Psalm 37, Values, and G. I. Joes

In Psalm 37, David gives the reader five imperatives in order to endure the schemes, attacks, and triumphs of the wicked.

One, trust in Him, because He will not forsake His saints (37.28), because He is a stronghold of salvation to the righteous (37.5), and because He will act (37.5).

Two, delight in Him, for it is from Him that all worthy desires are fully realized (37.4). He is a generous giver (37.25-26), and His salvation is more precious than any earthly thing (37.18).

Three, commit your way to Him, because the Lord establishes the righteous doings of His saints in dazzling display (37.6), and secures their footholds even in treacherous places (37.23-24, 31).  Note that security in the way is found by keping the law of God in the heart (37.31).

Four, be still before Him, because the self-serving malice of evildoers is not worth anxiety or fear (37.8), and it will be by GOD's actiions (not ours) that divine justice will be realized (37.34).

Five, refrain from anger/forsake wrath, because His prescription of justice is far superior to ours (37.13, 28), and because the Lord will provide a peaceful future for a man who practices peace (37.11, 37).

Similarly, the psalm uses five descriptors to characterize the people committed to living according to these standards: meek (37.11), blessed (37.22), righteous (37.26), patient (37.9, 34), and blameless (37.37).  These are qualities of men and women who place their absolute trust and confidence in the Lord.  In contrast to the arrogance of the wicked, who will be humiliated (37.17, 35-36), the humility of the righteous will be exalted, upheld, and lifted up forever (37.17, 19, 24, 29, 34).

What is the ultimate reward for living in this manner?  Written to the Israelite nation, Psalm 37 proclaims "the land" -- the promised inheritance for the descendants of Abraham -- as the prize for faithfulness.  In Matthew 5, Jesus expands this very same promise, citing and modulating David's own words, stating that the meek and blessed shall inherit not "the land," but "the earth" (Matt 5.5).  Different scholars come away with various conclusions as to the purpose of this transition, but either outcome results in the dominion of God's people.  Whether that is over a specific geographical location or over all the Kingdom when He ushers in a new heavens and a new earth, God will establish His faithful ones to co-reign with Jesus in glory (2 Tim 2.12), as heirs adoped into God's family (Gal 4.7).

As I meditate on these things, I can't help but think that the challenge to embracing a Psalm 37 lifestyle is a question of our values.  We must be convinced that what we are committing to is worth it, and then be wholeheartedly devoted to pursuing it.

I can remember a few times as a kid that I really fixated on something.  One time in particular was when my brother and I decided we would save up quarters to buy GI Joe action figures.  These, in particular, were special edition Civil War Joes, and we'd been immersed in Civil War history by our father, who was something of a scholar in that era of American history.  Each Joe was $100, but we wanted them.  So, for something like 12 months, we both saved up change in our sock drawers -- aided significantly by our grandmother, who lived upstairs and would find change when she'd walk her dog.  Back then, she had eyes like a hawk and would frequently bring down the old coffee can full of spare change, enough each time for all three of us grandkids to net something like $25-30 apiece.  When we finally had the money saved up, we had to submit the order form and do some more waiting, because 2-day shipping wasn't a thing back in 1997.  But when those Joes arrived, it was like Christmas Day -- all the waiting and the saving completely paid off.  And because we'd invested so heavily into those toys, we played with them regularly, for years.  But we also took meticulous care of them, so that all the little accessories and pieces are still intact and saved to this day.

In good condition, these babies are going for $160 apiece on e-bay!

I find it so helpful to look back on childhood examples, because everything is so simple for a kid.  As adults, our priorities become so skewed and divided.  My brother and I saw these toys in a magazine, determined to ourselves that they were worth the singular pursuit, and we sacrificed time and energy to obtain them.  We couldn't have afforded those toys AND anything else at the same time, although we were always into Legos and video games too, so these special toys came at the expense of other things we might have wanted.

Why can't I have that kind of unwavering focus for spiritual things?

It's a matter of values, of payoff.  The immediacy of material things makes them attractive.  But its the permanency of the rewards God offers that makes them truly valuable.

In order for us to take the imperatives in Psalm 37 to heart, we each must first determine that placing our trust, commitment, and security in God is worth it.  And then we must remember, as we are committing our way to Him and seeking to be still before Him, that He is still worth it even when our circumstances are screaming the opposite to be true.  And when our anger surges because the wicked prosper and prey upon us, we must seek to see people the way God sees them, and entrust justice to Him, because He is worth it.

God is our just, compassionate, promise-keeping Father.  Those who find their singular treasure in Him will adopt the imperatives David leaves us in Psalm 37, and will ultimately know true, lasting reward.

Repentance

Last summer, I taught my teenage students through concepts, postures, attitudes, and elements of worship found in the Psalms.  We spent one week in particular looking at repentance in Psalm 51, the passage containing David's humble words of contrition, penned after Nathan the prophet confronted him with his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah.  Recently, in our church family's read-through-the-Bible plan, we covered the pages of 2 Samuel, which brought the conversation to mind once again.

It's an age-old refrain, but the gospel truth is timeless on this issue: if David, a "man after God's own heart," could still be loved by God and considered an esteemed servant even after such an egregious descent into sin, then there is tremendous hope for the rest of us.

So here are my take-aways from studying 2 Samuel 11-12 and Psalm 51.  Entire books could be written about each of these bullet points, so I'll attempt to be brief with each.

True repentance isn't just an "I'm sorry;" it involves a genuine appeal for mercy (51.1).  In order to properly repent of wrongdoing, I must acknowledge that I am weak (at fault), and that God is strong (in the right).  I have been morally compromised, but He remains holy.  In other words, I recognize that I am a sinner who should never assume I deserve coddling from a holy God when what I really deserve is eternal damnation.  What I am saying through the repentance process is, “Father, I am a wicked sinner, and I am so thankful that, because of the blood of Jesus, you have not given me what I truly deserve.”  Grace upon grace, such as God liberally gives, demands my humble and contrite repentance after I've fallen into sin.

True repentance involves an accurate understanding of my sin (51.3-4) -- that is, acknowledging whom it is against and whom it affects (2 Sam 11 ~ David’s attempts to hide his sin).  All sin is ultimately against God Himself: in doing wrong, I violate my relationship with God either by harming others or by committing some act of idolatry.  This doesn't mean I can deny my culpability toward other people, but it does demand that I recognize all sin as being ultimately against God at the most fundamental level.  Most people probably tend to assume they are on “good terms” with God because they think of their sin being principally against other people, or simply because they just don't think their sin is that big a deal.

Accurately understanding my sin also means I must acknowledge that I can’t fix my problem on my own (51.2) -- whether by penance, practical behavior changes, or self-flagellation.  Attempting to do so is simply a legalistic attempt to atone for my own wrongdoing.  Rather, acknowledging that my sin is a violation of God's moral law and a direct offense to His holy character, I should confess it to Him as such and trust anew in the blood of Jesus that has made me new and permanently righteous in God's eyes.

True repentance involves an understanding that God loves me deeply, and that it is through this compassion that He disciplines (51.1).  "How can this be?" cries a generation that equates love with tolerance -- overlooking another's flaws without changing them, citing a self-deceiving rhetoric that assumes love should refuse to acknowledge all failure and all shortcoming in the name of acceptance.

God's love is so much greater than such shallow concepts.

Truth #1: God loves me unconditionally (51.1, 7, 9-11, 14).  That means He does love me despite my failures, extending grace to me through His Son's own death on the cross, because I could never fix my wrongdoing to live up to the standard of holiness.  However, (Truth #2), God also loves me enough to change me (51.8, 10).  True, biblical love wants the best for others -- it does love despite failures (unconditionally), but it also seeks to build and correct (not to ignore).  Absolutely we should love others for who they are, despite their flaws, but we should also love them enough to respectfully confront them when they are engaged in sinful, destructive patterns of living.

True repentance involves a change in heart attitude.  Not just after things get better, but as I recognize my errors and begin to walk through the process of repentance.  That means I should accept the Lord's discipline with gratitude (51.8), because it is intended to produce a change.  This is not masochistic.  This is a deep and desperate desire to put sin to death and live in the way God intends.  When things around me are crumbling -- relationships, job opportunities, physical possessions -- instead of falling into panic and trying to fix everything, perhaps I should recognize that maybe God is attempting to bring my attention to some unconfessed sin in my heart.  What He is allowing to happen in my life is either a test of my faith or a test of my spiritual sensitivity toward my own sin.  Although I cannot damage my eternal security, to live with unconfessed, unrepentant sin in my heart is to quench and deny the Spirit at work within me.  God is willing to break me so that I don't remain in such a cold, disconnected state.

Therefore, repentance also means that my joy in having a right-standing relationship with God is restored (51.12).

Repentance involves transparently instructing others so they don’t make the same mistakes I did (51.13).  Because repentance results in my return to proper worship (51.16-19), I believe Christians are called to exhort one another out of our own experience of failure -- for the sake of conviction and encouragement.  In other words, God didn't allow me to walk through sin and failure just to hedge my own soul against repeating those mistakes; I now have an enormous opportunity (I'd argue responsibility) to address these issues in the lives of others.  When we see in others the same telltale signs of temptation and failure that we ourselves experienced, we should be bold and transparent for the sake of steering that follower of Christ away from the pitfalls we know are yawning hungrily in his or her path.  This, of course, requires us to be intentionally attuned to the lives of others within our spheres of influence, to develop compassionate attitudes toward them, and to practice humility in the endeavor.

To conclude, repentance doesn’t much feel like a posture of worship, simply because I'm content with my life the way it is.  In other words, it's far easier to live like my sin is not a big deal.  Dragging my errors out into the light and addressing them is uncomfortable, and the old sin nature I still battle doesn't like it.  Furthermore, when I honestly evaluate my heart against the truths of Scripture, I’m never as good as I thought I was.  I don't like to be confronted with how much work I still have to do -- especially if I don't make it a regular habit to reflect on what God is currently doing in my heart.

Repentance IS a posture of worship, however, because God is glorified by my brokenness over sin (51.17) and by my ongoing struggle against it (Lam 3.22-23).

By way of encouragement, it's important to remember that experiencing temptation and giving into sin are two different things: Jesus experienced more temptation than anyone, but He did not sin (Heb 4.15).  In other words, to feel temptation and to say "no" is to glorify God.  Even if we feel guilty because our hearts still desire to sin, we are still walking in righteousness when we consciously deny sinful desires and work to replace them with holy desires.  Not every experience of worship is a mountaintop celebration: confessing the sinful tendencies we still possess and working to conform them to the image of Christ is worship in the trenches, and it exalts the name of our Savior.

You and I still have work to do, so let's be about our Father's business.

Building a House

As I was meditating today on Psalms 71-72, chapters that together represent the end of David's life and the beginning of Solomon's reign as king, I was brought back to the historical account of the latter monarch's ascent to the throne.

1 Kings 3 states that Solomon "loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father."  He had inherited his father's habits along with his heritage, and resolved at the outset of his kingship to pursue righteousness before God.  Later, 1 Kings 6 records the long-anticipated building of the temple in Jerusalem, and God's promise to Solomon: "If you will continue to walk in my statues and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you... and dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake them."  At the end of that chapter, the writer records that Solomon devoted seven years to complete the project of building the Lord's temple.

The very next verse, the opening words of chapter 7, states, "Solomon was building his own house thirteen years."

Seven years spent on the Lord's temple, as opposed to thirteen years on his own house.

Some would argue that Solomon's eagerness to complete the temple resulted in the disparate time frames.  However, it's a commonly known fact that Solomon, the wisest king who has ever lived, began a slow descent into the lifestyle he would later lament as "striving after the wind" (Ecc 1.17). Even at the beginning of his reign, where his humble request for wisdom earned him God's favor and blessing, Solomon quickly became enticed by the lure of riches, wealth, and status.  He may have completed his appointed task of building the temple, and may even have devoted a lot of time to it (seven years is certainly nothing to scoff at), but he spent even more time perfecting his own palace and reveling in the wealth that would pour into Jerusalem for the entirety of his reign.

Seven years.  Thirteen years.

In personal study, as well as in lesson planning for my teens, I've repeatedly run up against this issue -- that is, the desire for wealth and a comfortable living.  Examples are prevalent throughout the Scriptures.  The very root of American culture -- the "dream the bigger dream" sentiment -- is also a living testament to the fact that there are far too many people in this world who are making a good living but not living well.  There are far too many people who lose themselves in their own financial planning, putting a little extra toward the mortgage each month while making sure there's still enough set aside for a good vacation come August.  These are far too many people who care more about finally putting that addition on their homes than they do about ministry, and far too many who work themselves into oblivion six days a week before claiming Sunday as their rightful own, as a day to sleep until noon, watch ESPN, and maybe -- if they feel ambitious -- do some projects in the garage.  Any of these are the folks who, like Solomon, are "building their own house for 13 years" -- sometimes even literally.  Instead of dedicating themselves to building up their own temples to God -- that is, developing spiritual disciplines and the type of wholeheartedness that God justly desires from those who claim to be His -- most American Christians find themselves balancing their faith in one hand, and their checkbook in the other.  Many of us distract ourselves from what really matters for the Kingdom by stressing how to split our resources between the vacation fund and July's outrageous electric bill.

Can I just be perfectly blunt?  The obsession we have in this culture with making a good living is a misplaced priority, and almost always a hidden idol.

Spending means Hitler wins!

Sometimes "making a good living" can take on the guise of prudent budgeting.  What we call thriftiness can really be a militant obsession with controlling every last cent that enters the bank account, because spending even one penny too much on anything would invalidate everything we've worked for our entire lives, and perhaps even upset the course of nature.

Sometimes "making a good living" looks like a never-ending quest for just a little bit more financial elbow room -- choosing yet another long night of overtime pay when you haven't been home to see your family in nearly 24 hours, just for a little leg-up this month.

Sometimes "making a good living" means we simply make more than we absolutely need to live on, so we have the luxury of owning a shore house and can tithe in excess of 20 or even 30% without feeling the increase.

In any of these circumstances, it's easy to let our money (or lack thereof) manipulate our decisions.  It's simple to let the income dictate how much we can afford to serve in our local church body, how often date night can happen, and even how much sleep we get at night.  If we're not careful, we can follow the alluring promise of a better salary off the narrow and perhaps uncertain financial path God is leading us down, only to find ourselves stuck in the unforgiving quicksand of the corporate ladder.  Even quality financial planning -- something we all should strive to put into practice -- can become a self-sustained savior that we elevate above the provision God promises.

Everyone knows that Jesus likened the probability of a rich man entering heaven to the likelihood of a camel passing through the eye of a needle (Matt 19.24).  Certainly, not many of us would consider ourselves "rich" -- especially not when we have millionaires living in our neighborhoods (seriously, who else can afford the modern "single family" home?).  Those are individuals who clearly make a few more zeroes each month than we do, so they're the ones to whom we can actually apply the Matthew 19 passage.  "Thank God I'm just making a good living, and not exuberantly wealthy like that guy," we think unconsciously, because comparison is the basis of human existence.  "That's not what I'd do with the money if I had it."  And yet, Christ called us to be imitators of Him, not a people who judge our own standing by the well-being of everyone else on our block.

Regardless of whether we're just barely making ends meet or rolling in the dough, any one of us could don the rich young ruler's shoes.  We all love money.  We work so hard to earn it.  To some degree, we all buy into the worldly philosophy that money above all else brings comfort and security.  That's why Jesus identified the love of money as the root of all kinds of evil practices: the evil of loving money doesn't just mean money laundering or grand theft auto.  It also includes the type of idol worship that occurs when my inability to trust Him with a looming financial deficit drives me to wish that I had the job my next-door neighbor does, because then I wouldn't have to worry.  Any time we consider our own well-being above the glorification of our Savior, we have entered the dangerous "love of money" territory, and thereby opened the door for all kinds of potential evil.

Scrooge McDuck: honorary owner of the very first McMansion.

For all of these reasons, I am convinced that making good money should not be the Christian's priority.  Nor, for that matter, should it be something we encourage our children to do.  Nowhere in the Bible does an apostle say “seek sound employment to make enough money to be happy in this life.”  Nowhere does Christ suggest that we structure our lives around our jobs so that the money-making aspect of our lives becomes the most vital point on which all other facets depend.  The Bible does say, however, that we should trust in God’s provision and cast all of our cares upon Him, because He earnestly cares for us.  The Bible does command that we be hard and honest workers in whatever occupation we find ourselves, because in all things we should strive to bring glory to God through our excellence and diligence.  It also teaches that we are merely stewards of the things we "own" -- meaning that the money flowing out of our bank account as quickly as we stuff it back in isn't really ours to begin with.

In that regard, while landing a good job with exceptional pay is certainly not a sin, we would do well to remember that we live no longer for human passions, but for the will of God (1 Pet 4.1-5).  Making good money is a desire tied to living comfortably in an expensive and bankrupt world that values profit and personal benefit above all else.  While providing for our families is unquestionably a God-ordained priority -- one that we should not take lightly -- we more often than not mislabel our drive to succeed as a sacrifice for our loved ones, when really we're trying to bring in just a little more with each paycheck so that we can keep up our hobbies.  That, or we're working all kinds of odd hours to impress the boss, all in an attempt to finally lasso that elusive promotion.  That kind of pursuit is a good sign that we are operating not with eternity in sight.  It's an indicator that our ultimate focus is not heaven, but the present.

Of course, some might delineate between "pursuing wealth" and "making a good living," insisting that they are in fact walking the narrow track between those two extremes.  I'm not claiming there isn't any middle ground.  I am, however, saying that if we make our aim a comfortable living, then we should check our priorities against the Scriptures.  We get offtrack when we place more emphasis on our finances than on the ultimate purpose of living -- that is, to glorify God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as well as we love ourselves.  The fact of the matter is that, if we truly love Him with every fiber of our beings, then we will sacrificially place the needs of others before our own, and the temporal desire for wealth that plagues our culture will naturally find no foothold in our lives.

This post is preachy.  I apologize for the tone, but please understand that it is as much directed at myself as it is an exhortation to anyone who might happen to read it.  I'm a homeowner, a husband, and a full-time ministry employee, and I haven't fully figured this out in my own life yet.  Living modestly and seeking to glorify God with the financial decisions that I make is a difficult process.  Ultimately, I want to be absolutely sure that I'm trusting my well-being to Him above all else, because He is the One who gives and takes away.  In any financial season, I want to practice Job's refrain: "Blessed be the name of the Lord."

I don't want to spend thirteen years building my own house.  I want to devote my time to working on the kingdom.

And that's really the bottom line.

Is it wrong to succeed?  No.  Success can be part of excellence.  Does God bless some with material wealth?  Certainly.  But that is an expression of His overflowing benevolence.  The true blessing He offers is Himself -- not the car we drive, not the dream job we worked years to obtain.  We lose sight of that, because more often than not, financial success is consuming.  It demands our focus and our time, both of which could be better used elsewhere.

One way or another, regardless of where we fall on the scale of wealthiness, we're all builders.  We're all laboring at something.

Some of us are painstakingly plotting the blueprints of our lives, making sure every last detail falls precisely into place, so that we have enough to pay the cable bill and hire the landscapers our cousin recommended, while being sure to put some aside for retirement at the same time.

Some of us are just scraping by right now, without much budge in the budget at all.  So, while we really wish we could afford to build the model with the big front porch and in-ground pool, we'll settle for a roof and four walls while we plan for future investments.  We'll upgrade whenever we finally hit the big time and the money starts to pour in.

Some of us are working on the blueprint that was handed down from the upper management.  That plan is the one that instructs us to build on the foundation that will hold, and to use materials that will weather holy fire.  This is the plan that might seem meager to some, and is probably the most difficult to follow, but it is based entirely on the final result -- a bottom line that was already achieved by the Master Contractor Himself.

We just need to follow carefully in His footsteps.