Discovering Rest When You’re Exhausted Part 2

Psalm 37:1-11

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
April 28, 2024
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

How do I recover my strength?

How do we make a difference? How do we combat? How do I cancel everybody out there? How do I rage against all the sinners out there? Trust the Lord and do good. That’s how we combat it.

Psalm 37:3

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

No, but couldn’t I just tell everybody how I feel, drop something on social media, rage against the republicans or the democrats? Trust the Lord and do good. That’s it.

This word trust, “batah” in the Hebrew, it means to find safety and security in something or someone. Confidence, not in comparison and competition, but in the lord. To trust in him is to find confidence in him. That’s where I want to go, by trusting the Lord and doing good.

Notice what it says, “Do not run scared. We’re not fearful, you don’t escape from the world. Did you catch this? It says, “Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” That is beautiful and that is how we change the world.

How do we recover strength? We do good, embrace a daily, fateful presence, right where God has placed you.

Look at verse four:

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

It is important that we understand this verse. It is not about a pop-culture theology that says, “If I delight myself in the Lord, I’ll get everything I want.” That’s a prosperity gospel of sorts.

Some of us have a transactional relationship with the Lord, a lot more that we realize. We feel, “If I do this or that, God is going to bless me” or “If my kids grow up on church they are going to be solid citizens and they are not going to have any problems.”

We rationalize, “If I follow Jesus I won’t deal with anxiety, if I really pray I’m not going to wrestle with depression.”

As we said a couple of weeks ago, “Coming to Jesus does not mean that all will go well with you, that you’ll have a perfect life.” Coming to Jesus means that whatever you face in life, you have Him and and whatever life brings to you, he is more than enough for you.

The scripture state, “if you delight yourself in the Lord.” What does the word delight mean? This is the word “anek” in the Hebrew. It is a fascinating word and one that is hard to translate. Yes, the word literally means to take pleasure in, to delight in, but the root of the word means “delicate, tender.” This is a romantic word. This is finding real intimacy with a real person, feeling really safe. It is like a couple who delight in each other, meaning that one wishes that her desires to be his desires and his desires to be her desires.

When we become a part of the family of God he gives us his desire and our lives begin to align with His desires.

I would argue this is what prayer is like. Prayer is not, “Lord, give me this, give me that, give me this, give me that. Oh, I’m delighting in you, give me this and give me that.” That’s not prayer. Prayer is, and it was the prayer of Jesus in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

It is imperative that we align ourselves with the purposes of God. How do you know the purposes of God? Through His word. Are you in his word? His spirit speaks to us. We can pray scripture back to the lord, “Lord, I want to pray according to your will.”

Watch this, you pray according to his will, he will answer your prayer 100% of the time. Maybe prayer is about aligning our will with God’s will, instead of asking him for things.

When we delight in him, he gives us his desires and we delight on what he desires as we grow in Him. Some has called this the Christian hedonism- the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence. Agustin had this idea, “Love God and do as you please.” Then he added, “Because the soul trained to love God, the beloved, will never do anything to offend The Beloved.”

To delight in him means that you are going to obey him, otherwise you are not delighting in him. Your will is aligned with him and now you are following him. Therefore, trust, do good, delight in him.

Look at verse 5:

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.

That’s trust, isn’t it? Let him act. Let him bring justice. If the way of your life, the trajectory of your life is to follow him, he will act for you.

Look at verse 6:

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

David remind us, “God is the one who brings justice.” We say, “No, I got to fix this!” No, God will bring justice.

We say, “Am I not supposed to speak…” Yes, but we need to trust in him. So this is where rest is found: God is over all. Bob Marely was right in one of his lyrics: “Every little thing, is gonna be alright.”

Not self-medicating with illicit things of this world, but trusting in the Lord,

Verse 7:

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Stop comparing, be patient, practice restraint, this is trusting in the Lord. This sounds much like Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Here’s another Hebrew word: “Be still” means, “Let your hands hang down.” Be still, stop, rest in him.

No wonder we’re exhausted; we don’t trust the Lord as we should. We don’t delight in him as we should.

So, how did I get so exhausted? Comparison and competition. What can we do to recover our strength? We abide, we delight, we wait on him, we trust in him. You may say, “But isn’t that a redeemed ambition, like go home and take a nap?” My friends, one of the most holy thing that some of us can do today is to go home and take a nap. That’s one of the most obedient things that you can do. We may say, “But aren’t we supposed to work, there is work to do.” Yes, we’re not called to slothful, but there is a time to replenish. Jeff Bezos said, “Life is not about work-life balance, it is a circle. I find that when I am happy at work, I come home more energized. I’m a better husband, a better dad. And when I’m happy at home I come in a better boss, a better colleague.”

Sometimes we’re so exhausted, we can hardly take a step forward. Some of us wrestle with depression, with anxiety. Alan Noble, a professor and theologian has written a new book called “On Getting Out of Bed.” The subtitle of the book is “The gift and burden of living.” He is real honest with anxiety and depression and he said, “Sometimes is just doing the next thing.”

Not just trudging through, you’re actually glorifying God by taking the next step. We may say, “I don’t have enough strength today.” No, but do the next thing. That is enough. That is glorifying God. Like sometimes it is just getting out of bed. Then, I’m going to eat breakfast next. Then I am going to go to work next. I’m going to do the next thing. Some of us here today, you know what I’m talking about.

I want to encourage you that doing the next thing is giving glory to God. You are just honoring him in every way.

Look at verse 8:

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

He is saying when you begin to fret and go after evil, now you’re doing evil. That’s what we see in our culture.

Verse 9:

For the evildoers shall be cut off, (now, this is the pinnacle of the psalm, the crux of the psalm) but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

“Inheriting the land” means that you’ve come home. You’ve come to rest, the place where you belong, that’s the whole analogy here. But it seems like the wicked is prospering for so long, they seem to be winning.

Look at verse 10:

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there (I go to town and he’s gone, in no time).

If we live in light of eternity, if we live in a different kingdom, with a different king, this frees us up, friends, to understand that life is temporary. We don’t have to wrestle or worry about the stuff of the world.

There here it is, verse 11:

But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

That’s where we’re heading, that’s where we want to go. Notice it says, “abundant peace.”

“The meek shall inherit land, what is this like? It sounds like the beatitudes; it sounds like Jesus. Jesus referenced this in the beatitudes in Matthew 5. He said, “those who received gospel rest and peace, those who cease to justify themselves through their work, in all that they are doing, seeking approval of others and performance, those who are trying to validate themselves, but instead find rest in God. Jesus went to the cross for us, he died on the cross for us and resurrected. This is gospel rest and peace, friends, this is what we’re looking for, abundant peace.

Think about David. David is writing this, he is king and the man after God’s own heart, that’s how we know him. David is now an older man. David committed adultery. David had a man murdered. He leveraged his power to abuse a woman and then killed a man. David has blood on his hands. David’s family was being in great disarray. David had multiple wives. He was not always meek. He did not always delight in the Lord; David couldn’t do it.

David is pointing us to another king. David is only an ancestor of an offspring to come, the one who will be the perfect king. Jesus comes and he lives a life perfectly for us because we couldn’t. He did trust the Father; he did delight on him. He did take on justice on himself, he took on the evil of the world to set us free. I can trust in Him; my righteousness, my worth is not found in my competition, my comparison, I don’t have to envy anyone else, because all that I’ve found, I have found in Jesus. We can live this way, but we must come to Jesus.

That’s why we read in Hebrews 4, there was a hope of God’s people to come into the promised land, the inherited land, and some of them didn’t, they were disobedient, don’t be like them. But some of them came and they found ultimate freedom, ultimate peace. Then Joshua talked about another peace to come. David talks about another peace to come and he has come. Peace in found in him, as Hebrews says, “He is our high priest who has come from heaven, died on the cross and he is the one who sympathizes with us in our weakness.” He is the advocate. He is the bridge that stands before God and simple people like us and he wants us to come home, to find peace.

Listen to his invitation again:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.

Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”        Matthew 11:28-30

Christ is our king and the one that can bring abundant peace. We can trust in him today and every day.