A young Russian skater had a positive drug test.

We noticed that the ones who were farther back were skating the best – and the ones who were at the top left the ice unhappy – it took all the joy out of it.

Oftentimes that is what we do in our relationship with God – thinking of what we accomplish. God is not that way. God does not approach our relationship like that. For God, He has joy in us!

Two things to understand to delight in God.

First, God takes joy in us – He delights in us.

Zeph. 3:17 – He will rejoice over with shouts of joy!

Do you ever picture God that way? That when God thinks of you, he is shouting with joy? That is what He does.

Isaiah 62:5 – as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride – so God rejoices over us.

Second – we need a deeper knowledge of ourselves – what brings joy in my relationship with God? If the answer is nothing, that is okay – at least that is a beginning. To acknowledge that it is hard for you is important. You can’t address reality by faking it!

You can’t address your relationship by pretending to get joy out of it.

Everyone is different in the way they get joy out of God.

Dave Brunelle is teaching through the lectionary – The whole year’s sermons – passages are set out for every week based on the church calendar. That is not something I have ever done. I asked him how that is going.

He said – I am loving it! Wow!

Some of us, in order to enjoy God, NEED ritual and tradition – while others think, that is what I am trying to get away from!

IF you have more than one child, your relationship with each will be different, won’t it?

For me, my joy in the Lord is found in nature – singing in the parks – getting away from everybody. BUT – this week, actually, the past couple weeks – as I thought through this –

Ps 119 – the unfolding of the word brings light.

For me, the unfolding of His word brings JOY! I thought about how much I delight in God as He reveals new things about Himself to me. For me, it is like Christmas – a kid in a candy store!

It is never magic. Sometimes God speaks to my heart – but this is much more – just going deeper – making a commitment to go deeper into His word – to understand it more clearly – and God unfolds things. And I get delight in that!

Some of you may think – HOW CAN THAT BE ENJOYABLE? Studying the minutia.

Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

Who is in charge of the results? If it is you, you won’t get much joy out of your relationship with God.

7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.

This is not the TYPICAL word for rest. It is not, you’ve worked hard, take a rest. Or a Sabbath rest…

Here is how it is normally translated:

Rest: Be silent, Be still, Relax, Be quiet, Chill out

Okay – I added ‘chill out’ – but that is what the psalmist is saying.

This word is often in context with fretting and striving. When life is hectic and out of control, God says, be still, be quiet. This is not being complacent or lazy, but an attitude or disposition that flows out of trust in a relationship with God. When everything is falling apart, the only way to be still, trust, relax, is when we trust in God’s faithfulness.

Next is WAIT – for His timing and His way. This is another one that is a control issue. If we are impatient, we will try to take control ourselves – taking it away from God.

WAIT – we can think of it as being passive, but that is absolutely not what it is. It is connected with strength, victory, and the fulfillment of God’s promises.

It takes strength – spiritual strength to wait on God.

The next words are negative ones – Cease, forsake, do not fret.

8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. 9 For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land.

These are hindrances to cultivating faithfulness. Wrath is connected to rage – vengeance and getting even. We live in a world of tremendous rage right now.

If we struggle with anger or rage or fretting, we need to learn these practices:

Delight

Silence

Committing our way to God

Waiting on God

These are practices we can do – probably like practicing your golf swing!

I am going to switch gears – God’s faithfulness in a land of abundance. We live in a prosperous time in a prosperous nation. It is true that not everyone is participating in this prosperity. I get that and understand it.

Our prosperity is influencing all of us – and has led to misunderstandings about God.

Ephesians 3 – Paul is praying that God would do for them – exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.

We take that and say – if I am in need, God will provide exceedingly abundantly beyond my need. What comes from this in the extreme is the prosperity gospel. The problem, that is not what this verse is talking about. This is talking about bringing people who hate one another into one loving family! God can do that here in America! That is what You can pray and believe and work toward!

Psalm 37 gives us some help. We know God wants to provide, but I don’t think we understand what that means – and this conflict can come up.

The Old Testament often talks about the blessing of the Lord making rich – how do we deal with that? Because Jesus comes in and says, Blessed is the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

We could say, wait a minute – Deuteronomy says…

And Jesus says – give it all away! Because we are so prosperous, it is hard for us -

Ps. 37:16 Better is the little of the righteous Than the abundance of many wicked.

We would all agree with that! But most of us might think – even better to be righteous and rich! Honest. Because of our world and where we live.

God’s faithfulness cannot and should not be measured in dollar amounts! That is what He is saying here.

Then:

25 I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his descendants begging bread. 26 All day long he is gracious and lends, And his descendants are a blessing.

Now I will ask this: Is this always true in your understanding of the world?

This is a psalm. The experience of one person. Them, explaining their experience. The experience of David.

Let’s look at the Hall of Faith – Hebrews 11 – how God did these amazing things through the heroes’ lives… and there were others…

Hebrews 11 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 38 (people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. (Because they were homeless)

And this is an example, how, of God’s faithfulness? These are people God is admiring and saying, these are my people – and he explains why:

39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.

Do you ever feel like you did not receive what was promised? You are in good company! Because God had provided something better for us.

Apart from us, they would not be made prefect – God is faithful – sometimes He has a much bigger purpose.

Sometimes it is the only way He can do that.

Let’s pray…

Philippians 4:12-13 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.