Rev. Damein Schitter: Hello everyone.
Rev. Damein Schitter: This is Pastor Damian.
Rev. Damein Schitter: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando.
Rev. Damein Schitter: At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
Rev. Damein Schitter: For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom.
Rev. Damein Schitter: Thanks for listening.
Joshua Esquivel: Please join me in the prayer of illumination.
Joshua Esquivel: Heavenly Father, may your word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
Joshua Esquivel: Our scripture today is Psalm 37.
Joshua Esquivel: Fret not yourself because of evildoers.
Joshua Esquivel: Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
Joshua Esquivel: Trust in the Lord and do good.
Joshua Esquivel: Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Joshua Esquivel: Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Joshua Esquivel: Commit your way to the Lord.
Joshua Esquivel: Trust in him and he will act.
Joshua Esquivel: He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday.
Joshua Esquivel: Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
Joshua Esquivel: Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices.
Joshua Esquivel: Refrain from anger and forsake wrath.
Joshua Esquivel: In just a little while, the wicked will be no more.
Joshua Esquivel: Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
Joshua Esquivel: But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.
Joshua Esquivel: The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming.
Joshua Esquivel: The wicked draw the sword and bend their bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright.
Joshua Esquivel: Their sword shall enter their own heart and their bows shall be broken.
Joshua Esquivel: Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.
Joshua Esquivel: The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their heritage will remain forever.
Joshua Esquivel: They are not put to shame in evil times.
Joshua Esquivel: In the days of famine they have abundance, but the wicked will perish.
Joshua Esquivel: The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures they vanish like smoke.
Joshua Esquivel: They vanish away.
Joshua Esquivel: The wicked borrows but does not pay back.
Joshua Esquivel: But the righteous is generous and gives, for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off.
Joshua Esquivel: The steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in his way.
Joshua Esquivel: Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.
Joshua Esquivel: I have been young and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.
Joshua Esquivel: He is ever lending generously and his children becoming a blessing.
Joshua Esquivel: Turn away from evil and do good, so shall you dwell forever, for the Lord loves justice.
Joshua Esquivel: He will not forsake his saints.
Joshua Esquivel: They are preserved forever.
Joshua Esquivel: But the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
Joshua Esquivel: The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.
Joshua Esquivel: The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice.
Joshua Esquivel: The law of his God is in his heart.
Joshua Esquivel: His steps do not slip.
Joshua Esquivel: The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death.
Joshua Esquivel: The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.
Joshua Esquivel: Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land.
Joshua Esquivel: You will look on when the wicked are cut off.
Joshua Esquivel: I have seen a wicked, ruthless man spreading himself like a green laurel tree, but he passed away and behold, he was no more.
Joshua Esquivel: Though I sought him, he could not be found.
Joshua Esquivel: Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace, but transgressors shall be altogether destroyed.
Joshua Esquivel: The future of the wicked shall be cut off.
Joshua Esquivel: The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord.
Joshua Esquivel: He is their stronghold in the time of trouble.
Joshua Esquivel: The Lord helps them and delivers them.
Joshua Esquivel: He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him.
Joshua Esquivel: This is God's word.
Eric Stites: Well, good morning.
Eric Stites: My name is Eric Stites.
Eric Stites: I'm the co-founder of Crosstown Ministries.
Eric Stites: Folklore is that at one point I was a pastor here at New City a long time ago, but it's truly an honor to be here.
Eric Stites: Crosstown Ministries, located in the Paramore community, creating and cultivating a gospel environment where loved people love people that's what we're about.
Eric Stites: I want to say, first of all, thank you.
Eric Stites: I've been up here in the last few weeks.
Eric Stites: You've heard different announcements.
Eric Stites: You guys have provided different supplies for our summer camp, provided fun moments for our summer camp over the past month, and this week camp comes to a close.
Eric Stites: So I want to say thank you for that, but also just thank you.
Eric Stites: I'm here because I'm also a kingdom partner with New City.
Eric Stites: Crosstown Ministries is, and so more than even this summer, a huge thank you for your support of this ministry over many, many years.
Eric Stites: This year is significant for us as well.
Eric Stites: For those of you who don't know um, we purchased the building um and we'll be moving into that building, and so you'll be hearing more about moving day and helping us um do all of that to get ready, and so, uh, just very encouraging all the things um that are that are happening right now in our midst.
Eric Stites: But uh, first and foremost, I just want to have the opportunity to say thanks, so we appreciate you all as I begin this morning.
Eric Stites: Last week I had the privilege of being in Colorado, and though it's really hot here, it's actually hot over there too, and you're a mile closer to the sun, so it feels that way.
Eric Stites: So I thought I was going to get some relief, but I didn't.
Eric Stites: Anyway, I was there with Desire Street Ministries, a group of ministries with like-minded hearts, and they bring us out once a year to get to retreat.
Eric Stites: And so we were there.
Eric Stites: And while we were there, someone had the bright idea of hiking a 14,000 foot mountain, also known as a 14er.
Eric Stites: There's several of them in Colorado, and so me and Sam, my oldest son, decided at 8 pm the night before this little trek was about to happen, that sure, why not?
Eric Stites: We'll go Now.
Eric Stites: If you know anything about this type of thing, that was pretty dumb, because you don't engage in this type of hiking without at least a little bit of a preparation, of which we had none.
Eric Stites: Why?
Eric Stites: Because you can't breathe.
Eric Stites: There's no oxygen that high.
Eric Stites: That's why you don't do it.
Eric Stites: A little cross-cultural joke here.
Eric Stites: This is the stuff white people do.
Eric Stites: All right, you're welcome.
Eric Stites: All right, so we get up at 4 am, get to the trail at 5 am.
Eric Stites: Mind you, again, I'm not prepared, didn't even get the right rest the night before.
Eric Stites: I don't have the right gear.
Eric Stites: I'm wearing old workout shoes that are worn out, have no traction.
Eric Stites: I'm wearing sweatpants and a hoodie.
Eric Stites: I'm not prepared for any of this.
Eric Stites: Meanwhile, you get on the trail and people look like they've prepared for this thing their whole life.
Eric Stites: So they have, you know, the backpack with, like the water coming out, and hiking boots and the right pants that you know tear off when you get too hot and all this type of stuff.
Eric Stites: And so a little intimidated there at the beginning.
Eric Stites: So we start the trail.
Eric Stites: The beginning of this trail looks like any trail you've ever seen.
Eric Stites: Honestly, it would be something you could see in Florida, where you just walk in and you're just walking into trees.
Eric Stites: You have no idea where this is all heading.
Eric Stites: You have no idea you're heading to the top of a 14,000-foot mountain and might regret every step you take.
Eric Stites: So the first mile of what would be a nine-mile hike and this was supposed to be the easy part.
Eric Stites: Me and a group of others were already done and couldn't breathe and I thought, well, this is not going well.
Eric Stites: And so we keep going, we take breaks.
Eric Stites: But about in the second mile there was a few of us that you know.
Eric Stites: I looked around and saw someone struggling and honestly panicking because they couldn't breathe and they weren't really talking, to say, hey, can you guys stop?
Eric Stites: And so I said, hey, listen, I'm going to help you.
Eric Stites: I'm joking a little bit.
Eric Stites: I've done some difficult hikes so I kind of at least know a little bit about what I was doing.
Eric Stites: And so I said I'm going to intentionally help you guys Let the rest of the group go ahead and I'm going to make sure we're proactive and intentional and all we're going to do is we're going to commit ourselves to a way right now.
Eric Stites: We're going to commit ourselves to a way.
Eric Stites: Right now we're going to commit ourselves to hiking about 50 steps, stopping catching our breath, taking another 50 steps, stopping catching our breath, and that's the only way this is going to work, or you and I aren't going to make it to the top of this mountain.
Eric Stites: And so this is exactly what we did, and I don't really know how long this took Sam would probably tell you better because he was in the group ahead.
Eric Stites: So they kept looking back at us like, oh, I feel sorry for them.
Eric Stites: They're like at the top and we're like five hours behind them basically.
Eric Stites: And so I think for maybe four to five hours no exaggeration there this is what we did, one step at a time, and I kept asking everybody, hey, are you guys all right?
Eric Stites: And one guy just kept saying yes, I'm determined.
Eric Stites: And he would point, because I'm going up there, that's where we're headed.
Eric Stites: I said all right, and at that point we didn't even really know where we were going, couldn't even see the top of the mountain.
Eric Stites: It looked a little bit like this, so you can see, there's a path, there's people and not really sure where the top of the mountain was, and we just kept hoping it's got to be over there somewhere.
Eric Stites: And we kept going and kept going.
Eric Stites: And so the last part of this thing is switchbacks.
Eric Stites: Now, if you've ever done hiking before, switchbacks are there supposedly to be your friend, because the idea is you can't go straight up, so you're going to go, like this, up the whole thing.
Eric Stites: So you walk about what feels like 10 miles to go one mile up.
Eric Stites: And so we get through this one tiny little switchback at a time and we get to the top of this plateau and there's a view, but we still weren't at the top.
Eric Stites: We weren't at the top yet.
Eric Stites: So I get a phone call.
Eric Stites: I don't know how that worked, but I got a phone call and it was Sam.
Eric Stites: He said I didn't get it, so it was a voicemail later, but Sam says hey, dad, we're at the top.
Eric Stites: I hope you make it All right, sam, I'm working on it, buddy.
Eric Stites: So at that point I'm not going to lie I left the straggling group behind because I said it's time for me to put on the gas and get here.
Eric Stites: So I had a lot left in the tank because we've been going pretty slow, and so I literally ran up the rest of the mountain.
Eric Stites: Now this part of the mountain is boulders, no path, there's no way, there's no defined way of how to get to the top.
Eric Stites: And about halfway up, the rest of the group's coming down and I saw Sam and I said Sam, will you please go to the top with me?
Eric Stites: Will you turn back around and do this again, basically.
Eric Stites: And so, sure enough, sam being the 12 year old, with all the youthfulness, turned right around and went up to the top, and so this is what was at the top, all right, so Mount Yale, 14,000 feet, now, of course, like any picture doesn't do it justice, um, but we were on top of the world, um is what it felt like, and uh and so, uh, as we, as we stood there, um, we took it in, we took in the view that we had, and all I can say is, when I got to the top and we looked around, I had a new set of glasses on for the world, right, there's a way in which, you know, five or six hours earlier, we were looking up at peaks that now we were looking down at.
Eric Stites: We were looking up at peaks that now we were looking down at, literally seeing for probably hundreds of miles in every direction.
Eric Stites: And so what I knew is that when I got there, I had this new set of glasses on, and if I had had these glasses on when I started this whole thing, it would have changed how I walked through the whole thing.
Eric Stites: You see, the end determines how you walk through the beginning, and so I would have known that I'm not just walking to walk.
Eric Stites: I'm not just breathless to be breathless, I'm not stopping and starting just to wait.
Eric Stites: I was committing myself to a way because I knew what was coming at the end.
Eric Stites: So what about you?
Eric Stites: What glasses do you have on today?
Eric Stites: Do you only see the here and now?
Eric Stites: Do you just see the trees and the path and you wonder well, maybe it's just time to turn around because this isn't worth it.
Eric Stites: Maybe it's time to just give up.
Eric Stites: Maybe you think I don't know where this is going and it doesn't seem worth it.
Eric Stites: Maybe it's time to just give up.
Eric Stites: Maybe you think I don't know where this is going and it doesn't seem worth it.
Eric Stites: Well, I want to encourage you this morning.
Eric Stites: I want to give you a different set of glasses to see that, as a believer, your future hope, my future hope, shapes how you live your present life, and this is the summary of Psalm 37.
Eric Stites: See, psalm 37 lives in that collision between the here and now and the there and then.
Eric Stites: It teaches us that when we can't see where all this is heading, we need to get a new pair of glasses because we're not seeing it right.
Eric Stites: So I want to encourage you all today take out your scriptures, let's put on a new set of glasses.
Eric Stites: So the first point this morning is looking back, David's reflections.
Eric Stites: Looking back on David's reflections.
Eric Stites: So we're gonna go all the way back to the beginning of the Psalm.
Eric Stites: You guys have been here.
Eric Stites: If you've been here, you know we've been preaching on the Psalm for about four weeks.
Eric Stites: What else could we possibly say?
Eric Stites: Right, and I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning of the psalm, because the beginning of the psalm is not fret, not yourself.
Eric Stites: The beginning of the psalm is of David, of David.
Eric Stites: You see, he's writing as an older man.
Eric Stites: He says in verse 25, I was young, but now I'm old, and so this whole Psalm is a reflection on his whole life.
Eric Stites: And he's dropping wisdom on the youngins, letting them know what the truth is.
Eric Stites: No cap, you're welcome.
Eric Stites: My kids are sitting right here.
Eric Stites: That was all for them.
Eric Stites: They don't even realize what I just said because they're not paying attention.
Eric Stites: But that's true.
Eric Stites: All right, sam, heard me.
Eric Stites: All right, that's Gen Z for you.
Eric Stites: No cap, I'm not lying.
Eric Stites: Okay, that's what that means.
Eric Stites: So if I was to summarize this whole reflection, it's just that your future shapes your present, and David is looking to a day in his life that has not yet come, but he is looking to that day with absolute certainty that it will come at some point.
Eric Stites: And so, simply put, when he looks at his whole life, it looks like the fight between righteousness and wicked is happening and the wicked are winning.
Eric Stites: And so in here now.
Eric Stites: It just doesn't seem fair.
Eric Stites: But the Lord is giving David a new set of glasses.
Eric Stites: If you read through the Psalm 12 times, david a new set of glasses.
Eric Stites: If you read through the Psalm 12 times, the word will shows up not like my life is my will, but will like something will happen.
Eric Stites: It's both a certainty that it's going to happen and he's acknowledging that it hasn't happened yet but it will in the future.
Eric Stites: David is future focused.
Eric Stites: As David looks back on his life and shares wisdom, he is saying if you don't have an absolute truth type of understanding of the future, your life right now is going to feel like pure chaos and you'll make decisions out of that chaos.
Eric Stites: But if you know the future that is coming, you'll walk through this life in peace and making sound decisions.
Eric Stites: So what is that future?
Eric Stites: How do we get there?
Eric Stites: Well, it's certainly not rooted in David, and he knows that it's not rooted in his ability to make something happen.
Eric Stites: It's rooted in the Lord and his attributes, who he is and his actions, what he will do.
Eric Stites: Because it says over and over again what he will do, because it says over and over again.
Eric Stites: By summary, I would say that the righteous no-transcript.
Eric Stites: And so, knowing all that, it changes how David lives in each moment.
Eric Stites: Now, as we reflect back on David's life, I want to just acknowledge something real quickly in the Psalms that honestly sometimes bothers me it's a little bit of an elephant in the room and that is that David writes in this kind of black and white type of way where he's able to somehow basically say, hey, there's righteous people and there's wicked people, and I'm going to let you know what happens to both.
Eric Stites: But it kind of begs this question like, well, who are those people, who are the righteous and who are the wicked?
Eric Stites: And it'd be easy to assume that David just says well, I'm the righteous one, I'm writing the story right.
Eric Stites: But when you look carefully at Psalm 37, it's very interesting.
Eric Stites: David actually never claims to be either one.
Eric Stites: What David does claim is to be an observer of life.
Eric Stites: I've seen this happen.
Eric Stites: I've seen that the righteous are not forsaken.
Eric Stites: I've seen what happens for the wicked.
Eric Stites: Why?
Eric Stites: Well, if you know David's story, you know good and well he knows that he's been a part of the righteous and the wicked story.
Eric Stites: You know good and well he knows that he's been a part of the righteous and the wicked.
Eric Stites: So what's David's life?
Eric Stites: Let's take just a quick look back over his life as he writes Psalm 37.
Eric Stites: What is he possibly talking about?
Eric Stites: So we know, david the giant slayer kills Goliath, and no one else in Israel would do that.
Eric Stites: Everyone was too scared.
Eric Stites: And so King Saul, at the time, when he sees David do this, he praises him for it.
Eric Stites: He brings them into close, gives them a high rank in the army.
Eric Stites: And then what happens?
Eric Stites: Women start giving praise to David and Saul, but they give David a little bit more praise.
Eric Stites: Right, so Saul killed his thousands.
Eric Stites: Raise, right, so Saul killed his thousands, but David, he killed his tens of thousands.
Eric Stites: And what happens?
Eric Stites: Saul said I ain't having any of that.
Eric Stites: So jealous and envy stir up in Saul's heart, and so he fears David.
Eric Stites: And so what this sets off is this whole long story of Saul pursuing David and David going on the run.
Eric Stites: And so you can see in this way where some of Psalm 37, that tension of I'm trying to do the right thing and yet it seems like even my friend is against me.
Eric Stites: And so, multiple times, david has the opportunity to take Saul out.
Eric Stites: You know this story right.
Eric Stites: There's this one time when Saul's in a cave going to the bathroom and David's in the cave as well and has this moment he could take him out, but instead he realizes no, this is not right, and so I'm not going to do it, cuts off a piece of the robe and lets him know hey, I was this close.
Eric Stites: And then again it happens where David had a moment to take Saul out.
Eric Stites: While he's in his camp asleep Nobody was defending him goes and steals the sword that's right by his head, but instead of killing Saul, he takes the sword with him and lets him know once again, I had the opportunity to take you out.
Eric Stites: And David's own words were the Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness.
Eric Stites: All right, so in all these moments you can see David seems to be on that righteous side.
Eric Stites: Crazy thing the very next chapter of scripture, when you're reading David's story, opens with these scary words and David thought to himself.
Eric Stites: And what happens after that?
Eric Stites: What happens after that is David devises this plan that he's gonna go hang out among the Philistines, the very same people where Goliath came from, the very same people that seem to be the thorn in Israel's side.
Eric Stites: David's like, hey, saul's gonna keep pursuing me, so I'm gonna go hang out with these people, hide out for a little while until Saul forgets about me.
Eric Stites: And that's exactly what he does.
Eric Stites: So much so that the scripture says he became so obnoxious to his people, the Israelites, that he, talking about David, will be my servant for life.
Eric Stites: That's where David ended up, a chapter after realizing the righteousness that the Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness.
Eric Stites: So in one chapter, he goes from the hero of trusting the Lord and to deliver him from the hands of his enemy to running away in fear, not trusting the Lord, thinking to himself Can't you hear the tension of Psalm 37?
Eric Stites: The Lord is going to uphold the righteous and take down the wicked, but right here, right now, david's like I don't see that happening.
Eric Stites: I don't see it, so I'm going to take matters into my own hands, without God.
Eric Stites: And the story goes on.
Eric Stites: David continues to think to himself at different points in life, right Even after he's king, david decides when all the kings are out to war.
Eric Stites: The famous story right, he hangs back, sees a woman that he desires, and so he uses his power, his influence, commits adultery with her, then tries to cover it up with the husband.
Eric Stites: That doesn't work, and so he has the husband killed.
Eric Stites: Now where does that fall in the righteous and the wicked that David so easily separates in Psalm 37?
Eric Stites: Sounds more like the wicked lie in wait for the righteous, intent on putting them to death.
Eric Stites: So in one moment, david and Saul sound similar, and we could go on and on.
Eric Stites: My point is there's a couple of things from David's life, as he reflects on his own life, that we need to see.
Eric Stites: David knew what it was like to watch the wicked prosper, even as he did the right thing, even those who were supposed to be on his side and you know this friendly fire's the worst.
Eric Stites: And David felt that he also knew what it was like to have the Lord save him when he was making dumb mistakes.
Eric Stites: So he knew what it was like to be wicked, but then, like it says in Psalm 37, to have his steps established.
Eric Stites: Though he fall, he will not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.
Eric Stites: What is that?
Eric Stites: God's grace?
Eric Stites: That's what David knew.
Eric Stites: And David knew, ultimately, that justice doesn't lie in his hand.
Eric Stites: It lies in the hands of the Lord.
Eric Stites: When he kept taking justice into his own hands, what happened?
Eric Stites: Big old mess.
Eric Stites: But when he entrusted it to the Lord, he waited.
Eric Stites: And so, through all this, david is showing us what a different pair of glasses looks like.
Eric Stites: You're living here and now, but you're looking forward, future focused, and so when he looks into the future, it doesn't make sense right now, but he sees all things being made right, justice being done for all the injustice, but it doesn't even happen in his own lifetime.
Eric Stites: So we look back, we look at David's life, his reflection.
Eric Stites: We get the tension of what Psalm 37 sets up for us.
Eric Stites: But now, what do you do in the meantime?
Eric Stites: What did David do in the meantime while he was waiting?
Eric Stites: What do we do in the meantime when you're waiting for the attention of Psalm 37 to eventually resolve itself?
Eric Stites: Well, that's the second point for today, which is you look now, commit your way.
Eric Stites: Look now and commit your way.
Eric Stites: Verses three through nine have a lot of commands, things like trust in the Lord, delight yourself in the Lord, be still before the Lord, wait for the Lord.
Eric Stites: Verse five, I think, sums it all up Commit your way to the Lord.
Eric Stites: And this is a summary of all the other ones.
Eric Stites: But you see, the word way is something we use as kind of like this abstract word.
Eric Stites: You know, commit your way.
Eric Stites: I don't know what that means, but in Hebrew that word's very physical, very tangible.
Eric Stites: It's the word we use for road.
Eric Stites: So in other words, commit the road of your life to the Lord.
Eric Stites: You see, the danger of all these commands trust in the Lord, delight, be still, wait is they become trite sayings that we put on bumper stickers and on our fridge magnets and we look at them occasionally and say, sure, trusting in the Lord, and they become meaningless.
Eric Stites: What we need to see is that what made David righteous, what made David a man after God's own heart and light of all the mess that he would make in his life, was not first the moral decisions he made.
Eric Stites: He made a lot of sinful, not first the moral decisions he made.
Eric Stites: He made a lot of sinful, evil decisions.
Eric Stites: He also made morally good decisions, but that's not what made him righteous.
Eric Stites: What made him righteous was committing the road of his life to the Lord.
Eric Stites: What made him righteous was seeing himself accurately, knowing who God made him to be, allowing his sin to be exposed.
Eric Stites: So when Nathan came up to him, tells him his whole story and parable to describe and get David to see what he had done.
Eric Stites: David says you should kill that man.
Eric Stites: And Nathan said you're right, it's you.
Eric Stites: And what is David's response?
Eric Stites: No, it's not me.
Eric Stites: No, I've sinned against the Lord.
Eric Stites: This is what committing the road of your life to the Lord looks like.
Eric Stites: So what about us?
Eric Stites: I want to dig into how.
Eric Stites: How do you commit?
Eric Stites: What does this really mean?
Eric Stites: I don't want us to just say that.
Eric Stites: I want it to mean something.
Eric Stites: So one thing I want us to see is that in Psalm 37, the word Lord shows up 17 times.
Eric Stites: Now, the word Lord is the name that God has given to us.
Eric Stites: That makes him personal.
Eric Stites: It's not just God, it's the Lord.
Eric Stites: And I want to challenge you, because I think some of us know how to trust God, but we don't know how to trust the Lord, and I say that a little tongue in cheek.
Eric Stites: I know that you might say the same, but listen to what I'm saying.
Eric Stites: Some of us trust God like he's an abstract truth, like he's this big thing out there that's not really knowable, and when we think of him in that way, it's what turns trust and committing and delighting into a bumper sticker or a fridge magnet.
Eric Stites: We go through life, the ups and downs, and we know the truth in our heads, but it doesn't seem to matter for right now.
Eric Stites: Instead, the invitation is trust the Lord, the Lord who's given us his personal name, because he's a personal, knowable, alive today, approachable God, and this means he's intimately involved in the details of your life and my life, if we're aware.
Eric Stites: You see, I think self-awareness is one of the things that David was best at, and self-awareness is the key.
Eric Stites: If you don't know yourself, you can't commit your way to the Lord.
Eric Stites: Now, some of you are like that sounds like some modern psychological nonsense.
Eric Stites: I hear you, I hear you, but I'm in good company.
Eric Stites: One for all of you Calvinists, all right, you can't.
Eric Stites: Oh, my goodness, you can't laugh at that one, it's all right, he's okay.
Eric Stites: He said the beginning of the institutes in order to know God, you have to know yourself, like I see who's really, really Presbyterian, and in order to know yourself, you got to know God.
Eric Stites: So hey, at least I'm with Calvin, all right, but guess what?
Eric Stites: I'm also with scripture.
Eric Stites: You flip all the way back to the beginning of the book.
Eric Stites: Self-knowledge goes all the way back to the garden, when God made man in his own image, and that he made man naked and unashamed and said this was good.
Eric Stites: So the foundation of a relationship with God is coming to him with your whole self, with nothing in the way.
Eric Stites: This is what David did consistently.
Eric Stites: This is what it means to commit your way to the Lord so quickly.
Eric Stites: I just want to run through three things.
Eric Stites: I believe that scripture here in Psalm 37, gives us, shows us that we need to commit our emotions to him.
Eric Stites: And now you're like oh, all right, eric, I didn't even go to seminary for counseling, I promise All right.
Eric Stites: Emotions are all over the Bible.
Eric Stites: They're not good, they're not bad, they just are.
Eric Stites: What we do with them is what leads us astray, and so our emotions.
Eric Stites: Oftentimes we have a temptation with them.
Eric Stites: We either squash them so we don't feel anything until they come out in this volcano of brokenness, or we allow our emotions to run wild and make every decision for us out of brokenness, or we just try to fix the bad emotions and make them good, and that's all nonsense.
Eric Stites: The invitation from scripture is commit your emotions to the Lord.
Eric Stites: Why?
Eric Stites: Because they're a road to him.
Eric Stites: They're a road to him.
Eric Stites: What I love about the Psalms is they show us exactly how to do that.
Eric Stites: I love the Psalms because they give us permission to say things like where are you, god, why are you so downcast?
Eric Stites: To say things like where are you, god?
Eric Stites: Why are you so downcast, oh my soul?
Eric Stites: The Psalms give us permission to say why don't you dash their babies on the rocks right?
Eric Stites: And we look at that and say what is that about?
Eric Stites: That's called anger, and it's not actually happening.
Eric Stites: But David's showing us this is what it is to live with the Lord in the midst of all of that.
Eric Stites: So instead of I know I'm not supposed to be afraid, lord, I'm afraid right now.
Eric Stites: Instead of I know I'm not supposed to be angry, I want to rip that person's head off right now.
Eric Stites: Instead of I know I'm not supposed to be sad, lord, I kind of wish I wasn't here right now.
Eric Stites: Instead of I know I'm not supposed to be ashamed, lord.
Eric Stites: I'm so ashamed of myself instead of.
Eric Stites: I know I'm not supposed to hate Lord, I'm really struggling right now to love this person.
Eric Stites: I could go on and on.
Eric Stites: Derek Kidner, in his commentary on this psalm, calls this a deliberate redirection of your emotions.
Eric Stites: Deliberate redirection of your emotions.
Eric Stites: Where are they going?
Eric Stites: Commit your way to the Lord.
Eric Stites: Give your emotions to him.
Eric Stites: Now, men, men in the room, you're like dude, I don't know what you're talking about.
Eric Stites: Right now, I don't feel a thing.
Eric Stites: Yes, you do so.
Eric Stites: If I got in your car right now and we went on I-4 and I got someone to cut you off, I bet I could get you to be emotional.
Eric Stites: If we went to a game together and your favorite team was losing, I bet I could get you to be emotional.
Eric Stites: If I went up to you and disrespected you and your family, I bet I could get you to be emotional.
Eric Stites: You have emotions.
Eric Stites: Don't lie to yourself.
Eric Stites: You just need to dig deep and find out where they are and where they're directed and commit your way to the Lord.
Eric Stites: All right.
Eric Stites: So the second thing commit your emotions, commit your circumstances to the Lord.
Eric Stites: When we see the realities David is talking about in Psalm 37,.
Eric Stites: It's very tempting for us to take those circumstances into our own hands and make them right.
Eric Stites: Think about your own life, what you got going on.
Eric Stites: Where are the circumstances, where are the things that you want to see fixed?
Eric Stites: The temptation is to take them into your own hands and say I'm gonna fix this right.
Eric Stites: When you study David's life, you see two things happen.
Eric Stites: One David thought to himself.
Eric Stites: Two David inquired of the Lord.
Eric Stites: Two very different approaches and two very different results.
Eric Stites: When David thinks to himself, he commits adultery.
Eric Stites: When David inquires of the Lord, an army of the Lord marches out from balsam trees and takes out his enemy before he even has to do anything.
Eric Stites: It's a big, big difference.
Eric Stites: Are you going to take your circumstances into your own hands or are you going to wait on the Lord?
Eric Stites: Be still like David says.
Eric Stites: You see, for our American lives, waiting sounds ridiculous, but I'm here to tell you that waiting is working.
Eric Stites: We need to get better at the work of waiting.
Eric Stites: See, our culture is built on.
Eric Stites: I'm going to make things happen because I work hard.
Eric Stites: You will not cross me, because I'm going to fix that.
Eric Stites: That's American.
Eric Stites: Now, of course, I'm not talking about don't get a job because you're just waiting to feel motivated, and all that type of stuff.
Eric Stites: That's the generation underneath me.
Eric Stites: That's not good, all right.
Eric Stites: No, I'm talking about when you see an injustice, as David sees, you commit those circumstances to the Lord.
Eric Stites: You struggle with him in the weight.
Eric Stites: God, why aren't you doing anything right now?
Eric Stites: Why haven't you shown up to fix this?
Eric Stites: Rather than I got this, I'm gonna fix this on my own.
Eric Stites: Commit your emotions.
Eric Stites: Commit your circumstances.
Eric Stites: The last thing is commit your desires to the Lord.
Eric Stites: Verse four I love this verse, one of the most cherry picked verses in this whole thing.
Eric Stites: Though.
Eric Stites: Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Eric Stites: Oh, that sounds so sweet, right.
Eric Stites: And so what do we do?
Eric Stites: We take that verse and we say, oh man, all right.
Eric Stites: So basically, god cares about what I want to do, so he's just going to give me what I want If I just kind of ask him for it and all this type of stuff.
Eric Stites: Look at the rest of the Psalm.
Eric Stites: It ain't got nothing to do with that.
Eric Stites: It's about wicked people prospering and waiting for the righteous to get their reward.
Eric Stites: That it would shine like the dawn right.
Eric Stites: So the reality is.
Eric Stites: You and I are hardwired to desire things right, but, like our emotions, when we take our desires and we follow them without being connected to the Lord, we make really bad decisions.
Eric Stites: David clearly desired Bathsheba, but this was not a good thing.
Eric Stites: So when you read, delight yourself in the Lord.
Eric Stites: He will give you desires of your heart.
Eric Stites: Make sure you temper it with that reality.
Eric Stites: He followed that desire without the Lord.
Eric Stites: But David clearly also desired to kill Saul when he had a chance.
Eric Stites: But he followed that desire with the Lord and said that's not the right thing to do right now.
Eric Stites: See, we can desire godly things, we can desire evil things.
Eric Stites: So what do you do with the desire?
Eric Stites: You share them.
Eric Stites: You share that desire godly or evil with the Lord in his presence.
Eric Stites: Instead, what do we do?
Eric Stites: Kill that thing If it's bad.
Eric Stites: Right, shouldn't want that.
Eric Stites: It's bad, so we try to do away with it.
Eric Stites: But what we actually need to do is follow that desire all the way to his conclusion.
Eric Stites: Because guess what's at the end?
Eric Stites: The Lord.
Eric Stites: The Lord is at the end.
Eric Stites: He's the one that when we follow those desires, we find him.
Eric Stites: As the conclusion, we'll find that our desires are ultimately leading us back to worship Right Worship of the one who made us Now summarize all this.
Eric Stites: You know, I moved into Paramore 12 years ago and I have a coach who I've been with for several years and over the course of time, right, I've had this.
Eric Stites: You know, you have this whole goal of what you're going to do and you know all these amazing things that are going to happen and you're trusting the Lord and as time goes along, you start to see, man, this ain't working out like I thought it was going to right.
Eric Stites: There's hard things.
Eric Stites: It's not as easy as you might have thought it was going to be.
Eric Stites: Difficult things happen.
Eric Stites: People pass away.
Eric Stites: Ministry is tough, right?
Eric Stites: My coach would tell me hey, eric, the only reason you're there is so that God could be with you, so that God could strip away whatever strategy, whatever good idea you thought you had about how this was going to work, so that he could just have you.
Eric Stites: So, over the past 12 years, committing my emotions, my circumstances, desires, what I'm sharing with you right now has been the path of life that God has called me on, and so this has never happened.
Eric Stites: If someone ever asked me to teach a class on how do you do ministry, no one's asking.
Eric Stites: But if they did, I would say I'm not going to do that.
Eric Stites: But I will teach you a class on how to be intimate with the Lord.
Eric Stites: Do something hard.
Eric Stites: Let him strip it all away and realize that you still have him.
Eric Stites: Commit your way to the Lord.
Eric Stites: So we got to look back at David's life.
Eric Stites: We have to look now.
Eric Stites: Commit your way.
Eric Stites: And then we got to look forward to a future hope.
Eric Stites: Look forward to a future hope.
Eric Stites: The famous theologian Ben Kant, in prepping for this.
Eric Stites: He's not here so I can say that, ben, when you listen to the podcast you're welcome.
Eric Stites: As we were prepping for the sermon series, he let us know there's this like elusive theme in here that binds the whole psalm together and he said it's verse 37.
Eric Stites: The whole Psalm together and he said it's verse 37.
Eric Stites: There is a future for the man of peace.
Eric Stites: You see, the future is God's going to make all the wrong things right.
Eric Stites: Where there is an injustice, he's going to bring justice.
Eric Stites: You hear it In just a little while, the wicked will be no more.
Eric Stites: The Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees their day coming.
Eric Stites: The sword of the wicked will enter their own heart.
Eric Stites: The wicked will at the wicked, for he sees their day coming.
Eric Stites: The sword of the wicked will enter their own heart.
Eric Stites: The wicked will perish like smoke.
Eric Stites: They vanish away.
Eric Stites: The wicked seem to be growing like a beautiful tree, but eventually they pass away and, on the flip side, the meek shall inherit the land.
Eric Stites: The blameless will remain forever.
Eric Stites: They will not be put to shame.
Eric Stites: Though the wicked try to bring the righteous down, the Lord will not abandon them in their time of need.
Eric Stites: There is a future for the man of peace.
Eric Stites: What about us?
Eric Stites: Here's the thing.
Eric Stites: What David was looking forward to was certain, but it was blurry.
Eric Stites: He didn't have the glasses on that we have on now.
Eric Stites: He didn't know how it was all going to work out.
Eric Stites: He just knew it was going to work out.
Eric Stites: But we live in the reality that the salvation of the Lord has already come in Jesus Christ.
Eric Stites: It's different.
Eric Stites: We have a different set of glasses on.
Eric Stites: You see, god puts skin on, born to a teen mom in the Middle East, incarnated as Jesus the Messiah, into a broken world where the wicked seem to be prospering.
Eric Stites: He comes with a salvation that comes from the Lord that Psalm 37 talks about, but it's a salvation they weren't expecting.
Eric Stites: He doesn't take down the oppressors with a sword.
Eric Stites: He overcomes evil with love.
Eric Stites: He looks at God's people.
Eric Stites: He looks at the enemies of God's people.
Eric Stites: He says guess what?
Eric Stites: Y'all all need the same thing you need forgiveness and you need redemption from your sin and brokenness.
Eric Stites: So guess what?
Eric Stites: Jesus set his face on the future, set his face on the cross, said I'm walking towards that, and lived his life in light of where he was going, so that his love takes on the form of self-sacrifice so he could bring about a future hope that was better than anyone's wildest dreams.
Eric Stites: He said trust in me, trust in my work, trust in my sacrifice.
Eric Stites: So on the cross, he says it is finished, what's finished?
Eric Stites: He's dealt the final death blow to all that Psalm 37 is talking about and he's looking forward to the day when it's all going to be made.
Eric Stites: Right?
Eric Stites: I came to New City as a seminary student in 2010.
Eric Stites: I remember being captivated by the vision of a new city.
Eric Stites: Right, justin already said it you flip to the end of the book.
Eric Stites: You find out what's going on.
Eric Stites: Some of y'all, that's how you read books.
Eric Stites: You decide whether or not you want to read it.
Eric Stites: What's going on, some of y'all, that's how you read books.
Eric Stites: You decide whether or not you want to read it.
Eric Stites: Well, when you read the end for us it's good, it's really, really good and what you find is Revelation 21,.
Eric Stites: A holy city.
Eric Stites: That's why I had us read this this morning New Jerusalem coming down, a place where there's no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain, more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain.
Eric Stites: God wipes away every tear and we have the fullness of God's presence with us.
Eric Stites: I also remember being captivated by the fact that New City was one word.
Eric Stites: Now, some of y'all need to get that right when you write things down.
Eric Stites: All right, now, I don't know, things have changed.
Eric Stites: I haven't really been around, okay, but I remember thinking well, this is dumb, it's two words.
Eric Stites: But then I realized there was intentionality there.
Eric Stites: Why?
Eric Stites: Because the church sits in this unique place, at the collision between heaven and earth, between the here and now and the then and there.
Eric Stites: And so, as we even sit here in this building, we're living in a real city, orlando, and you can feel as you walk out the doors that there's this collision of the new and the city.
Eric Stites: Sometimes the city part seems like it's winning and the newness feels really far away.
Eric Stites: Maybe it's even non-existent.
Eric Stites: But this truth is, the new is coming.
Eric Stites: Now I wanna say something real quick.
Eric Stites: If you don't know Christ, I wanna make sure you understand that you don't actually have this hope that I'm talking about right now, and that's a real thing.
Eric Stites: Whatever hope you might have, you got the wrong glasses on.
Eric Stites: It's a mirage.
Eric Stites: Those glasses will deceive you, and so I want you to implore you got the wrong glasses on.
Eric Stites: It's a mirage.
Eric Stites: Those glasses will deceive you, and so I want you to implore you to explore what is committing my way to the Lord about to have a future hope like that where everything really is made right.
Eric Stites: But the truth is, for all of us, the new is already here, and the best new is still yet to come.
Eric Stites: And so if you're trusting in Christ right now, you have an anchor for your soul.
Eric Stites: Your future shapes your present life.
Eric Stites: You have hope of where this world is going, you have hope of where you are going, and you have hope that you are with the Lord now.
Eric Stites: You will be with him forever in this new city.
Eric Stites: Martin Luther King, his last speech on this earth sermon.
Eric Stites: Essentially he said things like we're not going to let any dogs or water hoses turn us around, we're not going to let any injunction turn us around.
Eric Stites: He said I don't know what will happen now.
Eric Stites: We've got some difficult days ahead of us but it doesn't really matter with me now, because I've been to the where, to the mountaintop.
Eric Stites: I've been to the mountaintop and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land.
Eric Stites: I may not get there with you, but we will get there and I'm not worried about anything because mine eyes have seen what, the glory of the Lord.
Eric Stites: The next day he lost his life, assassinated for all that he was speaking about, but we know the impact that he had that we can be so heavenly minded that we are of immensely earthly good.
Eric Stites: Where are you looking?
Eric Stites: What is shaping your present life right now?
Eric Stites: The Bible says look to the future, look to this new city that Jesus has secured for us.
Eric Stites: Put your hope there.
Eric Stites: Thomas Merton says your life is shaped by the end you live for.
Eric Stites: You are made in the image of what you desire.
Eric Stites: What glasses are you wearing this morning?
Eric Stites: Let's look forward to our hope for tomorrow, so we can commit our way to the Lord.
Eric Stites: Today let's pray, heavenly Father.
Eric Stites: We praise you for your word, we praise you for David's words here in Psalm 37, that, though we live in a world where things seem to not add up, the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous can seem to be eaten alive and not be given what is their due.
Eric Stites: And so, lord, in that space, help us to commit our way, lord, help us to have glasses that are looking to the future, to see clearly what you have made for us, what is waiting for us, that we might hope in that and live for today.
Eric Stites: Jesus, thank you for the gospel, that you have saved us, that you have redeemed us, that we might have your presence in our life now, that, as we go through the challenges and trials of life today, lord, that we are not alone but we are with you.
Eric Stites: You are with us.
Eric Stites: You have made us your people.
Eric Stites: It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.